Expectations - they are a son of a bitch, constantly getting us into trouble. This is where I am at with my journey to love my body (let's drop the wee-dom part).
The expectations we put on ourselves, the ones we feel - either justifiably put there (by other people or media) and the ones misunderstood and taken personally. Well wait, is there really any expectations that can't be misunderstood?
Are we even conscious enough to know when we have been hurt by expectations? When we make statements about ourselves either highly negative or highly positive other people immediately do a quick check-in and comparison. Expectations that we think are our own and individual, constantly lead to competition between the people we love and even he people we barely know.
Is the intention negative? No I don't believe it is, I think we have been walking around in a fog doing what we have always done, but expecting what we have never received - true happiness, and one step further than contentment you will find satisfaction.
Do we really believe the lie, that expectations and comparisons lead us to growth?
We are actually taught to expect on a constant basis. Set up goals and check our progress, we are never taught to just stand still and breath. Breath it all in and be in the now.
With facebook being such a huge part of our lives, the way we communicate, stay in touch, advertise, spread the word, share a laugh - we put our lives on display for all to see. Whether it's accurate or not, either we leave out the messy parts or we give off an impression that things are really good or on the contrary, we play the innocent victim. Either way, are we really relating to one another or setting the tone for what we not only expect, but allow our lives to be? We paint the picture, set the stage, create the belief in ourselves and our audience. Each of us have that stage now more than ever and it's more potent because people we would not normally see or run into get to see our accomplishments and our failures put up on display.
I spend a lot of time posting status' and sharing ideas, information and things I think will be helpful to other's human experiences. I am still affected by expectations but the more I am able to allow them to fall by the wayside the more I can be real, happy, authentic and honest with myself.
It's in recognizing what the mythical expectations are, identifying them in the moment (or even a reflection after the fact) and becoming conscious not only of what we say to others but what we say to ourselves and how we interpret the declarations of joy/sadness from other people, that we are able to free ourselves from them. I have been working on a higher state of awareness and consciousness on all levels. It started out with my physical self, my weight which in turn lead me to discover my own body image issues and release myself from the expectations that I definitely have not come up with independently in my own mind. The people around me who also assisted in these expectations with comments about my body, good or bad, were not aware of them either. The media and our belief in it, throughout our whole lives, has told us a big fat lie - but constant exposure and with enough repetition, we believe it. We think we must change our bodies to be accepted, loved and proved worth while. We think we need to have a relationship that looks like our best friends, instead of our own with it's own successes and failures (aka growth). We think we need to parent like someone else, or not parent like them because we see something we feel we are somehow permitted to judge. We hold ourselves up, or put ourselves down depending on what we see our 'neighbours' life to look like. Expectations lead to comparisons and we will never get anywhere, comparing ourselves to others or even an old version of ourselves. Today I am enough, I am where I am and I am happy to be here!
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