#34 Expectations: The Art of Letting Go

Have you ever found yourself trapped in a cycle of unmet expectations that leave you feeling like a victim? This week on Sash and Soul, I open up about a particularly emotional week that forced me to confront my own expectations and the disappointment they often bring. The expectations we hold—whether of ourselves, others, or situations—often lead to disempowerment and a sense of defeat.

I invite you to join me on a journey to reevaluate and shift our perspective on expectations. Let's explore how letting go of rigid, predetermined outcomes can lead to a more fulfilling, present life where we find beauty in every moment, however unexpected. Instead of handing over our power to the behaved responses of others, we can choose to focus on the value in each experience. This introspective episode encourages personal growth and empowerment by embracing life's unpredictability, allowing us to reclaim control and foster a more resilient mindset.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:30

Hi everyone, Welcome back to Sash and Soul. Thanks for joining me today. I'm going to be transparent with you. I don't feel like I'm at my best today. My brain feels like a fog. I've had a really emotional week and I'm grappling with that and trying to get myself together.

Speaker 1: 0:51

Honestly, I recorded like 10 minutes of an episode and literally just deleted it and decided to start over because I realized, as I got to a point and I just stopped talking, I was like I don't what am I even saying right now? And like I always want I always want my content to be valuable for you. I want you to gain something from it, whether that's perspective or entertainment or something. And when I was talking before, I was like God, I just feel like I'm talking to talk with no real purpose behind it and it was giving me the ick. So I decided to start over.

Speaker 1: 1:36

Originally, I was going to be talking about like how to go easy on yourself, kind of a theme of self-love with, you know, Valentine's Day coming up next week. But I don't like to talk about things that I'm not feeling particularly strong about, and right now I'm just not. I've had a week of being in the mess of a shame spiral and feeling pretty crummy about myself and it's I'm just not like in a great space to talk about that. But I think what I can talk about, which has come up as a theme this week with with a few people, are expectations and how expectations whether it is your expectations of yourself or expectations of other people can really just lead to disappointment, and I just I think it's a concept that is universal for all of us. Like, no matter what you're going through, like I'm not preparing to compete for a competition in, you know, a pageant competition I'm, you know, I'm just kind of living my life day to day. I'm healing from my health stuff and I'm, you know, navigating, you know what's best for my clients and focusing on them and doing some of these cool projects that I have started. But you know, just also just kind of live in life and so my expectations for myself and for people around me and for my experiences are going to look different maybe than what your expectations are. So it's still a universal topic, right? One of the reasons that expectations came up this week was I was talking to a client who had like a pageant orientation this last weekend and she was talking about how her experience became was. So that was such a beautiful concept and something that I have actively practiced in the past.

Speaker 1: 3:44

But want to kind of reinvest in in in my life here, in the immediate time that I'm in, because I know to be true from my experiences that if I have expectations of how someone else behaves, they are more than likely going to let me down because they're not going to meet those expectations. If I have expectations of how I'm going to experience a certain event, a vacation, a fun day out, like going to like a festival or a concert or something Like, if I have these big, grandiose expectations, I am putting myself at risk of being let down because those expectations may not be met. Now, okay, let me be very clear that when I say, you know, when we're talking about eliminating expectations, we're not saying that we don't have a positive outlook or that we don't have, you know, positive intentions towards the experience. What it means is that we're releasing any kind of our experience being based on the things that are outside of our control. So you can find beauty in every single experience, in every single interaction with another person if you're looking for it, not expecting it.

Speaker 1: 5:18

There is a difference between looking for the value in something rather than expecting a certain outcome or response from something. So when you're expecting someone else, you have an expectation of them to behave a certain way. You are giving them so much power over your experience, over your emotions, and that disempowerment that you are creating for yourself will lead to feeling like a victim. There is no growth in being a victim. When you empower yourself to not have expectations of other people or expectations of circumstances or experiences, and rather choose to walk in open-minded, ready to accept anything that comes your way, believing that you are capable of handling any conversation, any conflict, any question, any event that's out of your control, that you're capable of handling that, whether that is through your own means or through asking for support from somebody else or through, like, looking at it from multiple different perspectives. You are empowering yourself to show up in the world in a way that allows you to have control over your sense of self and your own experiences. There's so much beauty in that and let me tell you, there's also this like relief that you feel when you can let go of those expectations. Expectations are heavy, they're weighted, it is. You know, there's, there's. You don't have a sense of ownership when you are putting all of the onus on somebody else to behave the way that you want them to.

Speaker 1: 7:11

You know when you are going into let's let's just talk about a pageant competition. If you have expectations that you you are going to win, you're potentially focusing on the wrong thing, because what if those expectations aren't met? Then now you're a victim to the circumstances that you're in. But if you have, if you have the intention to go in and be completely yourself, put your best foot forward, perform at your very best, then the outcome isn't rooted in your value as a human being Now. It's rooted in the circumstances of everything that came together that day. You have a better experience because you're not putting this pressure on yourself of expecting to win, and you have a better experience with the people around you because you are just living through the experience rather than you know, feeling like there's some inevitable conclusion. Even the opposite is true, too, If you're expecting not to win. Oh my gosh, how do you show up differently when you expect that you're not going to win versus if you show up intentional about just putting your best foot forward, enjoying the process, showcasing everything that you've worked so hard on, whether that is your talent or your interview or your evening gown and like, just enjoying it, you show up completely differently. Your energy is different when you show up with intention versus expectation.

Speaker 1: 8:43

So when I have expectations of myself to be able to handle everything perfectly, I'm talking about being able to, like, get all of my to-do list done in the day when it comes to work stuff and clean my house and take my dogs for a walk and do an hour-long workout and prep food and grocery shopping and make sure that I am available to everyone that reaches out to me, whether that is, you know, my family or certain friends and, you know, give all of this love and attention to my husband that he's needing and wanting. Like, if I have expectations of myself to fulfill all of those responsibilities and duties, I am setting myself up for being disappointed in myself, Because there are many times that you know I always want to be all of those things, I always want to do all of those things, but life happens, We've got, you know, all these things that can get in the way of you actually accomplishing everything that you set out to do in that particular given day, Something that I heard recently that I found very helpful in alleviating these expectations that I have on myself is that if all you had to give is 10% and you gave 10%, then you gave 100% of what you could give. That has been a life-changing perspective for me, because now when I look around my room and I see that there is a giant pile of clean laundry that needs to be folded and put away, and I think about the things that I didn't get accomplished this week for Fearlessly Authentic and the projects that I have put on my dogs for a walk in a few days like, but also assess what I was able to do and what I what I was able to to give of myself that it was only 10% of what would typically be me at my best. I gave that 10% and that was a hundred percent of what I could give. And so I can give myself a lot more grace when I recognize this is the space that I'm at. And I also am able to give myself grace and go easier on myself when I recognize that I'm not always only capable of 10%. Sometimes I'm capable of more than a hundred percent and I get after it and I get stuff done, and so when I can realize that I'm not always in this particular state, that it's fluid and that I give everything that I'm able to give in that space. It helps me conceptualize what it actually means to go easy on myself. It helps me accept who I am and how I'm showing up, and so, with that, I hope that you can take this into your weekend, into next week, into Valentine's Day, as we're talking about.

Speaker 1: 11:35

You know this theme of love. Use it as a tool for self-love, Use it as a tool for going easy on yourself. Recognize when you are having expectations of yourself and when you are having expectations of others. Check those expectations. When you have expectations of someone to behave in the way that you think is appropriate, you are potentially setting yourself up for disappointment and frustration with that person, and the only person's fault that is is yours, because you're the one that's setting that expectation, and you know how it feels when people have expectations of you that you can't fully meet. It's exhausting, it's debilitating.

Speaker 1: 12:13

So go into this next week analyzing like where do you have expectations of yourself or others, or the circumstances that you're in? How can you alleviate those expectations and turn them into intentions that are helpful for you, and where can you find space to know that where you're showing up and how you're showing up is at the full capacity that you have to give in that moment, even if it is not the full capacity that you are sometimes otherwise capable of. That's okay. Go easy on yourself, Practice that self-love. Know that. You know, just because the laundry didn't get put away today doesn't mean it will never get put away and it doesn't mean that you are somehow a failure. So, with that, keeping it a little bit short this week again, just because I'm a little bit emotionally drained, mentally exhausted, and and that's what I have for you today and I'm I'm okay with that so do with this what you will. I hope it makes sense, I hope it's helpful for you and until next week, be well and just live life on purpose. We'll see you then. Bye.