[img]560|left|Nicholas Pollak||no_popup[/img]Expectations.
Have you ever noticed how, when our expectations are not fulfilled, we often become frustrated and angry?
Our expectations can create more trouble for us than not having them would.
Driving home from work, expecting to be able to get home fast, creates a frustration when the traffic is bad.
If you expect dinner to be on the table when you get home from work and it is not ready, that creates frustration.
Expecting your spouse to do a certain thing creates a frustration if it is not done.
What would our lives be like without expectations?
Would that drive home be as bad?
Was it really so bad that your dinner wasn't ready?
Or that the task had not been done?
We can be so locked into our daily routines that our expectations lead us to believe that everything will be as it usually is.
But if there are changes, or if things go wrong because we had expectations of things going a certain way and they didn’t, we are left feeling angry and frustrated.
We all have plans for our day and things that we need to get done, often with a tight schedule.
Little things that cause delays create a frustration that can snowball as the day continues.
A Different Perspective
What if we spent our day without expectations?
Supposing you had a CD you liked or a book on tape. Would that drive home be as frustrating?
Perhaps we can look at that delay as an opportunity to listen to more of what we like.
Or as a chance to think about other things.
Or just to think about ourselves and our future plans.
Perhaps the dinner wasn't what you really wanted.
You could either make something else.
Or you could even take your spouse out as a surprise.
Maybe it was just as well the task was not done, leaving you free to complete the task and perhaps to do more with it than you had planned.
Our expectations lead us to act a certain way, to expect certain results, to maintain a rigid structure that may be unhealthy, to raise your blood pressure and to leave you speechless and angry at the delays.
What if we were to let the expectations go? Would our lives be calmer and less frustrating?
Our subconscious works in amazing ways.
Whatever we focus on and picture in our minds generally will happen as we have visualized.
Try This Method
We often picture in our minds the things that we want to do the next day.
Sleep allows the mind to mull over those things so that when we awaken in the morning, solutions to problems we have been working on suddenly appear.
At once, we have the motivation to go through our days accomplishing the tasks we set for ourselves. In so doing, we feel good about ourselves as we are doing what we set out to do.
To be angry and frustrated when things don’t go our way leads us to waste valuable energy on emotional outbursts that hurt us and the people around us.
Dealing with your tasks may be accomplished in one of two ways. Firstly with anger and frustration.
Or you could let go and enjoy what you have set out to do.
There is no mystery in this. As always, it is merely a frame of mind. Decide how you want to do it, picture it and make it happen.
If things do not go as you have expected, allow yourself to go with the flow.
Resolve the issues the best you can and make the necessary course corrections.
Keep your end goal in sight as a strong image.
Even though your expectation is that you will complete the task, you are now allowing your expectation to become flexible”
Notice how you will reach your goal with less frustration.
A clinical hypnotherapist, handwriting analyst and certified master hypnotist, Nicholas D. Pollak may be contacted at nickpollak@hypnotherapy4you.net
