#17 (permalink)
kmangel
Then there are the times when something really good seems to be in the horizon and I express it out loud and it all falls out (my expectation). I remember nearly a year ago when my RAS was coming out from under one of his relapses. He seemed to be having a spiritual awakening and I was hopeful for him. What happened is my expectations were getting ahead of life experiences. He was then and still is awakening spiritually but I wanted him to get from A to Z without going through all the letters in between. That's not how life is. We all have our own journey and we can't speed the process up as much as we'd like to do so. We get frustrated and disappointed. Living in the now really is the way to go. Don't dwell on the past, the future is not here yet--all we have is this moment we are experiencing.
Beautifully stated. Our anticipation (expectations) can certainly backfire. Learning how to experience a milder form of anticipation (simply looking forward to something rather than playing out the fabulousness of whatever it might be in our noggins ahead of time) is so much better.
I've really been working on not dreading or getting overly excited by pre-living any event. It makes the actual event MUCH less dreadful or MUCH more enjoyable when it actually happens.
Unfortunately this pre-living of events is so common for most of us. We tend to think the worst (the addict is going to DIE if I don't do XYZ)....we play out all of these different scenarios.....and it's like living them even when they haven't happened! The misery is there. And as for getting overly excited about an upcoming event......we've already lived it in our heads and experienced the over-the-top joy.......no wonder the actual event is a let down!
Learning how to live in the now is the coolest thing I've ever done for myself....better than a new outfit.......better than a new hairdo or mani-pedi. lol
gentle hugs
ke