Your Expectations Will Break Your Heart

Expectation is the root of all heartache. I've been paying a lot of attention lately to what lies beneath the surface any time that I'm experiencing disappointment, resentment, or frustration that things aren't as they *should* be. Getting upset when things aren't as I expected them to be is what Byron Katie calls "arguing with reality". Arguing with reality will create suffering every single time. Something that I'm working on right now is adjusting my expectations to fit reality rather than trying to force reality to adjust to my expectations. Makes a lot more sense, right? I had a big realization recently regarding my relationship with a close friend. While we have had many epic adventures together over the years, there have also been many occasions when I was irritated by what I considered to be her flakiness and lack of follow through. Despite my unhappiness about it, my friend generously continued to show up exactly as herself until I finally got the point. I was trying to hold her to my expectations of how responsible she should be, how she should behave, and how much of her time and energy she should give to me. That's a triple should, y'all! Reality check. Now I realize that she isn't the problem. It's my expectations that are the problem. Why should she meet my expectations?

That doesn't mean I need to keep her in my inner circle of friends, it just means I don't need to make her wrong and myself right.

Acceptance doesn't equal approval. I can accept that something IS (love it or hate it...it is what it is) and still desire change. It just means I'm not staying stuck in how things *should* have happened. I'm accepting that what happened did happen and responding accordingly.

There's so much peace in this 💛