Raising Expectations in Love Signals Your Biggest Fears |

How many times have we heard that we shouldn’t create expectations in our affective life? In the consultations I perform, I hear the question a lot: “What to do to not have expectations?”. Many even blame themselves for not being able to get rid of them. However, expectations are not so simple that we can simply make them disappear. So, let’s understand this question better.

The problem is not creating expectations, but sticking to them.

In the dictionary, expectation means “waiting for something to happen or come true”. So far so good, we’re all always waiting for something to come to fruition, and that’s natural.

However, the problem begins when we become attached to a possibility, when we become anxious about the possible non-fulfillment of such an expectation, or we become too anxious to know what will happen.

I like the way Dr. Joshua David Stone addresses this issue: “have preferences, but not attachments”. That is, be clear about what you prefer to happen, but don’t get attached to that possibility, keep yourself open and aware that other options – which are not necessarily your preferred ones – may happen.

Do you know someone and already imagine what you will live together in the future?

Realize how in the face of situations, especially in the affective life, we tend to create little stories in our mind. We meet a person and we already imagine what it will be like to stay, date and marry them.

We’ve got an interesting person and we’ve already created a movie of what the conversation will be like when he texts or calls. Or it could be that we know the person and already imagine that we are not good enough for them to be interested and that we will be exchanged for someone else more interesting.

We stay with a person and we already suffer from the anxiety of thinking about whether he will contact us or not.

We imagine the unfolding of the situation according to our dreams and desires, or, on the other hand, we already project in the person the possibilities contaminated by our fears and apprehensions. Dreaming detachedly is healthy, it helps to keep us alive, happy and motivated.

Therefore, the expectation in itself is natural, and strange it would be if we had none. It is attachment or fear towards them that turns them negative. But the most important thing is that, usually, this denotes some imbalance that we need to look at more carefully.

Why do you cling to the love possibilities you’ve envisioned?

If we stop to analyze it carefully, behind every negative expectation there is some exaggerated lack, fear of rejection, abandonment or loneliness, or some other type of negative energy.

In reality, the distorted expectation represents the fear of experiencing some very unpleasant feeling, which we avoid at all costs. For this reason, we become afraid of the truth, that it will make us confront precisely what we are running away from.

the distorted expectation represents the fear of experiencing some very unpleasant feeling, which we avoid at all costs. For this reason, we become afraid of the truth, that it will make us confront precisely what we are running away from.

We want to have a relationship, but that requires courage to face the risk of the relationship failing.

If we don’t want to face the possibility of the relationship not going forward, it becomes a ghost that starts to haunt us. But this anguish overlaps with the hope of living the positive possibility, which we really envision and yearn for.

Or, on the other hand, it creates an excessive attachment to what we want, but also based on the fear of facing what we would consider rejection or abandonment.

We usually cling to an affective possibility because we don’t want to let go of something that seems very good to us, or because we run away from other possibilities that seem very bad to us, or even both things at the same time. We are afraid to face unpleasant emotions and feelings.

Creating expectations blinds you to the truth in love

When we don’t consciously work those fears (here I’m using that word to generalize negative feelings) behind expectations, they can blind us to the truth. Because we didn’t want to see them, because they would be too painful, we let ourselves be carried away by our little stories.

For example: if the person says he wants to date, we already think that he is already assuming a certain commitment, otherwise he would not say that. If she calls every day, we already think we’re dating. Or, on the other hand, if she doesn’t care, we already feel like the worst human being in the world. The relationship does not go forward and, therefore, we feel like failures or smaller than others.

Our will to live the chosen possibility can be such that we start to see things out there in an illusory way.

Our will to live the chosen possibility can be such that we start to see things out there in an illusory way.

We see what we want, create a lie for ourselves, force the bar, all without realizing what we are actually doing. But at some point the truth will emerge, undoing the illusion, disillusioning and frustrating us. Or, on the other hand, we become so immersed in the negative possibility that, in fact, we end up unconsciously creating the conditions for it to materialize.

How do we prepare ourselves to deal with the truth and make our expectations healthy again?

Self-esteem: self-love and personal power are key

When we are strong and healthy, tasks like lifting weights, walking and going about our daily lives seem normal. However, if we get sick or weakened, everything seems to be heavy and even impossible.

At the level of emotions and thoughts the same also happens. If our mental, emotional and spiritual structure is weakened, any situation, especially facing the truth or dealing with frustrations and disappointments – which are natural parts of life – can become too heavy and sometimes unbearable.

Just as we take care of our bodies to keep them strong and healthy, we also need to take care of our feelings, thoughts, and spiritual aspects to keep them healthy and strong.

That way, we can face the setbacks of life. If we are not healthy, we will not be able to deal with the most basic and trivial, because we will not be able to avoid the very nature of life. Realize that life is not cruel, we are the ones who end up being weakened to deal with it.

Our ability to stay in the truth is closely related to our personal power and self-esteem, because without them we cannot deal with the possible frustrations, sadness and disappointments that are a natural part of love and life in general.

When we take care of ourselves to stay well and propose to see and live the truth, we already reduce the amount and intensity of our frustrations.

However, we will always have blind spots to be worked on and this is also natural. We will always be polishing new blind spots, more subtle and delicate. The more our self-esteem is strengthened, the better and better we will face the next step.

Emotional wounds and negative mental patterns were inherited from your family

Usually the negative thoughts and feelings that turn our expectations into negative ones, weakening our personal power and self-esteem, come from structures of emotional wounds that originate in childhood.

Throughout our lives, we accumulate subtle wounds that have not been healed, assimilated, re-signified and, therefore, accumulate in the form of pain, fear and need, creating what I call the “hurt-me”.

Currently, our entire living structure; the way we are born, grow and die; the way we have led our lives in the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual aspects for generations, not only does not contribute to healing, but it further aggravates these wounds.

Our great-grandparents and the society of the time they lived in created our grandparents in an experience of pain and inability to deal with subtle injuries. They, in turn, passed it on to our parents, who repeated this experience for us.

Our entire reality today, unfortunately, works in such a way as to create wounds and then only remedy the symptoms and pains, not their causes. These subtle wounds are negative emotional, mental and spiritual patterns, compounded over a lifetime, and even more over generations and generations.

Our creation references, that is, the way we live and lead our lives in all its aspects are considered normal, they are the reference of how things work and they really should be.

But that’s exactly what hurts us, because our way of living does not provide the love we need and, therefore, we grow in an emptiness and a chronic lack. This lack makes us look for experiences that will further aggravate this emptiness, as it can only be truly healed and filled by ourselves.

To start tending to these wounds requires a firm commitment to ourselves to develop the courage, love, patience, and perseverance to continually get in touch with our “wounded selves.” After all, as we can see, this is a deep wound and its healing demands a lot of love, patience and delicacy with ourselves.

We need to get back in touch with ourselves internally, begin to realize what is really going on inside us, in our thoughts and feelings, in order to promote our healing.

For those who really want to go deeper into this process or feel that it is too difficult to go it alone, I recommend seeking some kind of therapeutic follow-up, within the line with which you identify.

3 steps to deal positively with your expectations

Let’s cover three steps to better deal with expectations. These steps should be used multiple times. Performing it only once will be of little use, as it is in the continuity of practice that the result is built. If possible, write down what you notice each time you do this exercise and read these logs from time to time, noting the picture they give you as a whole.

1 – Realize how you deal with the stories you create for each possibility and situation.

If she brings you something positive, great, keep her in that positivity. However, if it brings you something bad right away or at first, stop and realize what’s behind that negative impression.

What fear or unpleasant feeling comes to you? In case you cannot stop to make this reflection in a more meditative way, write down or save what came to you to deepen and work more deeply on this expectation later.

2 – When you can, take a little time to be more reserved and calm.

Sitting or standing, close your eyes. If you want, place your hands on your heart, on your belly, or one hand on your heart and the other on your belly, feeling that contact between you and yourself. Breathe slowly and deeply until you feel more relaxed and present.

Now, think about the situation that causes you anticipation. Notice the feelings and thoughts that come to you. See if you notice anything other than anxiety or distress. If there is any sadness, fear, anger. Does this situation remind you of other experiences?…