What are your expectations?
I’ve been thinking about this a lot today as I went to yoga this morning expecting my favorite teacher to be teaching and walked in the door to find a sub would be leading us through the class. This was someone that I had never met before and I automatically assumed I wasn’t going to enjoy class as much as I normally would since it wasn’t my favorite teacher.
I realize picking “favorites” isn’t probably the best thing to do, especially with yoga. I could have just been grateful that I had the opportunity to practice at 9AM on a Friday. Wouldn’t it be great if we could just let anyone instruct us through our practice and not judge or compare one teacher from the next? I wish I could, but the truth is I do have a certain style that I prefer and actually we all deserve to have our preferences, right?!
The beauty of it was that as soon as the teacher walked into the room, I could see her bright light shining and could tell that she had a beautiful soul and a lot to offer us (at least in my opinion :)). The class was great and I really liked her teaching style a lot and it taught me a lesson around expectations. I expected one thing and got another and it was a breath of fresh air and ended up being a rewarding lesson for me to learn that I can go into situations with eagerness to be surprised and delighted vs. expecting the worst or something negative if something doesn’t totally go my way.
On my 2014 vision board I put “Love Without Expectations” and I try and look at it as much as possible for a reminder. This one I have a little more challenge with because I think we all expect a lot out of the people that we love. I’m working on trying not to keep score and pay attention to who does what in my close relationships and to go more just out of doing what I want to out of love no matter what others do.
I challenge you to do the same. There are a lot of upsets around what we think others “should” do for us, especially when we take the time to do something for them. How about we focus more on what we can do for others without expecting anything in return? What if each time we did something for others it brought more joy to our hearts than if someone did something for us?
You can spend a lot of wasted hours being upset with people about things they never promised to do in the first place. Or you can spend countless hours with your heart full of joy when you love others and act on what you are feeling and what you want to do for them and then expect nothing in return.
Which will you choose?
Until next time…