How to Overcome the Emotional Clutter of Expectations
The simple act of acceptance.
In my adolescence, acceptance conjured anxiety and strife. Regardless of my thoughts and feelings, I was told, “Just accept it,” or discouraged from questioning through the silent treatment.
I was raised by a single parent who worked odd hours. Typically, she slept while I was awake and vice versa.
Our house wasn’t an environment of nurturing conversations. Important topics of where I stayed while she worked nights, to what I ate, or who I was friends with were off-limits to negotiate.
When the effects of my mother’s decisions showed up, I was expected to adjust and comply. Not surprisingly, this overt control generated a plethora of resentments.
“We cannot change anything unless we accept it,” — Carl Jung
Under duress, I was shaped to go afterlife with a fuck you attitude. To not accept the status quo and to boldly carve my place in the world.
Because I was a neglected child, my deepest yearnings are to be seen and heard. I crave personal agency. However, even freedom can be tricky without guardrails of moderation.
Left to my own devices, I’m selfish. I want life to occur my way and will only be content when the results are how I planned.
The image pops in my mind of Veruca Salt in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, saying, “Daddy, I want an Oompa Loompa. I want an Oompa Loompa now!”
Unfortunately, the rules of the universe don’t work that way.
When life doesn’t follow the expectations I have meticulously arranged, feelings of disappointment arise.
From this discontent, my ego immediately goes to work to manipulate, manage, fix, or change — anything to help me feel better.
When I don’t have acceptance and compulsively take action to alter people or situations, I become my own perpetrator — wreaking havoc on myself and whoever is in my path.
Continuing the cycle of abuse.
Premeditated Resentments
The dictionary characterizes acceptance as belief, acquiescence, or subscribing to. All of these descriptions have a connotation of surrender.
The opposite of acceptance is denial or expectation. Expectations are premeditated resentments.
Regardless of the actual circumstances, when I’m in expectation, I create a fantasyland where events unfold as I desire.
Like a movie, I craft a mental scene in my mind of how people will perform, the flow of activity, and how kind and efficient everyone should be when interacting with me.
I love my expectations. They take me to a beautiful land of generously helpful people who want nothing more than to ease me through my day.
Yet, this isn’t how reality works.
Should-ing on Myself
My belief system generates labels of acceptable and unacceptable behaviors. When a perceived unfairness happens, it’s easy to be angry or upset.
These made-up, mental constructs cloud my thoughts and spur little emotional outbursts that accumulate and impact my attitude, energy, and ability to be present.
If I witness seemingly unacceptable behavior, often feelings of disgust, annoyance, or sadness arise. It’s hard for me to allow things to be as they are.
If I see someone being rude to a cashier, the thought that lady is mean arises. Or when someone speeds through a yellow light turned red, my internal voice shouts, what a jerk!
All this negative mental chatter adds up and creates a continual state of discontent. When I focus on life’s annoyances, that’s what I see. My energy shows up as chronically annoyed.
Many facets of life are challenging to accept: my crappy childhood, my partner’s differing opinions, my body doesn’t look the way I desire, a relationship ended, or even the weather.
Anytime I shove reality to the wayside and craft a story of how life should be, how someone else should or shouldn’t act, I create stress.
In my book, should is a four-letter word.
When I should on myself or others, I’m controlling, manipulating, and trying to change what is to allow my ego to feel safe. To get my way. To be like Veruca Salt.
Change is the only constant.
In these challenging times, it’s hard to accept to be safe and help humanity, I need to stay home. Sure, I want to hang out with my friends or go to the grocery store more than once a week.
I’m accustomed to freedom, but for now, it’s dangerous. I can, and I will adjust to keep myself, my family, and my community safe.
Change causes a visceral reaction in me the same way it does in many others. However, change is the only constant in life. Just when I get comfortable with my routine — poof! Change occurs.
Not accepting change produces anxiety.
When a person, place, or routine I revere shifts, my initial response is the opportunity for growth. I can respond, or I can react. I have both options.
I can choose to be upset or angry, go into victim mode, or blame. Or, I can choose to pause and allow this new information to sink in.
Sometimes it takes me a few minutes or even a few days to get to acceptance.
When I take time to allow the information to marinate, I’m not so threatened by the change. The initial sting wears off, and I become open to rational thoughts and feedback from others.
In this stage, I have the mental clarity and emotional capacity to respond instead of reacting.
The point is, I have a choice. Both options are readily available, and yet only one has the likelihood of a positive, productive outcome.
Acceptance puts me in a mindset of capability.
When I’m entrenched in denial, I’m not open to experience the present or receive the lesson. With blinding tension, stress floods my body, and my mind spins incessantly, trying to fix it.
The Truth That Sets You Free
In January, I was with a few friends sharing I wanted this to be the year I work through the anger I harbored toward my mother and finally forgive. It’s 2020, and I’ve got five years in recovery — it’s time to accept and move on.
A friend boldly remarked, “If you really want to forgive, it doesn’t need to take a year.”
She suggested I dig into Byron Katie’s “The Work” and become a student of her teachings on truth and acceptance. I had listened to an interview with Katie on a podcast, but nothing more.
As fate would have it, my husband had just purchased her book Loving What Is. While my friend was questioning my year-long timeline of forgiveness, in my mind’s eye, I could see the book on my nightstand waiting to be read.
“There’s only one thing harder than accepting this, and that is not accepting it.” — Byron Katie, Loving What Is
Katie’s journey to acceptance was wrought with fear, addiction, and pain.
At age 43, with three kids and an abusive husband, she found herself in a halfway house. Two weeks later, she had a psychotic break and awoke on the floor seeing the world through a new lens.
Katie realized all her fears, anxiety, and depression were merely uninvestigated thoughts. Thoughts were projecting chaos in her life, and she had believed them without question.
When she woke up, the fear was gone. It had been removed. In its place were love and acceptance.
I dug into The Work, answering the recommended four questions over and over — applying them to the 62 statements of the story I’d been carrying around about my mother — I, too, began to see with new eyes.
I came to know the truth of the situation.
I didn’t have to like it.
I didn’t have to feel immediate love for my mother, but I did need to let go of my story and accept she did the best she could with the knowledge she had at the time.
I saw my mother for the first time as a wounded child, just like me.
I saw her as neglected and fragile, pretending to be strong and confident, just like me.
I became aware of situations where I felt she had done me wrong, that just wasn’t true. I’d made up a story to justify my anger and perpetuate the identity I created out of my pain.
The truth that hurts is the same truth that sets you free.
Was my mother loving and available? No.
Was she kind and supportive? No.
Did she do the best she could with the limited resources she had? Yes, that feels true.
Accepting my mother’s inability to care for me allows me to see her as a flawed human, just like me, and not a vindictive monster.
It also provides the capacity to forgive her.
Real Strength
When I accept, I don’t have to like it. But I have to acknowledge the truth of reality. Non-acceptance means fighting against what is, and that’s completely delusional.
I used to think I’m tough, resilient, and tenacious. I got this.
I don’t need to accept circumstances that didn’t go my way. I’m a change-maker. Do you know what I went through?
I can manipulate and fix, or deny, run, and busy myself to numb from the situation at hand.
Yet, none of these are examples of strength. They are symptoms of emotional immaturity and lack of awareness.
It takes inner strength to recognize both acceptance and denial, and how they impact our mind and body.
Acceptance provides reason and rationality.
It creates space and allows me to think clearly about the path forward if one is even necessary. Often, I’m not required to do anything besides let go of trying to change or manipulate the situation.
“Accept — then act. Whatever the present moment contains, accept it as if you had chosen it. Always work with it, not against it… This will miraculously transform your whole life.” — Eckhart Tolle
In these times of uncertainty and fear, now more than ever, I need to practice acceptance.
I don’t like wearing a mask, but I can accept it.
I’m not proud of my racial privileges, yet I accept them as real and am actively making changes to educate myself and be part of the solution.
Acceptance creates the space I need to transform and grow.
Anything less is a delusion.
. . .
Rebecca Murauskas is a Life Coach for professionals. She helps people be free of stress and overwhelm, reclaim their purpose, and feel fulfilled. Rebecca and her husband, Adam, abandoned their careers and moved to Panamá in 2019 to pursue passions for helping people heal. Take the free Time Saver Quiz and find additional content at RebeccaMurauskas.com.