Web Sites Of The Month

Developing an Awareness of Workplace Expectations

This web page has a short quiz based what it perceives to be "acceptable" and "not acceptable" behaviors in the workplace. It's interesting to identify those expectations and see if we meet them or if we have our own unique ways of dealing with our relationships in the workplace.

Self-Therapy

Beautiful poem and essay on expectations and how to cure the ourselves of them on the road to Interdependence.

Shaman's Cave

This web page has a very humorous look at how a shaman views people's expectations. He tells us our expectations make us rigid. He also talks about how our expectations of energetic shields can leave us wide open to elements we do not understand. Visit www.shamanscave.com.

You Just Don't Understand

Wonderful book written by Dr. Deborah Tannen on the gender expectations of conversation.

Some of our expectations can be so automatic that we don't even know we have them. It takes awareness of our own thoughts and reactions to understand what the underlying expectations are, particularly when one is in relationship. In relationship, a host of expectations can be triggered. Some are personal expectations based on what we feel is our "rightful due." Others are familial expectations in that we align with the expectations of our families in order to avoid conflict with our largest support system. And finally, we have the societal expectations that we may not align with but that we try to follow so that we are not caught "breaking the rules" or being labeled criminal or insane by society. We are programmed to think we should act in conformance with the prevailing mass dream in order to gain acceptance of our peers.

In my marriage, I noticed that there were always a variety of expectations in any one marital conflict. My expectations were always battling my husband's expectations, my family, and finally what society deemed was appropriate for a man and wife in a marital relationship. In the end, I realized the most important thing was not to meet everyone's expectations, but to allow myself the freedom to move beyond them. The only way to do that is to recognize what those expectations are and then make conscious choices to create our reality not based on expectations but to choose a free flow path towards my greater happiness, regardless of my expectations. Being true to Self, in my book, was more important that being enslaved by overwhelming expectations. By freeing one's own Self to act in freedom, one allows others to pick up their own individual freedom and create from there too, without judgment for having "fallen short of our expectations."

This month's exercise is to fill in the blank to the following sentence: I expect people to....

For example: I expect people to always clean up after themselves. This may be an expectation you hold of other people. It may seem only right that people clean up after themselves. However, it is not an absolute truth. It is a personal truth. When we recognize and accept our expectations for what they are, we begin to experience our relationships with more unconditional love, not only towards others but also in compassion to ourselves.