Once my husband went on business for a couple of weeks in another city. Then we lived near the beach, and I loved to walk along the coast in the evenings, enjoying the sunset and the sound of the ocean.
I took it very close to my heart and immediately turned cold: how can he talk like that when he has so many obligations? Why is he ruining my perfect summer evening?
But after only 10 minutes, I seemed to see clearly: he did not destroy anything. It was me: I expected him to be in the same excellent mood. I was upset because he did not behave at all the way I wanted him to.
Or here's another case: once, after meeting with my friend, I sent her a message and shared my emotions about the fact that I was very glad to see her and that we had a great conversation. Of course, I expected to receive an early mutual response.
It's funny, but the next day I was really upset by her silence, it seemed to me that she was ignoring me and did not want to communicate at all. Ultimately, she responded to me with a very sincere mutual message - and she delayed her answer simply because she is a busy person and does not respond to notifications immediately. And after all, I knew all this very well, but again I got into the same situation: I came up with a behavior for another person, and when I didn’t see him, I myself was upset.
Hoping for the result you deserve is one thing, but trying to force things and add negative thoughts and emotions to a situation is quite another. You cannot anticipate and control how other people think, feel, and react.
And if the level of your happiness, confidence in yourself or in your actions depends on the reaction of other people, then in this way you are setting yourself up for numerous experiences in advance.
Here are a few ways to help you stop setting false expectations and getting upset when things don't go your way:
1. Stop expecting other people to behave the way you want them to.
Instead, try to become more open with others, be prepared for possible reactions to different situations.If I had opened my mind and heart to my husband on that beautiful summer evening without any preconceived expectations, the evening would have remained glorious, and my husband's mood would have been much better.
2. Start building your own happiness and self-confidence based on your own thoughts and beliefs
If someone does something unexpected and we get disappointed, it's only because we have an idea of how the person actually should have done it.For example, you think your son should get high grades, but when he brings home Ds and Cs, you feel angry and guilty. When you stop believing that your son's grades are a reflection of you as a parent and start believing that you are truly doing the best for him, then the guilt will let go and the suffering will stop.
3. Feel the present moment as often as possible.
Do not get excited and think carefully at the moment when, as you think, someone again did not live up to your expectations.In a fraction of a second, many theories, versions and conjectures arise, one is more terrible than the other - stop at this moment, do not invent too much. Think about it and evaluate the situation as if from the outside: do you continue to cling to your expectations and "wind" them on someone's behavior?
You can't get rapport and support unless you do what you can to wait for someone else to provide it. The only way is to stop thinking about what your loved ones should and shouldn't do and allow yourself to create your own happiness.
When you cry from resentment, it is most often the tears of the victim. The feeling of sacrifice means that you still hope that the one who owes you one day will give it. You feed the illusion that people will change and do what you want them to do. Or that with the help of manipulation you will be able to get what you want. And that you just have to push, explain, reach out, fulfill all the requirements, and everything will be as it should. And while hope is alive, oddly enough, nothing happens.
Of course, there are situations in which hope is very important. For example, if you need to survive, endure, wait. However, there are processes in life in which hope prevents transformation. Makes it difficult to face hopelessness. Cry tears of futility. Tears that there are things that will never be yours. And that you have dreams that will never come true. Never ever.
Events that will never happen. And people who will never understand will not accept. And they won't give you what you need. Not even because they don't want to, but simply because they can't. Because they are just people with their own questions and internal blocks.
And if you remain in a sense of resentment, then it binds very strongly to those with whom you are offended. Almost dead. It's really hard to separate from someone you don't like well. You can quarrel, break up, not call or write. Move to another continent. Be glad you don't talk anymore. But is this a real separation, when every day you remember a person and rejoice that you are not with him? This is the illusion of separateness. Defense against non-existent monsters whose masks are worn by real mortal people. With a strong offense, even death does not help. Resentment against the dead is useless, but very common.
And tears for futility and meeting with hopelessness are not so simple, but finite. They sow their volume and sadness has a bottom.
Years pass with resentment, but nothing changes. Therefore, at some point it is worth starting to mourn the impossibility and meet with hopelessness, which you can also weep, live and go through, breaking through your pride to humility. To the fact that not everything is impossible.
Much is possible, but not all. And some, very desirable, absolutely impossible. Never will, will not happen, will not happen. Not given. Simply no.
An emotionally cold father will never give warmth. A mother who cannot even protect herself will not protect you. The husband will not care like a mother. The family will not accept all your decisions. Children will throw socks around the apartment, even if you can't stand it. It will still be the same. And stay with it.
And then humility opens up other possibilities. New ways. Acceptance of others as they are.
Finally, you stop knocking on closed doors and look around for open ones. And it turns out that there are plenty of them.
You stop blaming your parents for your misfortunes and start growing yourself to an adult on your own. You leave behind a husband who is not generous enough and learn to earn. You stop being a good girl for a mom who won't accept anyway, and you let yourself live your life. You stop pressing children and start to admire their stability and vitality. You stop resenting your wife for not taking care of you in any special way, and you learn to take care of yourself. You stop trying to correct your imperfect past and you begin to notice how, without the help of offenders, you independently reproduce it in the present.
And if you can’t cope on your own, you look for spiritual teachers or a therapist with whom you already play by the rules, without offense and manipulation.
You ask yourself difficult questions about why you are in this or that relationship. Is it not in order to put the burden of caring for yourself on others instead of finally taking it on yourself? Is it not in order to scatter parts of your personality around the world without collecting them together?
And then a completely different path begins. Another level of awareness and other results.
Resentment has one result - stuck in the moment. Hopelessness, humility and responsibility are completely different. And everyone makes their own choice.
Life doesn't always give us what we want. What if your expectations are not met? Nina Fyodorovna Rusakova, editor of the psychology section of the magazine, reflects on readers' letters.
“My son graduated from high school this year. I did not want to apply to the institute. He sleeps all day, sits at the computer at night. Well, at least he doesn't ask me for money. They do something with the guys on the computer, they get paid. Every day I ask: “When will you get a job?” He shrugged it off. "Let go." I raised my son alone, hoping he would become my support. How to make him go to work or study? Nadezhda K., Yekaterinburg.
- Why do you think that the son does not work? He does something on the computer, gets some money. The whole problem is that you imagined how everything should turn out for your son: school - college - work from nine to six. Perhaps that is how you lived. But tell me, were you happy with it? After all, children see that such a model of life did not bring success to their parents, so why should they repeat this path?
A young man is looking for himself, trying to understand how to make money and enjoy it. And there is no need to demand that he start a work book and be sure to put it in the personnel department of some office. We rush the children all the time: even at school, go to training courses to the institute, as a student, go to work in your future specialty.
If a person knows what he wants, he will already strive to gain knowledge and experience as early as possible. What if he doesn't know? Let him find himself. In the West, for example, now parents do not worry at all if their son or daughter does not work for two years after school. Or will work from time to time.
If an adult needs knowledge, he will go to college at the age of 30 or 40. “Forcing” a person to live the life that we have invented for him is difficult and in more early age, and not something that at 17-18 years old.
The only thing you can demand is that your son contribute his labor penny to the general family budget if you live together. Respect his choice, suggest, share your thoughts, but stop fighting him, putting pressure on him.
“Maybe you won’t believe me, but I fell in love for the first time at the age of 40. I understood what happiness is. But the person I love is married and has no feelings for me. We had a serious conversation, from which it became clear that I had no hope. What should I do now?" Victoria A., Krasnodar
- Enjoy life and thank fate for allowing you to experience such wonderful feelings. Imagine how poor your life would be if this love did not happen. Or think about how many people in the world would now dream of being in your place: they want to fall in love, but they cannot. We all crave love. But when she comes, we begin to demand that she fit our scenario.
You would like a man to respond to your feelings, divorce his wife and marry you. But he has his own ideas about own life, and apparently, you do not fit into them. What to do, it happens. Moreover, this happens most of the time. And it's a miracle when two people have feelings for each other at the same time, and it turns out that they want to continue to go through life together. If you love this particular man, and not your dreams of how wonderful it would be with him, do not demand anything from him in return. Rejoice in what you have, give your beloved good, warm feelings, your admiration for him, your magnificent feeling that he exists in the world.
Believe me, even if outwardly you do not begin to express your emotions, he will still feel it. And you will be grateful. If you learn to selflessly give love, you will quickly get out of your torment that your feelings are unrequited.
“Recently, I learned that in the company where my husband works, there is a tradition on Fridays to give flowers to wives. But my husband never came that day with a bouquet. I was very upset. What does it say? That he doesn't love me? Doesn't she consider it worthy to receive flowers? Elvira T., St. Petersburg
- Or maybe you need to ask your husband why he doesn’t give you flowers on Fridays, and not at the editorial office? Sometimes people act like they don't know how to speak. You came up with an explanation for your husband’s act: “He doesn’t love me, neglects me,” believed in it and got upset. Or maybe, in fact, he does not like flowers, feels stupid with a bouquet in his hands and prefers to buy you a non-stick frying pan? Or does he not want to do like everyone else and give you flowers on Fridays, and not on other days? Or thinks you don't like bouquets? Or do you accept flowers in such a way that he loses all desire to give them?
If you were to calmly ask why he doesn't do it, you might get a very specific answer. Moreover, you could ask your husband: “You know, I would be pleased if you gave me flowers at the end of the week, like your colleagues do.” But for some reason, we believe that an action that is performed at our request is of less value than an action that we did not ask for.
Now, if the person himself guessed what you want, it would be nice. In fact, we all have a different upbringing, different ideas about how to do it right. Therefore, sometimes you just need to tell your husband what you would like, and not be offended by him.
“I was born in a mining town in the northern Urals. And the main goal of my life was to escape from there. I wanted to go to America. After leaving school, my dreams began to slowly come true - I entered a Moscow university, then I found myself Good work, bought first a room, then an apartment. And then everything stalled. Two of my attempts to leave for the States were thwarted. The first time they did not give a visa, the second - the “groom”, whom I found on the Internet, chickened out at the last moment. I am in despair, I think all the time: well, why is fate so unfair to me? Inna V., Moscow
- Do you think that life is obliged to fulfill our desires? Ask your girlfriends, colleagues, what came true of what they dreamed about in their youth. Yes, you are a strong-willed person and have done a lot in your life. However, it follows its own rules. A failure in the fulfillment of your desires could have occurred because you began to take offense at fate when it did not fulfill your next dream - to leave for America. And if you continue to persist and make claims to life, it can change for the worse in such a way that your current situation will seem simply wonderful to you.
Therefore, you need to thank fate for what it gave you, and start thinking positively. Take a break, do not rush to storm the next bastion. Think, if something is not given, maybe in this way fate sends a sign that you do not need it? It happens that some achieve their goal, regardless of the means, not paying attention to obvious clues. And then ... these are the people who like to repeat: "Beware of your desires, they come true."
"I have two higher education, intellectual work. And my husband is a taxi driver, barely finished high school. But he was drawn to knowledge, and I was sure that I could help him along the way. However, a year after the wedding, he began to laugh at my work, at my desires to involve him in intellectual life. And now he just responds with aggression when I slip him the right books, suggest watching a good movie or going to the theater. It’s very hard for me, because I really want to share my joy, my impressions with my loved one!” Julia T., Rostov-on-Don
You are at different levels of development. You are a cultured person, a seeker, you are interested in philosophy. And your husband lives with earthly problems and joys. Do not judge him and do not try to force him into your world. It frightens your husband, makes him feel inferior, and maybe forces him to think about things that he prefers not to think about.
Yes, there are people who have not received good education, but they seek knowledge without pushing from outside. Your husband is obviously not one of them. So be flexible. Let your spouse stay at the stage of development where he is comfortable and good. Try to make him less aware of your quest, find yourself a girlfriend or company where you can speak the same language.
And don't judge yourself for not sharing your new experiences with your husband. You invited a person to enter your world. He preferred to stay in his - he has the right to do so. Focus on some other qualities of his personality - positive ones, of course. And respect the good that is in it.
“Two months ago, I left my job because I didn’t grow up in this place - neither in a career, nor in professionally. Immediately after the dismissal, I received several new offers. And I, as they say, "froze" like a computer with a pirated program. I want the choice to be conscious new job suited my deepest interests. At the same time, it paid well. These fluctuations are characteristic of me in other areas of life. How to deal with them? Polina K., Vladivostok
- In psychologists, this is called the complex of an excellent student. A person has a certain image of himself as a person who does everything right, carefully, deliberately. And then, when he really falls short of this ideal, the pangs of self-criticism begin. That is, this person himself does not justify his own expectations.
You, Polina, have an idea in your head that there is only one correct solution, and it must be calculated. In fact, life is such that for every plus there is always a minus. We cannot look into the future, and sooner or later you will still have to make a decision.
Therefore, you have only one way out - allow yourself to be imperfect. Make choices, even knowing that the results may not be perfect. And never regret missed opportunities. Allow yourself to make mistakes and be who you are.
Have you often thought: “he must do this”, “she must think about me”, “they must understand”? And when he/she/they did not do this, did they feel bad?
When we think about actions, we use what are called modalities. In speech, they are expressed in words and phrases: I can, I must, I can, I could, I would like to, I may have to, etc. Depending on this very modality, the future will look more or less certain. Compare: “I have to get up at 7:00 tomorrow”, “I can get up at 7:00 tomorrow”, “maybe I will get up at 7:00 tomorrow”. When you imagine that "should" is one option and it is very difficult to change it, if you think that "can" - then it is more uncertain and easier to change, and in the case of "maybe" there are most likely many options.
The future differs from the past in that it is not defined - and by thinking about it in different ways, we organize our behavior. Necessity - must, obliged, compelled - forces us to act in only one way, opportunity - perhaps, I can, able - gives a choice. But at the same time, none of the ways to think about the future is the best, it all depends on your goals and context. For example, if your goal is "to get up at 7:00 tomorrow," then thinking of it as a necessity can be helpful. But perhaps you will be more motivated by the thought that "I can get up at 7:00 tomorrow ... and have time to do a lot."
But if you think that others “should”, but they don’t, as a result you experience negative emotions – irritation, anger, resentment, anger. Actually, these emotions just report a violation of expectations. It's just that some expectations are more useful than others. One way to make your life more enjoyable is to learn to think about the future in a more appropriate way, with a more appropriate modality.
Modality
Generally speaking, modality communicates an attitude, an evaluation. Three main groups can be distinguished:
O channel for obtaining information: told, saw, felt, remembered;
about evaluation of information: important, unnecessary, annoying, delighted;
O within or within: allowed, legal, exists, can, cannot, capable.
For working with images of the future, the last two types will be more useful to us.
Grade – important, necessary, good, bad, pleases, delights, disgusting, insulting,- sets the attractiveness of the event for you, but practically does not affect the certainty of this very future.
Necessity – must, obliged, impossible, compelled, necessary, - increases the certainty of the future and makes it difficult to change.
Opportunity – I can, I can, I don't have to, I shouldn't- on the contrary, it makes the future less certain and easily changeable.
Certainty will be influenced by probability events - definitely, definitely, of course, probably, probably, unlikely, maybe.
In NLP's most beloved refinement model, the meta model, necessity is a detrimental constraint. They work with him to find out the consequences of going beyond the restrictions, for example, you can ask the question: - What will happen if you do this?
Training
Take something you plan to do in the future and think of it like:
I must do it;
I forced do it;
I Can do it;
I able do it;
I would like to do it;
I will do it;
I Maybe will do it;
I exactly will do it.
Track what changes in the image of the situation, how your feelings change, what happens to the voice with which you say the phrase to yourself.
Technique
This technique can be done both with situations in the past - there were expectations and did not come true - and with an idea of the future - "it should be like that."
1. Situation
This technique will be most suitable for dealing with "unmet expectations":
he should have done, but didn't;
she had to come on time;
I must be a real man;
they should have done it well.
The more "hard" our expectations, the greater the disappointment when they do not come true. In addition, our ideas about the certainty of an event determine our actions to create it - if the situation "is bound to happen", why strain?
This is especially noticeable with the requirements for other people - they (he) "must" only in our heads and may not know anything about their duty at all. And they may know, but do not perceive it as a necessity. But if we rely on the givenness of their actions, it makes no sense for us to make any efforts so that they act in accordance with our expectations - they are obliged, after all - and we feel anger, disappointment, etc., if they violate our expectations.
There is also a variant of the requirements for the world: “it should be like this”, “fate must be favorable this time”. Usually it leads to maximum disappointment - the world or fate is unlikely to owe anything to anyone.
So, you can choose:
a situation in the past where your expectations were violated;
a situation in the future where you most likely have unjustified demands on yourself, the world or others;
constant unreasonable demands, like: "they must respect me", "the world must make me happy."
2. Current ratio
Think about your expectation, imagine it sensory - in the form of images, sounds, feelings. Speak a phrase describing this expectation: "they must love me", "she must take care of my health."
3. Stretch
Try different modalities with respect to your expectation, for example: I would like to, have to, it would be nice, they can, perhaps, for sure, they will. Notice how the sensory representation of the situation changes.
4. The best option
Choose the relationship that suits you best.
5. Environmental test
Consider whether a new attitude will harm you. If problems are possible, return to the previous step and select new version relationship.
6. Fixing
Bring a new attitude into your life. See what has changed there, how your experiences are changing.
All expectations come from childhood. Therefore, they have so much pain, resentment and disappointment. And most importantly, all these expectations are unconscious.
Someone lacked (for objective reasons) care, someone - attention, someone - recognition that it is unique and valuable. Someone was not hugged, they did not say words of love, someone was not supported at all.
We grow up, and these needs remain unsatisfied, and they sit in us like splinters, and we don’t even know about their existence, we don’t even know that we can help ourselves. We expect those close to us to solve these problems and ease our pain.
We fall into addictive relationships, we try to earn love, we adjust, we wait, we demand, we get disappointed. And so in a circle.
We fall into a trap of expectations.
What to do?
This is probably the hardest piece of advice I've ever given you:
You have to accept that your unmet needs will never be met the way you expect them to be. No more to be found loving mother and a strong dad who can do it. Justice will not prevail.
After all, in fact, when we expect others to treat ourselves differently,
satisfaction of needs, then we expect this from them, as from parents.
Can they do it? Even if they really want to, even if they love us very much… they won't be able to do it.
But at the same time, they can give us something else. And if you deal with expectations, then this other will be no less valuable.
Here's your homework. Deal with your expectations: what do I expect from loved ones? And what are they willing to give me in real life and not in fictitious expectations?
After all, if you figure it out, how will you react when a friend does not understand you? How will you react to the fact that she has her own life and her own worries, and they are more important to her than your life?
How will you react when your husband did not guess what you want? When you crave warmth, understanding and care, as in childhood, and in response he closes and even gets angry?
Many women for this reason avoid contact with men, do not make girlfriends. Because they understand that they will not get what they expect from them. To face this fact again is to experience pain again. And it turns out that the refusal to communicate is protection.
In this case, to remove the protection means to abandon children's expectations and learn to interact with others from an adult state. And the main thing is to understand that people are ready to give us much more - communication, a different view of the world, new knowledge, their uniqueness. Add this list yourself.
I have noticed that many women act with the wrong expectations. This includes the desire to change your life, get support and attention, get rid of pain, and become happy once and for all.
These are again expectations, which, most likely, will not come true.
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Tatyana Dzutseva.
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