Out of head and into body...our imaginings and expectations
I just came across this fabulous quote, which fits marvellously with what has been on my mind recently - expectation. Here it is:
"What screws us up most in life is the picture in our head of how its supposed to be". The Daily Guru.
Ha, so true!
I was presented with two huge opportunities to learn all about this - firstly trying to conceive and secondly giving birth. Both experiences were completely not what I imagined in my head they were supposed to be. Elijah is now 21 months old and I am finally at the end of processing both of these experiences and will share with you soon...when I have the space to put thoughts into words.
In the meantime, I think this idea of "expectation and imaginings" is an interesting one and I notice it playing itself out in my life quite a bit. In fact one of the greatest, more transformative things I learned from the mindfulness training was indeed how often our imagination and expectation of how things should be does indeed create a huge amount of disharmony in our real life experience.
I see it more clearly in others too. The imagined party. The imagined wedding. The imagined day at the beach. The imagined meal with friends. The imagined body we are going to have once we have perfected that yoga pose, followed that diet, been on that holiday, brought those clothes, blah blah blah, the imagined 'perfect' relationship, the imagined career, the imagined way we want our lives to be.
And then BANG. Reality strikes. Here we are. Us, real. Out of head and into body.
Which brings us back to acceptance of what is happening for us in this moment compared to what we imagined or indeed expected should be happening in our life in that moment.
And the thing is, once we start working with this, once we start trusting in the process, and the flow of the Divine, and get us (yes, us) out of the way, and catch ourselves when we start disappearing down the 'rosy, imagining, everything is perfect' scenario that we play in our head, and let go, therefore, of expectation, well actually it is a very liberating experience. Phew. We are not in control after all. And with that letting go and that trust and that acceptance and all that other stuff, well then there is nothing to fight against. And nothing to get screwed up over. And nothing to complain about. Hoorah. No drama!
Ha, if only it was that easy! ( I have only just stopped complaining about Elijah's birth). Still, it is all about awareness and catching oneself when the imagining and the expectation starts cropping up and reminding oneself to get back into the body, be here, be present...there is a plan...but not as we necessarily imagine or indeed expect it to be...
(This is not to discredit from the power and indeed necessity of nurturing our imagination, more so that we need to be realistic sometimes, about our expectations and about accepting our real life present moment experiences)
Until next time...
x
