Hello and welcome,
My name is Benita.
I would love to begin this talk on expectations and disappointment with a little personal anecdote.
As you listen to this story,
Settling into the space that you're in,
Feeling and sensing into whatever support is beneath you or behind you.
You might even like to take a few conscious breaths,
Knowing that you are breathing in and know that you are breathing out,
Maybe with a gentle sigh.
At the beginning of 2025,
I decided to rent a space,
A space within a community studio where I could teach,
Where I could share practices.
I was so enthusiastic,
Really so excited.
I hired the space twice a week for the minimum hire period,
Which was three months.
And I thought that for the first three months,
I might just break even,
Expecting that I might attract two to three people per class.
But how wrong was I?
Over that three month period,
I had two students,
Two people in three months.
My expectations were not met,
And I was incredibly disappointed,
Disheartened.
And of course,
A lot of self-doubt can creep on in,
And that will be another talk we'll explore together.
And those narratives can really spiral and take hold.
I'm not good enough.
Nobody likes me.
Nothing I do ever works out.
I should have known better.
And so on.
Thankfully,
I didn't let those stories and narratives take hold.
I really honoured that I was disappointed,
Dejected,
Disheartened.
And it made sense that I was feeling that way.
I had put a lot of effort and my energy and passion and enthusiasm into creating offerings,
And nobody wanted them.
I should say that the two people that came never came back.
And so before I tell the rest of the story,
How do you usually react or respond to expectations not being met?
The disappointment when something doesn't work out how you'd hoped it would.
Is there a familiar story or narrative that replays when your expectations are not met,
And when you are drawn into disappointment?
Disappointment can really be a sign that we care.
But it's when we attach to the outcome being a certain way that it can cause us unnecessary suffering.
And so in my story,
Of course,
I was disheartened.
Feeling worried that this vocation that I love was not going to work out.
The way that I love to share and teach wasn't resonant.
The familiar pattern and story for me is I'm different.
I don't belong.
I don't fit in.
But after years of exploration and self-discovery,
I have this sense of trust that things do work out how they are meant to.
That doesn't mean that things always work out how I want them to.
There's a distinction there.
But this failure,
This disappointment,
And I should say failure is in inverted commas there.
This scenario,
This situation not working out how I wanted it to is the reason why I am here on Insight Timer and I am recording this talk.
Had I not had this failure,
I'm using quotation marks there,
Had that scenario not happened,
I might not have pivoted and explored how I might be able to share what I love here on Insight Timer.
So this disappointment turned out to be a great gift in disguise.
And so you might recall now or later,
A situation or scenario where something didn't turn out how you had first expected or hoped.
But it led to possibility,
Something you could have never imagined.
And it's okay if nothing comes to mind just yet.
This might be a little reflection that you keep in the back of your journal for some time that arises in the future.
And I want to share that I felt a sense of shame and embarrassment that things didn't work out.
I had told lots of people,
I was really excited.
And I had to let people know that it didn't work out.
Being able to share with others,
That things didn't work out.
That is something that I would not have been able to do in a previous version of myself.
Too vulnerable,
Too exposing.
Being attached to a particular scenario or something going only a certain way creates a real rigidity,
A stiffness,
Almost a feeling of being trapped and contained.
There is something empowering about the possibility that can come from things working out differently than we had envisaged.
But for the moment,
You might reflect on how you speak to yourself when things don't quite work out how you'd hoped.
Is there self-blame?
Shame,
Like I mentioned,
A sense of having failed or let yourself or someone else down?
Is there a sense of retreating or withdrawing,
Not wanting to share what's happened?
Seeing if there's any familiar patterns or ways that you navigate,
Avoid,
Deal or manage with disappointment.
Nothing wrong or bad,
But gathering information.
How comfortable do I feel to share my disappointment with another person?
Can I be honest with myself and another about the sensations,
Emotions,
The heaviness that may arise when I am feeling let down?
The other contemplation you might reflect on is whether you are expecting other people to behave like you would.
Is your disappointment arising from expectations that others will have the same values or operate or behave in the same way that you would in the same situation?
And again,
There's no need to have all of the answers.
These are reflections that you can ponder now or later at a time where you feel grounded and resourced.
One really important one is this.
How can I begin to practice more gentleness,
Kindness,
Encouragement and understanding when navigating expectations that are not met and the associated disappointment or discomfort?
How can I allow myself to really feel those emotions,
Allow them to be integrated,
To be felt What might it be like not to push those emotions aside,
Really honouring that it is human and raw and real to feel disappointed?
The distinction here is whether we attach to that disappointment.
Discerning between,
Am I honouring what I'm feeling in this moment,
Giving it a chance to integrate?
Or am I letting it take home somewhere in my body causing tension and angst?
For me,
Expectations that things will work out a certain way are a sign that I care.
A sign of perhaps my ambition,
Of my passion.
But I remain open to things traveling and widening and expanding into directions I may not have ever thought of.
And my path here on Insight Timer so far is true testament to that.
Never could I have imagined that I would be here.
Having met so many incredible people,
Continuing to build this beautiful community that we share and build together.
So how might your expectations and attachment to them be keeping a lid on all of the possibility that might be there waiting for you?
As I can hear my dog Ginger snoring now in the background,
I'll take that as my cue to say goodbye for now.
I really wanted to thank you for listening to my first talk.
I'm so grateful that you are here to learn to explore and discover together.
I hope that this talk has offered you some perspective,
Some possibility.
And I look forward to more exploring,
Uncovering and discovering together.
Take good,
Good care.
