Hello and welcome to the Calmcast,
A time to feel calm and think clearly.
I'm Claire Downham,
The Queen of Calm,
A Transformational Life Coach.
I was a burnt out headteacher who finally made the journey to calm after years of trying and I want to prevent you from having to do the same.
The Calmcast is a series of short explorations gently guiding you back to your natural state,
Which is calm and clarity.
Just listen like you would listen to music with an open mind and curiosity.
There's nothing else to do.
Now let's relax into today's episode.
So today's exploration is around expectation and I heard something recently about this.
I'd heard it a while ago actually and I heard it again,
A piece by another coach and it really struck me how much expectations play a part in our lives.
And I'm only just touching this myself so it's going to be really interesting to share it with you.
There's something about the future in expectation.
The sense that we want something or we expect,
It's even,
It feels like a higher energy of desire than just wanting something to be a certain way.
Expectation is as if we think we know how something should play out.
There's a should involved in expectation I think.
I'd love to know what you think about that.
But there's definitely a sense that we're laying out a path and we apply it to all sorts of things,
Don't we?
We apply it to ourselves hugely.
I remember times when I would be standing in the shower in the morning getting ready with the expectation of myself when I got to my desk that certain things would happen.
I would do certain things already kind of telling the story of the me of the future and what she was going to do.
And then coming down to my computer and finding that that wasn't what I did.
And now I first of all don't spend too much time thinking about what I'm going to do in the shower.
I tend to concentrate on showering.
And then there's just a release of pressure and I can feel that release of pressure because there's not this expectation of myself.
Because expectation is rooted in the idea that we know what we're going to be like in the future.
You know this is an extreme but I could decide all these things I'm going to do in the shower and then I could come downstairs and have a horrible sickness bug and have to go back to bed.
That's an extreme but all those things that happen in the moment we can't know about them in advance.
So when we have expectations of ourselves we maybe feel like we're continually letting ourselves down and that can really contribute to that feeling of overwhelm.
That overwhelmed feeling.
A feeling that can feel like something's pressing on your chest.
Perhaps you feel it differently.
Because it's extra thought and you may not quite have seen it yet but it is extra thought that creates that overwhelmed feeling.
It's extra things on your mind.
Your feeling,
The weight of your thinking.
And I want to share something I have seen in the last few days in a coaching session I had that caused me to put my scales in the attic hidden away.
Because I realized the weight of thought.
It was ironic because I was talking about weight but the weight of thought,
The expectation that on day,
Let's just say on Monday I had eaten perfectly.
I had done the salad and the high protein diet and all the other stuff that we're supposed to do.
And the expectation was heavy.
Really heavy that when I got on the scales there would be a drop in my weight.
And if that,
If there was a stay same in my weight or a gain,
The disappointment,
The over analysis,
The heaviness in my head was just enormous.
And that would stop me from taking action in the world that would be good for my health and good for my body.
And what I've noticed since the scales have gone on Monday and I haven't therefore been able to stand on them,
I'm just eating better.
I mean how crazy is that?
That just by removing expectation there's less on my mind and there's now all this space for new ideas to come from.
So I've tweaked a few things I'm eating.
I've decided to put a bit more activity into my life.
Just things that it didn't seem there was space for because all the expectation that was coming from the scales,
Well coming from my thinking about the scales and what they should be saying when I got on them has gone.
And that's just space and it is the space.
The space is the place from which everything can come.
Something has to come from nothing.
And so when we remove all these expectations of things and ourselves and our goodness gracious of other people,
That could be a whole section of a whole extra exploration.
There's just this space.
And space is the place where we can bring something new into the world.
And it would be really interesting for me to hear where you're noticing expectations in your life,
Where you're noticing them blocking you in a way.
I mean imagine if you went through life with no expectations,
How much space there would be.
Because here's how I see it in a simpler way as possible where there is expectation.
First of all there's this thought now,
I've got some expectations,
I'm stacking up a list of things,
How I think things are supposed to be.
And then they don't happen as I expected.
And then there's a whole raft more thinking about what went wrong and how it should have been different.
And again my head is filled up.
And that is not the best way for us to work having a full head of expectation and then the disappointment that comes with expectations not being met.
In being more dory as the lovely Steve Chandler says in one of his books I think it's called right now,
Where you know turn up in every moment with nothing.
I realise that's not possible for us as humans but looking in that direction to where we are taking ourselves away from space,
From peace,
From calm with all these expectations.
Dory has no expectations of anyone because she doesn't remember who they were or who they are.
She may have a conversation with them in one scene and in the next scene she's completely forgotten.
So she has no expectations of them.
She can turn up fresh and new into every single interaction she has with life not just with other creatures in the sea but with life.
Dory has a lot to teach us I think bless her.
And today like whenever you're listening to this there's just the opportunity to bring some awareness into this space to notice where am I creating expectations?
Where am I going into situations or into parts of my own life with a list of things the way we want them to be?
And just noticing that can be really helpful because as soon as you bring some awareness to something that's taking you away from calm it's like a magic reset button it really is.
So just as usual just be open to see something new that's always the invitation.
Thank you so much for listening.
There's nothing to do now but bring some awareness to how this is working out in your life.
Listen regularly to experience longer and longer periods of calm.
This has been the Calmcast with Clare Downer,
Queen of Calm.
Take care and keep listening.
