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The Season to be Jolly? Great Expectations and Glad Tidings

It's that time of year again.  For some, the 'holiday season' is anything but a holiday.  Quite the opposite, in fact.  For those of us in recovery it is often a period during which extra vigilance is called for, and heightened self care essential.


The forthcoming festivities can be challenging regardless for those addressing addiction issues, and unaffected 'civilians' alike.  The advertisements conjure up images of happy families in comfortable, warm homes wanting for nothing.  Everyone is having a wonderful time, and interactions are graceful and joyous.  This isn't a reality many of us can relate to easily.


Financial strains are exacerbated by the pressure to purchase, and the emotional barometer can rise seemingly inexplicably as we operate against a background of expectations, both conscious and unconscious.  I like the definition of expectations as premeditated resentments, or scheduled disappointments.  From this view, they resemble something akin to a form of self injury and have the capacity to prompt considerable distress.  


There is a lot to be said for bringing our expectations into awareness, and then into sharper focus, in order to review their usefulness, before letting go of those which are perhaps merely setting us up for later difficulties.  We establish and hang on to expectations of ourselves, and of other people and tend to create these according to unrealistic standards.  


Evaluating our expectations' utility is a precise science, requiring rigorous honesty, in order that we can ascertain what it is that we are holding on to.  We may then assess their utility, as there is a line at which they become less useful to us, associated with our level of attachment to their ultimate outcome.  Living our lives according to 'If X does this, then I will...' places a great deal at risk, and jeopardises our serenity by inhibiting our all important sense of self efficacy.  Fundamentally, we like to believe that we have a handle on the direction of our lives.  Handing the controls over to others through our expectations is detrimental, and possibly damaging.  It is both a cause and a consequence of our fear and is thus viciously self perpetuating.


By seeing our expectations for what they are, we avail ourselves of an opportunity to invest our energies elsewhere, using them more creatively, to strengthen our relationships rather than our defenses to them.  If we must have expectations, we have a duty to communicate them to those implicated in our fantasies.  Just as most of us lack psychic powers, other people aren't generally terribly effective mind readers.


"I do my thing and you do yours.  I am not in this world to live up to your expectations, and you are not in this world to live up to mine.  
You are you, and I am I, and if by chance we find each other, then it is beautiful.  If not, it can't be helped."   
Gestalt Prayer, Fritz Perls 


"There are two ways to be happy: improve your reality, or lower your expectations."   
Jodi Picoult









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