Thought Exercise: Create Space By Releasing Expectations

Expectations, whether self-imposed or from external sources, can act as shackles, limiting our potential and stifling our peace of mind. This episode delves into how these anticipations can weigh us down and the liberation that comes with releasing them. Through mindful recalibration exercises, listeners are guided to reflect on the expectations they carry and the energy expended on unfulfilled assumptions. The track serves as a meditative guide to help listeners navigate their internal landscapes, question their thought patterns, and open up to self-awareness.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hey there, I just wanted to check in with you and share a little thought exercise to help you ground yourself and recalibrate your energy. Conscious or mindful recalibration is a wonderful way to check in with yourself and draw awareness around how you are spending your thought energy. When we consciously recalibrate, we create an opportunity to shift, to change or to focus our energy differently. So you can do this exercise as a guided meditation with your eyes closed and maybe write down any insights from the session in your journal afterwards, or you can get out pen and paper right now and jot down your responses to my questions as we go. There's no right or wrong way to do it. Just listen. Just listen to your intuition. So when you're ready, let's take a few deep breaths together. Just notice your body centering to this moment, to the sound of my voice, and connect to your breath, our beautiful breath, our life force, energy. Try to align your focus and thoughts there. And when you're ready, I want you to consider this question what expectations are you holding for yourself? What expectations do you have for yourself right now? Take another deep breath in and out, and draw your attention to whatever thoughts are coming up right now. Relax and open as you listen, allowing them to come into the surface. It's not unnatural to hear thoughts like this. Is dumb, or I don't have time for this, or I hope this exercise helps me. These are surface thoughts. These are thoughts about what's happening right now. Right, and they're perfectly normal. They're reactive. They're created in response to what I'm asking you to do.

Speaker 1: 3:00

When we embark on something new or unfamiliar, our primitive fear response is triggered. Our brain is hardwired to protect us from the unknown, so it will create judgment or comparison to try and make sense of things. Our brain is just doing its job. Take a moment here just to thank it and reassure it that you've got this and that you want to dig deeper and do this exercise. So we're going to clear away those surface thoughts. Take another deep breath in and on the exhale. Release any surface thoughts or primitive brain reactions and focus in on listening more deeply on the question what expectations am I holding for myself? Where in my life am I holding on to the way I think things should be?

Speaker 1: 4:29

Take a few more deep breaths and consciously bring yourself to this moment. How are you feeling right now? Tap into that for a moment. Where are you feeling it and where is it coming from? Just focus on feeling. I want you to think about for a minute where you went to look for the answer to my question when I asked you what expectations are you holding for yourself? Where did you go to look for the answer? I want you now to take a moment to again focus on how you are feeling. Do you have body pain or emotional pain that is drawing your attention? Or maybe you've been going on autopilot and you don't even realize how you're feeling? You haven't really thought about it. Take a few more moments to distill it down to the predominant feeling in this moment, to the essence of what's driving you right now. Take another deep breath or two, focusing on where we are in this exercise and what the predominant feeling is in this moment, the essence of what's driving you.

Speaker 1: 6:51

What thoughts do you suppose are associated with this feeling that you have right now? For example, my predominant feeling might be burnout. When I feel burned out, the thoughts I create are thoughts about not being able to do what I want to do, not having enough energy, not having enough time, failure not being enough. It's interesting, isn't it? Because when we're burned out, often we're burned out because we have been doing a lot Interesting. When we create thoughts based on our feelings, we are judging and comparing. But what if we could create how we want to feel with new thoughts? So, instead of being led by a feeling and an associated thought, we lead with a thought, so that we can create an associated emotion and then maybe even, from there, feel more inclined to take action.

Speaker 1: 8:12

What expectations are you knowingly or unknowingly, tacitly or overtly putting upon those around you? Maybe your partner, your friends, your coworkers, your parents, your family, your boss? What would be different if you didn't hold on to these expectations? How will you feel if your expectations are not met? Then what? What if you do run out of steam and drop down into burnout? If you were expecting not to do that? How will you treat yourself If you do something nice for somebody else and they don't return the favor and you were expecting them to? What kind of stories and energy are you creating about that? What are you holding on to? Where in your life can you simply let go of expecting and just step in to what is?

Speaker 1: 9:30

I encourage you to write down these things, to write down where you are expending more energy than you need on hoping or expecting or assuming or even interpreting things in a way that doesn't fill you up. Create new thoughts that will create new feelings. Let go of attachments to how things are supposed to be and meet everything head on with grace. We are all doing the very best we can. Just because you can doesn't mean you have to. Once you draw consciousness around where you're holding expectations, you realize that you can let go of those expectations and open up a world of energy and possibility. Create new thoughts about what is not, what should be or what might be or what should have been.

Speaker 1: 11:02

Reach is to close your eyes again. If you can Feel your breath, maybe start to feel a tingle, feel things flowing in and out, signing no meaning, feeling that you've already done the thought exercise. There are no expectations here. Just allow, just know you can do whatever you want to do. If you'd like to hold onto these things, hold on, but make sure you're consciously holding on. And if you want to let go, let go. I'm going to count backwards from 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Open your eyes coming back into the room, namaste.