L E T T E R from Jo – My Expectation-Laden Day

Introducing Jo Simpson, The Broad Place’s new resident Integrated Meditation Teacher! Jo will be teaching in Sydney and in New Zealand all of this year. She’s a phenomenal teacher, and all round awesome human, with a fascinating background as an innovation director. Creative thinking has been her path for decades. She will be contributing a Letter weekly, and we hope you enjoy them!

Not sure about you but I secretly have an ideal day tucked away in my mind that all days get measured against. The thing about my ideal day is that it’s pretty much a fantasy – IT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. Yet, I persist in having it, optimistically held in case it was to ever be lived out – IT WON’T.

The problem comes when I’m having a day where everything goes “wrong”, woke up late, miss the gym, treat my meditation like I’m a hostage, unpack the dishwasher (a job I have every day and yet it still surprises me!), kids waking up late, there’s rushing, there’s mess and there’s panic – and that’s all before I get out the door and head to work.

When this happens I usually think to myself “Great, it’s going to be one of those days”. I torture myself by imagining what should have happened that day – likely guest excerpts from my Ideal Day – you know that one that I have NEVER had. Say What? This makes no sense, yes I’m aware.

However, how many times when you’re feeling stretched that you reach in to your mind and select the ideal version of events that should be happening – by the number of “shoulds” I have already written (ie more than one) it is clear that I’m not seeing things as they are but how I want them to be and therein lies a continued source of my stress.

It’s true, meditation has helped me to discern when I am creating the stress for myself merely by comparing the way things should be to the way they are. It has also made me painfully aware of how many expectations I harbour (secretly and not so secretly) about any daily situation or experience  (it’s still a lot!). The truly most helpful part, however, is that it shows me that I can choose my response more consciously which will either add more stress or not – I really do try to aim for the latter. I dare you today that if you experience any frustrations to take a closer look and see if you’ve gone ahead and set yourself up with an unmet expectation. Then unwind it.

From Jo x