Expectations

I've been thinking about expectations this week -- how they are really just another way we make judgements -- judgments pushed into the future, another thing that takes our attention away from what we're doing right now.

Take this blog. I expected it to be easy to write about not spending money, yoga, an attempt to live more consciously. It's not easy at all. I'm a natural at writing about what's going on our there -- in the kitchen or garden, for example, but I feel shy and vulnerable writing about what's close or inside. But because of my expectation for it to be easy, it's now feeling like a failure, and consequently I've been avoiding it. Don't we all hate hanging around with failure? But aren't we our own worst enemies by courting failure relentlessly?

If I didn't have any expectations, and simply wrote one word after the other, focussing on this word, this blog post...  there would be no chance of failing. Or succeeding in my own mind. And I reckon I would be free!

I was walking down Taranaki Street to the yoga studio on Tuesday, and I realised that the current 40-day practice was feeling a lot different than the previous two. I wasn't feeling any anxiety about it, I was just going, day after day, and doing it. I was lacking expectation. And consequently I was relaxed and happy.

Let me give you a bit of history.

The first 40-day practice, I was expecting to find it super hard to get up and go to yoga at 7.15am day after day. I did find it super hard, but I suspect only because I was constantly thinking about how hard it would be. I was focussed on and anxious about getting through it. On the mat, I was anxious about the postures, which ones I "could" do, which ones I "couldn't", what was easy, what was hard, what I was getting better at, what was still really hard work. This translated into wishing the hard ones would be over and looking forward to the easy ones. I knew the sequence off by heart, in turn dreading and welcoming, depending on which one we were up to. It was all an ordeal, because I was focussed on a whole lot of expectations: finishing the practice, learning the postures, getting through the pain, getting to the end. Failure. Success.

On the recent walk down to the studio, I realised I've pulled my attention in a lot closer in the current practice. Now I just go to the studio every day, listen to the instruction and do the postures. I'm not thinking ahead either, to the next posture, to the end. If you asked me the order of postures I don't think I could tell you. I'm not thinking about them. I haven't got any expectations, positive or negative, and I'm simply doing the practice. My mind wanders a bit, but it's not locked into a pattern of expectations, good and bad, right and wrong.

This has just happened out of the blue. I'm grateful not to be working towards an end. It feels peaceful and easy, like calm, even breathing.