Expectations
Laurie Jolicoeur
(on the left in the photo with her friend, Barbara Ballinger)
March 19, 2019

I have wrestled with expectations. Early in my life I associated having expectations with something like having high standards. Maybe it had something to do with trying to be my best. And as I lived more in the world of expectations, a kind of hope about an event or a relationship, I started to see how having expectations often became coupled with disappointment.

When there was a gap between my expectations and what actually happened, I suffered. I learned how my expectations could even become a barrier in a relationship. Suffering, I sought a way of being in my mind that would serve me better.

The conscious choice to move more in the direction of having curiosity or being neutral about an outcome has helped a lot. My relationships with myself, my family and friends, and with my church community have benefitted as I relinquished control over having expectations about how others behave, about how a situation should unfold, how someone should feel. I practice often because expectations lurk in the shadows of my mind. I practice letting them go and hopefully leaving them behind.
She Let Go , by Rev. Safire Rose

She let go. Without a thought or a word, she let go.

She let go of the fear. She let go of the judgments. She let go of the confluence of opinions swarming around her head. She let go of the committee of indecision within her. She let go of all the ‘right’ reasons. Wholly and completely, without hesitation or worry, she just let go.

She didn’t ask anyone for advice. She didn’t read a book on how to let go. She didn’t search the scriptures. She just let go. She let go of all of the memories that held her back. She let go of all of the anxiety that kept her from moving forward. She let go of the planning and all of the calculations about how to do it just right.

She didn’t promise to let go. She didn’t journal about it. She didn’t write the projected date in her Day-Timer. She made no public announcement and put no ad in the paper. She didn’t check the weather report or read her daily horoscope. She just let go.

She didn’t analyze whether she should let go. She didn’t call her friends to discuss the matter. She didn’t do a five-step Spiritual Mind Treatment. She didn’t call the prayer line. She didn’t utter one word. She just let go.

No one was around when it happened. There was no applause or congratulations. No one thanked her or praised her. No one noticed a thing. Like a leaf falling from a tree, she just let go.

There was no effort. There was no struggle. It wasn’t good and it wasn’t bad. It was what it was, and it is just that. In the space of letting go, she let it all be. A small smile came over her face. A light breeze blew through her. And the sun and the moon shone forevermore.