Why Manifestation and Visualization Might Not Work For You
In an earlier post, I described how the same event can have different impacts on people, depending on how resourced they are at the time. But there’s another thing that determines how your life impacts you: your attitude or perception going INTO it.
When we want and expect something to go a particular way, and it doesn’t, we are often disappointed. The amount of disappointment, or even pain, is usually relative to the difference between our expectation and reality. The bigger the difference, the more it bothers us.
If you, for example, expect that you’re going to get a BIG promotion to a corner office, with an expense account, company car, 6 weeks of paid vacation and a 6-figure salary - and then it doesn’t happen… your disappointment will be a LOT higher than if you only expected to get a 5% raise that year.
Your expectations matter when things don’t go as planned!
Why are we so disappointed when things don’t go as planned?
The harder we have been clinging to that expectation, the more we wanted it, or the more important it was to us, the bigger our suffering.
When it comes to my story, I was expecting a happy, healthy, long-lived monogamous marriage. Fidelity. I expected to be able to trust my partner.
These are not bad or unrealistic expectations. However, because they were so central to my values and relationship, when I discovered that was not the case, it was devastating. What I believed was foundational to my world, suddenly wasn’t true.
Does this mean I regret having these values, desires and expectations? Does it mean that I will change these expectations in the future? NO!
It simply means that how important they are to me affected the level of disappointment when I didn’t get what I expected.
Is it okay to have expectations? I keep getting hurt when I do.
My story, my example, an extra-marital relationship, would have felt different if I had different expectations. My perception of the event affected how it made me feel.
If I was in an open marriage and I expected extra-marital relationships, this would not be so devastating. Or if my culture or values believed this would be normal and acceptable. The extra-marital relationship itself is not painful or bad on its own.
It’s when it violated my expectations or perceptions of what is okay for me that I experienced the grief, pain, anger, and all the other emotions that came along with it.
So whether it is a faithful partner, good health, long life, a stable job or other expectation, there is nothing wrong with having these desires and goals. When we hang on tightly to these ideas, however, we are also risking devastation if they don’t pan out.
The good news, however, is that there are ways to decrease your chances of being devastated. My post on hope vs expectation will talk about that.
And furthermore, even if your expectations have already been shattered, there is still a way out for healing.