Hello Dear Friend,
Happy Yuletide. While I’ve been feeling so many emotions this past few days in this Yuletide portal - the time I celebrate between Winter Solstice and New Year - I offer these thoughts to you.
Expectant.
When did expectations become requirements and measurements for deserving love and belonging?
When I hear that word, I hear "I expected more from you" or "this doesn't meet our expectations."
I had a tearful moment during my Solstice sit this week, and as often happens to me - words dropped in that I hear rather than think...
"Your expectations are bit by bit suffocating out Life."
Especially after the last few years, I have developed a habit of expecting things to fall apart.
"Expect disappointment, and you'll never be disappointed."
I remember a few months into the pandemic, I explicitly told myself and others, "I am not making plans more than 3 weeks out." I had been disappointed so many times, looked forward to things that didn't happen, I decided to take options off the table as much as I could with my human hands and human calendar.
But a lot of circumstances have changed.
When I sat this past Samhain season, my celebration of "energetic new year", and reflected on the past year (which you can read/hear a little about here), I felt like everything has fallen apart.
'Why did Postcards stop?,' my teacher asked me. My wise teacher, she tasked my soul searching with more than "why did the writing stop?"
I stopped because I felt unsuccessful. It hadn't gone according to plan. I wasn't able to keep up the intense writing schedule I set at the ambitious start of this endeavor, and I felt embarrassed every time I sat down to write again.
This November, after several months of adventure, I felt like I arrived back at zero. Like nothing was as it should be. My yoga community shrunk this year. My collaborators on an artistic project fell silent, and I walked away from a company of people I love in pursuit of something new. Back at my day job.
But this is not the whole truth.
A lot of things did connect for me this year.
I started Postcards because I wanted to practice creating in the short form, develop a creative practice, practice sharing my work on a regular basis, and develop a body of work.
(spoiler: although it did not go according to plan, those things did happen!)
"Your expectations are crowding out Life."
I am here now, sitting in the darkest part of the year with this recognition:
Things falling apart and things not going as expected are two different experiences, with different energies, different teachers offering different wisdom.
While the emotions each experience bring may feel similar (grief, disorientation, discouragement or even despair), one offers pieces to work with or spring board off of - the other offers a chance at a restart.
How quickly after starting Postcards did new “expectations” build up in me: a publishing schedule, building a community, publishing a planner, sharing to social media, maybe one day a book...
Quickly I wanted what I started as an experiment to turn into a secure, predictable and externally ‘successful’ blog.
But notice, these expectations were not my original intentions. In fact, they weren't even my own expectations, not what I want to value. They've been ingested from my culture and they've been crowding the Life out of my life, the surprise and play out of my dreams and my creations.
When I look around my community, I see even worse devastation caused by a similar pattern - tidal waves where I have felt rumbles...
Meeting expectation has become so valued in our culture that it feels to me like we've built a world with no room for things NOT to go according to plans. The consequences have become so dire, and the margins so thin, that it is not just killing our metaphorical dreams, it is killing members of our human family from shame and despair - not just taking the Life out of our creations, but life out of our planet with our human hands.
So what can I do?
Truthfully, I don't know yet, but here's what my current practice looks like:
I am meeting the unconscious expectations I hold that are not my own, that I am unconsciously using as a measurement for "success", worthiness or belonging for myself and others,
I am accepting what has not gone according to plan and has been beautiful/grievous/informative/lovely anyway.
This Yuletide, I am meditating on and cultivating an experience of "expectant."
"Expectant - having or showing an excited feeling that something is about to happen, especially something pleasant and interesting." (< dictionary definition)
Expectant - to hold space for some unknowable goodness to fill the container I am holding.
I am soaking in this time of deep darkness, this "time out of time" as I call it, to relax my face and turn it to the world expectant.
I am meditating on the story of Mary, the energy of roses,
and telling my belief-weary heart that by definition miracles are moments unexpected, usually in response to things going very off-plan…
…knowing that opening my heart to hopes and joys is also opening me to disappointment and grief, but that I don't want to miss the chance for Love and Life that is happening right now.
Oh, and dancing, there has been lots of dancing, cacao and hot chocolate drinking, and of course, writing this to you (thank you <3)
I do not practice cultivating an 'expectant' hope with a light heart. I feel deeply for our friends who are in survival, and the ones we've already lost to hopelessness and despair these past few years. I do say this and share my own practice with you as an aspiring lover of Life, surprising life, play and chances, realizing I am in a pattern of cutting those all down to the small size of what disappointment I could potentially tolerate. This is not how I want to be in the world this coming year.
I want to be:
Expectant, without expectations.
May you be warm, safe and loved my friend. And may you have space for grief, joy and Life this Yule.
In fact, live it up, if you can.
Full Circle | Winter Solstice, Yuletide & Miracles