Expectation Hangover

by Christine Hassler

  We tend to worry a lot about our future during an Expectation Hangover, as it gives us a false sense of control. When faced with the unknown, worrying is the default habit we slip into because it gives us a way to seemingly deal with our concerns. But worrying is a huge drain of your energy and completely useless. I used to be quite the worrywart. When I was a little girl and my parents went out for date night, they’d have to call home once every hour to assure me they were okay because I was so worried something would happen to them. I continued to experience lots of worry into my adulthood until I learned ways to manage it and accept the unknown in my life.

  Worry is a by-product of using your imagination poorly. If you are going to future-trip, go to a desirable destination! You’re making it up anyway, so make it something that you would actually want. You have so much creative mental energy. Use Horseback Rider Rx to redirect your imagination in a way that creates the feelings and experiences you desire rather than dread. Worry is fear, not love. Your imagination is too creative and expansive to waste on worry. The people in your life are too precious to worry about — send them loving energy and positive thoughts instead. Your time is too precious to waste on fear-based thoughts.

  Consider how your Expectation Hangover would be different if you stopped worrying about the things you can’t control and only focused on the things you can — like your thoughts.

  EXERCISE

  Future Forecasting

  Are you ready to use your imagination in a way that excites rather than worries you? In the midst of an Expectation Hangover, wouldn’t it be nice to have something to look forward to? Well, you do — it is your future, and you get to create it! If you cannot see it clearly, this exercise will help, and it’s great fun because you get to dream big.

  You are going to write out a vision for your life over the course of the next year. A written vision is different from, and even more creative than, a vision you create with pictures, because writing it, and rereading it regularly, gives you the opportunity to be specific and talk about the feelings you are experiencing. In this vision include all aspects of your life — work, relationships, health and well-being, finances, spirituality, hobbies, environment, experiences, and so on. Consider what you want to be doing, feeling, experiencing, and creating. Include who you want to be with and where you want to be. Get highly detailed, specific, and descriptive. Write out in present tense what your life is like as if it is actually happening right now. Stretch yourself and allow yourself to dream big, but make everything in your life vision at least 90 percent believable so you actually buy into it.

  To inspire you, here is a snippet from a life vision that a client of mine created for herself after being diagnosed with an autoimmune disorder:

  I am waking up every day feeling rested and vital after a nice, peaceful sleep in my luxurious king-size bed. I turn over and snuggle with my incredible partner, who tells me he loves me every morning. I hear the sound of birds chirping outside and gently get out of bed to open the blinds to my beautiful view of nature. I sit down in my comfy purple chair, light a white candle, and engage in my morning meditation, which I love! My mind calms down, and I am easily able to observe my thoughts and bring my awareness to my breath. After my meditation, I enjoy my delicious tea and do my morning stretches and exercises. My body feels awake and vital. Each day I am getting stronger and healthier as I support my well-being by enjoying delicious, organic food.

  At the end of your life vision, write the phrase “This or something better, for the Highest Good of all concerned” so you can be free of any expectations. You only set yourself up for an Expectation Hangover if you expect these things to happen — this is a vision, not a demand. It is wonderful to stretch your mind and entertain the possibility that you could dream a different reality into being. Hold your ideal vision at heart, but hold it loosely. Use it as a destination that the Horseback Rider can guide your mind to whenever you notice worry emerging.

  CONCLUSION

  If you want to change your life, you must change your thoughts. And do so with loving discipline. Remember, your thoughts about what is happening in your life have a far greater impact on your well-being than what is actually happening. Acknowledge your Expectation Hangover as the catalyst for learning how to rewrite your story and reprogram your brain. You do not have to tell yourself an old story that perpetuates your hangover. You do not have to believe all those terrible and limiting beliefs. Your brain is completely equipped to free you from mental suffering.

  With the tools you have learned in this chapter, you mind will no longer be a runaway stallion pulling you in undesirable directions. You are the Horseback Rider — you hold the reins of your mind and can stop, alter, and redirect your thoughts. You can see now how your past has brought you into the present and how the present catapults you into the future. Courage is not the absence of fear; courage is feeling fear and moving forward anyway. It comes from the Latin word cor, which means “heart.” With courage you will go deep into your heart, which is the center of your compassion, and move forward even when you are afraid. Think kind, truthful thoughts. Choose only to buy into beliefs that move you away from your Expectation Hangover and toward the unexpected possibilities that are emerging all around you. Be courageous.

  “What we are today comes from our thoughts of yesterday, and our present thoughts build our life of tomorrow: Our life is the creation of our mind.”

  — Buddha

  Chapter Eight

  THE BEHAVIORAL LEVEL

  “If you don’t go after what you want, you’ll never have it. If you don’t ask, the answer is always no. If you don’t step forward, you’re always in the same place.”

  — Nora Roberts

  Are you at the point where you have more inner clarity about yourself but the outside is still murky? Or perhaps you are aware of the actions you “should” take to alleviate your Expectation Hangover but just don’t seem to be taking them. The more we analyze our Expectation Hangover, the more we feel that we have a grasp on our reality. But if we linger in the comfort of processing and awareness too long, we move into paralysis by analysis, and things remain the same. Change in your physical reality does not automatically occur once you have an “aha moment” about something — if only it were that simple.

  Insanity is defined as doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. Ever feel insane? (We all have; you’re not crazy!) The behavioral level is where the rubber meets the road in terms of treating your Expectation Hangovers and stopping the insanity. Clients have come to me after years of counseling and therapy and can explain themselves better than any psychiatrist could. They have felt their feelings and can clearly articulate limiting beliefs, yet they still engage in behaviors that are unhealthy or unloving and do not create the results they desire.

  You have to leverage your awareness about your Expectation Hangover by actually doing something that is inspired by your insight. Awareness without action is merely psychological entertainment. Nothing materializes out of thin air just because we expect to have it. In this chapter we are going to treat Expectation Hangovers by exploring behavior from two perspectives:

  •What actions you are taking in relation to your overall well-being and how you can improve the choices you are making.

  •What is driving your choices and how you can reorient the way you motivate yourself to take action.

  Disappointment can trigger actions that do not always match the desires or dreams we claim to have. We find ourselves either doing nothing at all or doing things that are not creating lasting change. We say we are going to eat better, get our résumé together, hire a coach, or get back in the dating scene, yet find ourselves hovering in the comfort zone of our unmet expectations.

  It would seem reasonable to think that not getting what we want would motivate us even more to go after it. Instead, it can be easier to talk ourselves out of doing something than it is to muster up the courage to do it. Why can it be so challe
nging to change behavior during Expectation Hangovers? During a time when we seriously need some momentum in our lives, how do we get our mojo back?

  First, it is important to understand that only about 5 to 10 percent of what most of us do in any given day is driven by our conscious awareness. By “conscious” I mean that we are actively aware of the choices we are making that drive behavior. Unconscious programming drives the other 90 to 95 percent. Visualize an iceberg, which is only about 10 percent above water and 90 percent underwater. Most of our behavior and decisions are driven by what is below the water, what we cannot see. As much as we may believe that we are actively participating in life, the vast majority of what we do is based on habitual behaviors and responses.

  Think of what you did this morning. You probably engaged in some kind of routine that you did not really think much about — things like brushing your teeth, showering, making coffee, and driving to work. You were not consciously aware of your behaviors; rather you were simply going through the motions of your life. Just as we create habits involving our day-to-day tasks, we also develop habitual behavior based on the story we’ve created about our lives and ourselves. All the belief systems you uncovered in chapter 7 influence your behavior even if you are not consciously aware of it.

  So how do we bring to the surface what has been unconsciously driving our behavior and not necessarily creating the results we want? That is where some role-playing Rx comes in to help you melt away obstacles. And don’t worry — it’s not as hard as moving an iceberg!

  ROLE-PLAYING Rx: THE SCIENTIST

  Before delving into the role of the Scientist, let’s get a bit nerdy and examine what a scientist is and does. The word science is derived from the Latin scientia, meaning “knowledge.” (If you haven’t noticed by now, I love to understand what words truly mean because they mean so much more to us when we know what they mean. You know what I mean?) Science is defined as “a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe.” A scientist is defined as “a person who studies or practices any of the sciences or who uses scientific methods; a scientific investigator.” The scientific method seeks to explain events. A hypothesis is put forward and used to make predictions that are testable by experiment or observation, and then the hypothesis is modified based on the results. A hypothesis is “an interpretation of a practical situation or condition taken as the ground for action; a supposition or proposed explanation made on the basis of evidence as a starting point for further investigation.”

  Using this metaphor, you are the scientist, and the universe you will be studying is that of your behavior. Your scientific method will be to gather knowledge and collect data regarding your actions; observe and investigate the results you have gotten up to now; formulate hypotheses to modify behavior and predict new results; and then apply your hypotheses to treat your Expectation Hangover. Like a scientist, you will observe your behavior without any judgment; investigate what drives your behavior; hypothesize about and test new behavior; and apply proven methods to motivate self-honoring choices. Okay, that may sound complicated. Don’t stress out if you’re having flashbacks to struggling through high school chemistry — this is going to be much easier and far more satisfying!

  Taking on the role of Scientist moves us into becoming the neutral observer and researcher of our own behavior rather than the critic or the unconscious robot. Putting ourselves under a nonjudgmental microscope of awareness, we become conscious of our unconscious, habitual programming. That is how we see the part of the iceberg that has been below the surface, take steps to dissolve it, and get out of our own way. The Scientist is proactive rather than reactive, seeking to find the truth (rather than blame or justification) in every situation. The Scientist is not attached to any specific outcome, but is open and compelled to observe and study your Expectation Hangover. Changing behavior does take practice; but eventually, with the transformational combination of awareness and action, our behaviors match our conscious intentions, and the insanity stops!

  “I’ve learned the deep satisfaction of taking my well-being into my own hands and seeing results come of my efforts, not just in my physical health, but in my overall life.”

  — Stephen

  Self-Care

  Your first experiment as the Scientist is to observe and modify the way you take care of your well-being on a physical level. You will put your daily habits and coping strategies under a microscope and examine what needs to be changed. Because an Expectation Hangover isn’t life threatening in itself, we often neglect to make major changes to the way we attend to our physical needs. In fact, although our self-care requires closer attention, it is more common to engage in behaviors that are self-sabotaging rather than nurturing.

  We add to our suffering by resorting to the behaviors associated with temporary coping strategies — for example, drinking alcohol for a pick-me-up when it actually does the opposite because it is a depressant. Having just a glass of wine or one drink is going to lower the serotonin levels in your brain. Although you may feel better for an hour or two because you’ve numbed yourself, you will feel even worse the next day because you chemically altered your body in a depleting way. Then we try to pep ourselves up with caffeine; this depletes our adrenal glands, which are already taxed by the stress that comes with an Expectation Hangover. Caffeine is also a stimulant that can affect the quality of your sleep, and you need sleep. Expectation Hangovers can keep us up at night, and when you are not rested, you do not have the mental, emotional, and physical resources you need to treat them effectively.

  What you eat not only impacts you in terms of calories and the way you feel, but also in terms of your relationship to your level of self-care. If you are taking the time and consideration to nourish yourself with healthy things like greens, fresh juices, and organic foods, the message you are sending yourself is “I care so much about you that I am only giving you the best.” That is much different than the message you send when you consume processed food or sugar or, conversely, when you barely eat. Money is similar to food in that it is a necessary part of life (unlike alcohol, recreational drugs, and caffeine, which we can cut out completely), and during an Expectation Hangover you may go into a behavior pattern of either overspending to try and compensate for a lack you feel or intense financial contraction because your insecurities are triggered. Cultivating healthy financial habits during an Expectation Hangover is nourishing to the part of you that wants to feel safe.

  “I was depressed because my dream job wasn’t making me happy — it was making me miserable. I overindulged in food and alcohol, and gained weight. I associated drinking with the freedom and carefree experience of college, and thought that by drinking I could bring those feelings back. It was a form of rebellion that was self-destructive and did nothing to alleviate the Expectation Hangover. Relief from my Expectation Hangover began when I stopped taking actions that were repetitive, destructive, and boring. I learned the importance of taking responsibility for my actions and letting go of self-destructive behaviors.”

  — Lennay

  Continuing to neglect our well-being is a problem because it threatens the part of us that is called our “basic self.” Our basic self is most concerned with our physical survival needs, like food, sleep, and safety. When our basic self feels unnourished and untended to, it unconsciously triggers primal fears of survival that can show up as increased anxiety, sabotaging behaviors, or even a sense of panic. You can think of the basic self as a young child. When her body is well loved, fed, provided for, and rested, she is an angel. However, if her needs are not being met in some very basic ways, she gets upset and acts out.

  This disruption on the level of the basic self leads to common physical symptoms, such as headaches, lack of sleep, weight gain or loss, stomach problems, illness, chronic pain, adrenal burnout, and addictions (to name just a few). Often it’s the very symptoms of an Expectation Hangover that make us just
uncomfortable enough to make behavioral changes that impact our overall health and, consequently, our life.

  Julie was six months into a yearlong commitment at a job she thought she’d love. It turned out the job was nothing like she thought it would be. It was incredibly stressful and crawling with people she did not click with. She would have loved to leave but felt she should stick to her commitment. Julie suffered from headaches and stomach problems. She gained ten pounds; she would have at least one drink at least five nights a week; and she stopped going to the gym. She also slept with her BlackBerry next to her bed and was on it when she first woke up in the morning and, at night, until just before she drifted off to sleep, which was usually restless and brief. Julie justified the drinking by saying she needed stress relief; the eating by saying it was how she rewarded herself; the lack of exercise by saying there was simply no time; and the lack of sleep by saying she had too much work to do. She was scared to ask for a day off and just figured she’d catch up on relaxation at the end of the year. Julie had allowed the Expectation Hangover from her job to trump her physical well-being. And she bought into all her justifications so well that she even forgot how to take care of herself.

  Our mind can find all kinds of ways to justify overdoing, undersleeping, overeating, underexercising, and overspending. We think we need the drink to calm ourselves down; deserve the french fries because we’ve been let down; and can get by on little sleep because we have so much to do. When we step into the role of the Scientist, we examine the negative consequences of our behavior and transition from justifying them to changing them.