Judger. If you’ve adopted this strategy, you have an opinion about everything and everyone. You are highly skeptical and need things proved to you before you trust. You judge yourself harshly, protecting yourself by being much harder on yourself than anyone else could be. Your expectations are extremely high. You tell yourself that judging is a wise thing to do because it is important to think things through. You talk about things far more frequently than you actually do them, and you tend to err on the pessimistic side. Gossip may be something you find yourself indulging in. This strategy comes from growing up in a very fear-based, expectation-heavy environment where nothing was trusted until it was evaluated. People with very strong opinions and negativity surrounded you.
EXERCISE
Researching Your Compensatory Strategy
Now that you’ve read about compensatory strategies, it is time to put yourself under the microscope again. Remember to stay in Scientist mode and come from the neutral place of research so you can gather a clearer, more comprehensive understanding of what drives your behavior. Judging or over-analyzing your compensatory strategy is not necessary. When you feel you are in research mode, move through the following steps, answering each question in your journal.
“My self-worth was wrapped up in being able to make other people feel good. I was always the kid who could make everyone else laugh or was put on the spot to entertain people. I was called the ‘funny’ one and the ‘people person.’ I remember, as a little boy, wanting to grow up and have a job where I didn’t feel so much pressure to be ‘on’ all the time. I ended up going into sales because I was always told I had the personality for it; however, I actually hate it. I am learning now that my worth is not rolled up in making other people feel a certain way and I deserve to make myself happy first.”
— Adam
1.Identify your primary compensatory strategy. Choose from one listed in this chapter or name your own.
2.Describe the development of your compensatory strategy. What happened to you that made you feel inferior, unsafe, or unworthy? Or what happened that made you feel so loved and rewarded that you decided you must do it all the time to continue to feel that way?
3.Describe the ways your compensatory strategy has driven your behavior. What actions have you engaged in as a result of using this strategy?
4.List the payoffs of your compensatory strategy. What has it helped you accomplish? What positive experiences has it created?
5.List the costs of your compensatory strategy. How has it hindered you? In what ways has it depleted you?
6.How has your compensatory strategy contributed to your Expectation Hangover?
YOUR SUPERPOWERS
“We must have the daring to be nothing but ourselves if we are to know what true power is.”
— Danielle LaPorte
You are now entering into the part of your research experiment that is my favorite part, which is discovering the qualities that make you uniquely you. “Qualities” are the natural characteristics that make you who you truly are, whereas the compensatory strategies we’ve been discussing were developed so you could be who you thought you needed to be.
You were born with these qualities. They were not created from a place of lack or fear. I call these qualities your “superpowers.” When you know who you are, you are inspired to act from that place rather than from your compensatory strategies, and that creates superpowerful results!
As you research your superpowers, make the Scientist eccentric, playful, and imaginative, like Emmett “Doc” Brown in Back to the Future. This Scientist will go back in time to detect the unique superpowers that will drive future behavior. Begin by bringing to mind something that you absolutely love doing. When you do this thing, time stops, and you are fully present. Maybe it is painting, dancing, being with your family, cooking, singing, shopping, being in nature, or writing. You can also ask yourself, “What fascinates me?” This question is very different from “What am I good at?” Here is the key: what is important is not the activity, but rather the qualities that come out in you while you are doing it.
“For someone who had been an overachiever his whole life, this idea of love that you didn’t have to earn with accolades was very powerful and transformative for me. I drew a line between others’ somewhat insane expectations of me and my own expectations of me. And I stepped into things about me I love that were not always acknowledged, like my snarky sense of humor and creativity. I now focus on what I expect of me, which is to put my God-given talents to good use.”
— Jimmy
For example, I love facilitating workshops, coaching people, speaking, and writing. When I’m doing those things, I am compassionate, inspired, creative, authentic, playful, giving, present, wise, intuitive, nurturing, and loving. Those are my superpowers, the qualities that make me uniquely who I am. When I tap into those superpowers and take action based on them, I create superpowerful results in the form of retreats, speeches, courses, books, and so on. It is not my overachieving compensatory strategy that is driving me to produce those results. Rather it is my superpowers that are inspiring me to create experiences that are deeply fulfilling. (Even though I’ve described activities tied to my career, these aren’t the only activities I love or that bring out my superpowers. I also love being with my nephews, and whenever I am, the same qualities come forward.)
EXERCISE
Claiming Your Superpowers (and an Extra-Credit Assignment)
Bring to mind several things you love doing or experiences you have had that you have thoroughly enjoyed. You do not have to pick something that is tied to a job. List all the qualities that emerge when you are engaged in something you love. Look for qualities that occur across multiple experiences. Choose five to ten of the most consistent and enlivening qualities and name them your superpowers.
For extra credit: Design a superhero outfit that represents your number one superpower. And then go out in public in your outfit. Now, you may think this is completely silly, but going out in your superhero outfit dissolves your compensatory strategy by giving you the experience of fully stepping into your superpower. I, of course, have one too! My top superpower is intuition because when I am tapped into it, I am also connected to my other top qualities. I have a purple cape with a big eye on the back of it, which represents the third eye. I also cover myself in glitter and sparkles, which makes me feel magical. I carry a wand and grant wishes for others, as helping people is a great joy of mine. If you choose to take on this extra-credit assignment, please post a picture of your costume on my Facebook page (www.facebook.com/christinehasslerpage) — I’d love to celebrate and acknowledge your superpowers!
Remember Kate, the stressed-out vice president who began observing her behavior after she outed herself as a workaholic? Once she realized that her whole career was motivated by the compensatory strategies of high achieving and approval seeking, she embarked on a soul search to discover her superpowers. Kate was able to see how her inner and outer behaviors were affecting the lack of connection she felt, including a lack of connection with herself: “I had reached a level of success that few of my friends had seen, and so I felt a bit lonely and alienated. I also started to form an unhealthy ‘better than / less than’ comparison game, which served as a defense mechanism until I realized that it was keeping me separate from what I really wanted, which was connection with others.”
The qualities she found within that lit her up were joy, love, creativity, and service. She knew that her big corporate job was not in alignment with her superpowers. So she made the big, scary leap out of the corporate world to pursue her heartfelt calling of being of service to humanity in the form of beginning her own network (Synergy TV). Kate says, “I have learned to overcome an Expectation Hangover by just showing up and doing what I love. I used to sell horror movies, and now I promote inspirational stories while sharing my own path of transformation. I had to see what I wasn’t to know what I am.”
When you replace your compensatory
strategy with your superpowers, it will not only support the actions you take when treating your Expectation Hangover, but also become the very thing that informs your choices on the behavioral level from that point forward. The formula that inspires behavior, rather than driving it, looks like this:
Superpowers Inspiration Result Fulfillment
Use your superpowers to give yourself the very thing the compensatory strategy has been yearning for. For instance, if it has been seeking approval and validation, give yourself those things by stepping into qualities like self-compassion and acceptance. If you long to be taken care of, amp up your level of self-care by embodying qualities like nurturing and loving. If you thrived on making others happy, make yourself happy first by embracing joy. When you give yourself internally the experience you were looking for externally, you will decrease the symptoms of your Expectation Hangover because you will have no expectations of anyone or anything else.
When you are aware of, and have tapped into, your superpowers, there is nothing to compensate for. And you have your Expectation Hangover to thank for this amazing scientific discovery! Now your assignment as the Scientist is to go into observation mode when it comes to your behavior. Before you make a choice or take an action, investigate whether you are being driven by your compensatory strategy or inspired by your superpowers.
Being inspired is much different than being driven, or even motivated. Inspire means “to draw forth or bring out and to exert an animating, enlivening, or exalting influence.” It contains the Latin root spirare, which means “to breathe,” so you can think of being inspired as breathing life into something. Ah…Doesn’t that feel so much better than trying to compensate for something?
Take a deep sigh of relief. Your compensatory strategy no longer needs to drive you. It has gotten you this far; thank it and instruct it to sit in the passenger seat so that the skills it brings to the table that are still useful can give direction when you request it. Your superpowers are driving the car now.
TRANSFORMATIONAL TRUTH
You Can Have Anything You Want — but Maybe Not in the Package You Expected
What we are really craving when we want something are the experiences and feelings we presume we will get from what we desire. But often we are so obsessed with the form that we forget what is at the root of our desire and miss out on how we could have the essence of what we want right now.
Perhaps your spouse is consistently disappointing you, and you think that if they would only do the things you expect of them, you would feel more loved. You are likely missing out on all the ways they are demonstrating their love to you, and depriving yourself of feeling loved by them. Or maybe because you are obsessing about needing more money, you do not see all the ways you are already abundant, such as in health, helpful people, and opportunities. Attachment to the rules we make about how things “should” look creates tunnel vision, blind spots, and lots of unnecessary suffering!
Take a moment to look around the room and notice everything that is blue. Really look for all shades of blue and create a mental list of the things you see: maybe the sky through your window, a shade of blue on a pillow, the blue in a painting — wherever the color may be. Now, after you read the next question, it is very important to close your eyes immediately. No cheating! When you’re done, open your eyes and come back to reading. Here is the question: Can you list all the things in the room that are green?
Now look around the room and see how much green you did not remember seeing because you were attached to seeing blue. All those blue things you are obsessed with finding or having are making you blue!
Ask yourself what fantasies you have conjured up about what your life is “supposed” to look like. To attract more of what you desire, let go of your attachment to the form by replacing expectations of specific outcomes with the feelings and experiences you long for. For example, if you are miserable in your career, write a list of all the things a future dream job will provide in terms of what you would be experiencing and feeling. These things may include feeling you are using your gifts, a sense of giving back or making a difference, being creative, or working with people you enjoy being around. Instead of being attached to a future job that generates those things, become actively involved in generating them now. Step into your superpowers by going beyond your job description; give back by volunteering; create new projects or hobbies; or join a sport or class where you are part of a team.
Consider what you are not attracting into your life because you are overly attached to the package you’d like it to come in. Don’t be shortsighted and stubborn when it comes to the way your happiness is packaged. Be open to being pleasantly surprised!
AVOIDANCE TRAPS
“Right now you are one choice away from a new beginning — one that leads you toward becoming the fullest human being you can be.”
— Oprah Winfrey
Now that you have reclaimed your superpowers, you probably feel ready to go out and conquer the world, which is wonderful! But before you throw on your cape, I would be remiss if I did not warn you about a trap you may fall into — the avoidance trap. I have noticed that people spend a lot of time talking about what they want to move toward, but they invest a lot more time and energy avoiding what they want to move away from. Any choice we make or action we take is moving us either toward something we want or away from something we don’t want. Whatever Expectation Hangover you are treating now probably is not the first one you have ever had. You have been disappointed before. The more painful the Expectation Hangover was, the stronger the vow you made to avoid feeling like that ever again. Over time this vow has motivated a lot of “away from” actions that have led you to fall right into an avoidance trap.
For example, I experienced a lot of rejection during years of feeling left out and a series of unrequited crushes. Consequently, despite wanting to be “out there” in my personal and professional life, I would do whatever I could to move away from rejection. I took fewer risks, kept to myself, rarely flirted, played it safe in my career, and did not pursue friendships because of the fear of being shot down.
Jacob’s avoidance trap came from feeling insecure. He grew up in a military family and moved almost every year. Not only did he feel self-conscious every time he had to enter a new school, but he also was never in a home or city long enough to feel secure there. As he got older, moving away from anything that felt insecure or impermanent motivated his actions. He went to college, got a job at a company, and bought a house. Nearly seventeen years later, when he came to see me because of his Expectation Hangover about his life being unfulfilling, he was still living in the same house and had the same job. He felt secure but knew he was not living up to his full potential. Jacob was aware that creativity was his key superpower, and he always dreamed of pursuing his love of music and possibly moving to Nashville; but his fear of insecurity kept him exactly where he was — in an avoidance trap.
Other common reasons for falling into avoidance traps include fear of the following: feeling out of control, uncertainty, abandonment, intimacy, vulnerability, disappointing others, and being judged. None of those things are desirable experiences, and I can appreciate why anyone would want to avoid them. We think we are keeping ourselves safe and avoiding pain, but avoidance traps become just that — traps! They keep us from moving toward the feelings and experiences we actually do want, and our superhero costume continues to collect dust in the closet.
EXERCISE
Escaping Your Avoidance Trap
Think of this process as a rescue ladder out of your avoidance trap. As you move through the following steps, answer each question in your journal and capture any insights that arise.
1.Determine what your particular avoidance trap is. What feeling or situation do you not want to experience? What will you do almost anything to avoid?
2.Identify what you are missing out on when you’re avoiding the thing you fear. In other words, what is your avoidance trap preventing you from doing? Ho
w is it limiting you? What is the cost of your trap? Is it preventing you from taking risks, doing what you truly want, being vulnerable, engaging in intimate relationships, or going after your dreams?
3.Reason with yourself. Now it’s time to get into Scientist mode and have a logical, practical conversation with yourself. Evaluate whether the payoff of avoidance (the benefit of avoiding the feeling or situation you identified in step 1) is greater than its cost (what it is preventing you from doing, as you identified in step 2). Is avoiding disappointing someone else a better investment than speaking your truth? Is avoiding uncertainty worth not pursuing your greatest dreams? The answer should be a crystal-clear no. Realize the absurdity of your avoidance trap so you are inspired to get out of it.
4.Take a baby step. Once you realize what your avoidance trap is and what it is costing you, take action. Don’t just think of what you want; take an action step toward it. Write down what you are committing to and when you will start moving toward it. Choose something you would not have done in the past because you were too busy trying to avoid something. For example, apply for a job you want. Ask your crush out on a date. And remember, this does not have to be a big, dramatic step — just one baby step at a time will eventually lead to larger leaps of faith.
YOUR CORE VALUES
Expectation Hangover Page 15