Don't worry, I'm not going to talk about that "Oh so wonderful book". I've been thinking today about the expectations that we have, that others have for us, and those we have for ourselves. No matter who has them, it is rarely easy to live up to them.
What brought this on? A book (what else?). I was listening to a book as I was driving into work this morning. The heroine was trying to deal with the expectations that her grandmother had for her. Our heroine was not doing a very good job living up to her grandmother's expectations and it was causing family strife.
Sound familiar? Yeah, me too. I had this amazing grandmother growing up. She was a wonderful seamstress and for most of my growing up years, she made most of my clothes. We were a very close family and we spent lots of time with Grandma and Grandpa.
The only fly in this ointment was me. My Grandmother had expected (I believe) a girly-girl granddaughter. Someone she could teach to sew and cook, and go shopping with. Unfortunately, I was a tomboy and could usually be found a half step behind my father or grandfather. Not exactly what Grandma had bargained for. Oh, yeah, I was a 'bit' headstrong as well. The poor lady, she must have thought babies had been switched at birth or something. Here she was expecting a beautiful granddaughter and she ended up stuck with me.
Oh she loved me, make no doubts about that. We just didn't see eye to eye on certain things, and she wanted me to be what she wanted. I, on the other hand, was determined to be who I was and had no interest in all that "Girl stuff".
She had expectations for me that I could never hope of meeting. I guess, I had some expectation for her, that she was unable to meet as well. We ended up at odds a lot!
How much of someone else's expectations do we take on ourselves? When we do take them on, what happens if (and when) we are unable to meet those lofty goals? Well, if your me, you do the exact opposite of what was expected. Then, you internalize that mess of disappointment and use it to berate yourself. It then becomes a self-fulling prophecy. You become the opposite of what is expected of you. Hello extra pounds!
The ironic thing about my grandmother's expectations of me is that I have, in fact, become a lot of what she wanted. Hair, and clothing are not the be all and end all of my life. But I love to cook and bake and love to sew and quilt. By my grandmother's definition, I am now the perfect granddaughter.
We all put expectations and pressure on ourselves and those we love and care about. But really, how much of those get twisted inside the other persons head? Remember, what you say is not what they hear.
I expected to have lost another 20 pounds by Thanksgiving, I'm not going to make that. I was going to go to the gym every day like clock work! My clock seems to be broken.
Maybe we would all be a lot happier, and thinner, if we stopped trying to be the ideal that others (and ourselves) have for us and instead learn to love ourselves as we are.
Honestly, that is the first step in any journey like this. First you have to accept yourself as you are. That is what has given me the strength to move forward. Good bye pounds.
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