Good Morning!

It’s been an interesting week of awareness, particularly in the areas of expectation, denial and projection. I don’t know about you but just saying those words I sense a weight or a heavy feeling in or around my body. You may feel it the same or you may not and both are ok. I have been looking at living my life with less resistance and reaction and although I am far from perfect I have been able to detach enough a good deal of the time to be more of an observer of the human experience. I was able to see someone spinning out and offer a hand, but also have the awareness that they were not willing to take it and I didn’t take it on as my own issue.

However, it wasn’t that long ago that I refused to see anything. I was deep in the blame game and I was in huge denial about where I was inviting the very things into my life that brought up all of the unresolved feelings of worthiness, shame, regret and guilt.  I had huge expectations of myself and everyone I had a relationship with and I judged them all for not meeting my expectations. I projected my feelings of worthlessness and I denied that I had any control over changing where I was in my life, but man I put on a great act of having my shit together.

The biggest and perhaps the most damaging expectations I had were of myself. I decided very young that I was going to be the goto person, the handler if you will. Yup, I was going to help anyone and everyone who needed it. I could sense that people were hurting and I was going to “fix them” and when I couldn’t I decided I wasn’t good enough. By the time I was 17 I was married and pregnant with my first child. My first marriage didn’t last long, 10 months in total. He was a very tortured soul and I loved him dearly, but after a string of incidents ending with him burning out our apartment after passing out high, I made the tough decision to end the marriage. The crazy part was I had expected that a person with substance abuse would love me enough to choose us over the booze and drugs. I was able to live up to the expectations put on me so why couldn’t he? Oh, man was I in denial.

He taught me a big lesson in projection and I was the unwilling receiver. He put the whole marriage failure on me and somehow I knew to just let it go, for the most part. I say that because even that gets heavy. I did, however, speak up and defend myself to a few people, the ones who didn’t know me. Duh

My second and current marriage has been chocked full of lessons. We have laughed, loved, cried and hated each other. We have been each other’s best friend and worst enemy at times. We have cycled through expectation, denial and projection dozens of times over the years and it has been hard for me. I once again hoped that if I loved him enough, if I was good enough he could change himself just as I had. Then, one day I had the awareness that he didn’t want to change, shit I was furious. I went into all of the stuff, you know, he was wrong and he doesn’t care and he, he, he, he… I did that for years! To be honest, I still catch myself, and that is the difference. I am now aware that he is what he knows and that is what he is doing or being. I am me, and I get to choose how I perceive him and how I respond, rather than reacting to what is going on with him. I don’t pretend to know what he is doing. I am trying to change my expectations into asks, my denial into awareness and compassion and to ditch the projections all together.

I am blessed that I have had this time with him to experience all of the stuff I chose to experience. What lessons will come in the future, who knows, but I will continue to share as I go along this wonderful, magical creation I call my life.

Ease, Awareness and Prosperity,

Wanda