Tag: Expectation

Advent 2025: Expectation vs. Reality

(Title image: Photo by Dayne Topkin on Unsplash)

Or, “if at first you don’t succeed…”

I had planned out my Advent to incorporate a return to peace through mindfulness after a particularly difficult year. It wasn’t supposed to be overly involved or unattainable.

As a matter of fact, I figured it would be simple to slide back into staying more present, particularly since we are heading into one of my favorite times of the year. Hourly check-ins, more dedicated meditation time, a concerted effort at staying present all day long and avoiding anxious reactivity—oh, the blissful calm that would flood my life!

Hmmm, this did not go according to plan.
(Photo by Alan Rodriguez on Unsplash)

Instead, none of that happened. I was still running up until bedtime when I’d scramble to meditate. Continuously forgot to set an hourly reminder to return to mindfulness. Found myself being yanked around emotionally. And I didn’t even unpack any of the remaining moving boxes that are sitting around the new apartment.

An entire week of Advent was gone and I felt like I frittered it away. I was expecting to feel a bit more grounded by now, but I’m not even getting a decent night’s sleep.

So, I sat down to take a look at where I ran off the road. And truthfully, I was never even on one.

I stated my intention for Advent in last week’s post…and then aimlessly wandered off into the woods.

This is a good reminder that mindfulness doesn’t happen on its own, no matter how long you’ve been practicing it. By its very definition, it requires attention.

Funny, in order to practice mindfulness, you kinda need to be mindful about it.

This time, I had a brilliant idea: why not actually DO the thing that I planned to do?
(Photo: @FranticShanti)

Enough belly-aching. I brushed myself off, hiked up my pants and did the following: I set a timer. This could have been any sort of timer, but I used the Plum Village smartphone app’s “Bell of Mindfulness” timer, set to ring (well, “bong” actually) once every 20 minutes from 8am to 8am.

It’s a low, soulful tone that rumbles through whatever else I’m doing, while at the same time not sounding intrusive.

When I hear the “bong”, I take a deep breath and notice what that feels like. Quite often, that breath turns into a deep sigh and I realize that my breath before was shallower. So I take a few more deep breaths.

That type of diaphragmatic breathing, into the belly, activates the parasympathetic (“rest and digest”) nervous system, and thereby the relaxation response.

Then I go back to my work until I hear the next “bong” and this process repeats.

By mid-afternoon, I found that I was much more aware of my breath and was breathing deeper during the interval between the bonging. And that was just the first day.

Ahhhh, this was a much better plan than my previous “no-plan” plan. Yes, I was bummed that I hadn’t implemented an actual plan a week ago, but here I am now and it’s working well.

The best part is, you can’t really “fall behind” on being mindful. Unlike where I am with my Advent cheese calendar…

The Bliss of Non-Attachment

(Title image: Photo by PaaZ PG on Unsplash)

So, I have a silly little story about non-attachment.

During Memorial Day weekend, I placed an order with a Maine mushroom company humorously called North Spore. [Note: I am not affiliated with them in any way other than as a customer.]

I ordered two bags of drinking chocolate with functional mushrooms added. While I usually prefer my cacao unsweetened, I was willing to try this as it was a more economical purchase than the orders that I’d placed for “ceremonial grade” cacao. Additionally, I love mushrooms so I considered it a special treat.

I had had several stressful months with no significant break coming up, so I was really looking forward to receiving my package and its delicious contents—a little respite from the tumult that was my life. The package was scheduled to arrive on Saturday, June 7th and you can bet I was tracking its transit via the US Postal Service’s phone app. No matter what kind of a day Saturday turned out to be, I was already imagining enjoying a nice warm cup that evening, making things better in some small way.

Maybe you can see where I’m going with this? I was invested.

Saturday arrived…I received the delivery text…I ran out to our complex’s mailroom. But there was nothing in my mailbox. No package, no key to the larger package holding box, nothing. I groped around inside my mailbox, hoping that maybe I was just blind and the key was actually there. But no.

Frustration!

NOOOOOO!

And it was at that moment, as I was simultaneously (silently) cursing our mail carrier—who has mixed up mailboxes before—and praying that the key had ended up in the box of an honest neighbor, that I was hit square in the face by the suffering that attachment brings.

I had set up an expectation (honestly, a reasonable one), felt into it very deeply, and experienced that ache of having to rip myself away from it when things went in a different direction.

Had I been able to practice non-attachment, I would have taken this in stride. After all, the package was clearly misdelivered and may still show up, and if not, a trip to the post office would follow since I had a tracking number and the shipment was insured. It would have been easier to shake off disappointment because I would not have built up such strong expectations and hung so much on receiving my hot cocoa.

But alas, I am very much an imperfect human being who did a very natural thing in anticipating the arrival of my package, along with expecting the USPS not to louse it up. So after fuming and agonizing over the “unfairness of it all”, I decided to sit with all of this for a while: acknowledging that it made sense for me to look forward to receiving something to brighten my week along with the importance of not beating myself up for doing so; but also cajoling myself into releasing my grip on what I had so wanted as the outcome in addition to stepping back and getting perspective on the situation.

And then I felt better, like a big chunk of tension had been released. It’s not easy being human sometimes.

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I realize that not getting a shipment of drinking chocolate is not a devastating outcome, and yet, even something so relatively insignificant felt like a big letdown in the face of expectation. So then, what about a potentially life-changing outcome? The effect could be brutal enough to upset one’s established foundation. It underscores the clinginess of attachment and when possible why we should strive to soften our need to have things be a certain way.

But What If Everything Goes Right?

(Title image: Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash)

Friends, I am a worrier. You’d be hard-pressed to find something that I wouldn’t worry about.

I know better. And I’ve actually gotten better.

But even with practicing mindful self-awareness, those foreboding thoughts of “what if everything goes wrong” creep in, particularly at night.

Because 2025 is a year of big changes for me, there have been many opportunities to awaken in the darkness, worrying about how this and that can go totally downhill.

A few days ago I was on the same train ride, hurtling through fears, when it hit me that, in the same way that I can imagine everything crashing and burning and my life being miserable and terrifying, I didn’t have to fear the worst. Things could work out.

Call that the “Schrodinger’s Box” philosophy of life. At the same time that things could be awful, they can simultaneously be fabulous—or somewhere along that spectrum. No matter what you’re anticipating, it won’t be until you finish the exam, give the speech, get the biopsy results or have the conversation that you will really know how things turn out.

Fear and avoidance are not the way to go through life.
(Photo by Alexander Grey on Unsplash)

So if you don’t know, you might as well think positively, tempered with a healthy dose of realism. Things are rarely black or white. Just as we shouldn’t be “all negative”, we shouldn’t be “all positive” either.

Ok, so right here I need to backtrack and say a word about “positivity” and “negativity”. When we practice mindfulness, we strive to release expectations, to not attach ourselves to an outcome. Yes, I get that.

That is an ideal. Our minds don’t always allow us this.

But if there is a choice between being morose or upbeat, you are still better off being upbeat. Realistic and upbeat.

I’ve heard people justify constantly being negative by saying that at least they will be “prepared for bad news” so that it’s not a shock. I used to think that too, fearing the precipitous drop in spirit when you’re expecting something good and get something bad instead. But I’m no longer convinced that doom-and-gloom saves you from anything.

Consider the “coward dies a thousand deaths” adage. Perpetual pessimism can lead to all sorts of health issues, mental and otherwise. For example, living in constant fear may result in anxiety, depression and high blood pressure,among other things. And with enough time, those can turn into something worse.

Again, the ‘ideal’ is non-attachment. But if you cannot completely disengage from imagining an outcome, your mind and body will be better served by considering that everything will work out in the end. At least you’ll be able to sleep better at night.

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And what is recognized as the optimal way of thinking? There exists the concept of “short-term realism, long-term optimism”. This means that you take care of the tough stuff in the present, facing challenges head on, but keep your chin up and not lose hope for the future.

Farming ‘Likes’ on Instagram

(Title image: Photo by Chelsea Gates on Unsplash)

I am a reasonably flexible person although I’ve become less so with age and especially following cancer treatment. Yoga asanas that I used to be able to do…well, they don’t come so easily anymore, if at all.

After going through my yoga teacher training in my 50s and now in the middle of an Oncology Yoga (y4c) certification program, I spend a lot of time feeling like an imposter.

There’s an element of shame to this. I tell myself I should be more flexible, I should have better balance, I should be able to hold more advanced poses and for longer.

In my y4c training, the manual referenced a concept, versions of which I’ve seen before and have written about myself, but the message continues to hold true (see this article). The proliferation on social media of young, flexible bodies in extremely inaccessible poses for the vast majority of the population not only hurts the practice, but completely misses the point.

It seems like a lot of images that show up as “yoga” on platforms such as Instagram are part (if not wholly) acrobatics and contortions. But yoga is actually a spiritual practice and only one part of it, the one that is overemphasized in the west, is physical.

POV: You’re a cancer patient and your forward-thinking oncologist suggests that you try yoga to help alleviate some of your side effects. But this is what you think of when you hear “yoga”. What are the chances that you’ll try a yoga class? What are the chances that you’ll even find a yoga class that is appropriate for your current condition? Or will be able to afford one?
(Photo by Wesley Tingey on Unsplash)

And that physical practice is a big money maker. If you doubt that, take a look at how many yoga studios exist in affluent areas, and the dearth of studios in more moderate-to-low valued ones.

Yoga was what helped me through my cancer diagnosis, treatments and beyond. But that yoga was minus the “workout”. My workouts during cancer focused more on rowing and lifting weights rather than Sun Salutations and balance asanas. Yoga was for my mind and spirit, to maintain connection and grounding, to not get lost in my fears and to be grateful for what I had.

This is not to say that it’s not impressive when people post challenging asanas on social media. Some of the wonderful teachers that I have trained with have shared those kinds of posts. It’s natural to want to show off a physical achievement that you’ve worked so hard for. In a way, that’s the whole point of social media posts. And that’s also part of the problem with social media.

Frankly, yoga has become deeply entrenched in the United States as a physical practice and nothing is going to change that now. We can be hopeful that those who dutifully attend yoga class, rolled up mat under the arm, will take the time to understand the depth of this ancient practice. But regardless, the flow of the class still brings peace to the mind in a way that my ‘hardcore’ workouts do not.

There are a lot of people who could benefit greatly from the practice of yoga in all its forms, matching breath to movement and developing a mind-body connection. Cancer patients and survivors are some of those people. But if all they know is that yoga demands extreme flexibility, even hypermobility, and statue-like balance, they will avoid the practice as too advanced and inaccessible to them.

If you are a teacher, please keep that in mind. If you are a potential student, please don’t let social media keep you away from such a beneficial form of exercise for both your body and your mind. And if you are a current practitioner, please dig deeper to understand the roots of yoga to honor the cultural tradition from which it arose. It’s not just for likes on Instagram.

Cancer Took the Magic Away, Mindfulness Brought It Back

(Title image: Photo by Ethan Hoover on Unsplash)

And, no, I’m not talking about casting spells.

But I remember “life before cancer” and it felt different. There was a feeling that there was so much life left to live, so many plans still to execute.

I felt bulletproof. My own primary care doctor was impressed that I’d made it through so many years without ever having a major surgery (or any surgery, for that matter). I was looking foward to my future. My workouts were still tough and vigorous and I felt like I was going to age well.

Most importantly, life had a certain magic to it. It felt multidimensional and filled with possibilities, and even with the challenges that I’d had to face, I had hope that things would always get better.

Then I got hit by the locomotive that is cancer and everything ground to a halt. My world went gray and all those plans that I had for “the rest of my life” fell away as all my energy was focused on surviving the diagnosis, surviving chemo…and I didn’t see much past that.

For quite a while after diagnosis, I’d felt like I’d been tossed out by the side of the road.
(Photo by Sven Brandsma on Unsplash)

Emotionally, my life felt like a void. I was too afraid to even let hope in because of the fear of having it dashed to pieces.

It was like being out in the wilderness and calling for help but receiving none, not even an echo. Spiritually, it was the loneliest that I’d ever been.

I was no longer on the highway of life. I was sitting in the breakdown lane.

Forgive me if this sounds melodramatic. All my ‘anxiety chickens’ had come home to roost, so to speak. And I wasn’t handling it well.

I dragged myself around treatment like this…although about two weeks before my cancer surgery, I had started mindfulness meditation, encouraged by my radiation oncologist who suggested it as a non-pharmaceutical way of dealing with anxiety.

It was that little ‘peep’ of mindfulness that had I clung to, terrified, in the beginning, not really sure whether or not it was helping. But at least it was something warm at a point when I felt cold and abandoned.

I can honestly say that mindfulness and meditation were what gave me back the strength to persevere through tough times.
(Photo by Robin van Holst on Unsplash)

As time went on and I stubbornly refused to miss a day of meditation, that little break in the clouds became bigger. In this case, my obstinance was a blessing. Somewhere in the last almost-eight years, not even sure exactly when, something changed.

The fear and loneliness and bitterness crumbled away. Noticing how things were right now, how beautiful the world was when I chose to appreciate it, helped pull me out of the funk.

In our darkest moment we find our greatest strengths. I wish it weren’t like that, I wish there wasn’t a need to hit lowest lows in order to get the biggest spring back up. But I can say that if my life even before cancer had been easier, I would not have experienced the richness of existence as I do now.

Not everything is okay. In many ways, things are even harder and more frightening. But I can accept that and not feel bitter. My expectations have softened and I pause more often to ground myself, to notice that at this moment, I am safe.

And for this moment, I am at peace.

Take-a-Break Monday

(Title image: Photo by Clem Onojeghuo on Unsplash)

For anyone who’s been wondering, it is true that I did not post last Monday.

There was so much going on at home, including cleaning and prepping for out-of-town guests who were coming in for my eldest child’s university graduation that was taking place over the weekend.

I had so much to do that I knew trying to squeeze out a post would pile on even more pressure on top of what I was already feeling.

At the same time, I have a strong sense of responsibility that keeps me on track with all the things that I need to accomplish. This has been a very good thing that helped me establish a lot of healthy habits.

Can you tell when you’ve got pressure building up? And do you know when to slow down?
(Photo by Wim van ‘t Einde on Unsplash)

However, I’ve been mindfully reconsidering some of the rules that I’ve made for myself. Missing last week’s post was an opportunity to gently relax my stringent requirements for consistency, since what I really needed was a break.

It felt good to give myself permission to release at least one responsibility. And as soon as I made the decision to take a break for that one Monday, I realized how much my overworked self deserved that tiny bit of grace.

It also reminded me of going through chemo. Several infusions in, once the terror of unknown side effects had ebbed, I found myself relaxing into my chemo seat, knowing that chemo gave me an excuse to release all my “shoulds”. Don’t get me wrong, I wanted nothing to do with chemo and couldn’t wait for my treatment to finally be done. But there was also that strange relief that at least I could use the infusions as a reason for people to not expect too much of me.

It wasn’t until very recently that someone asked me whether I had been burned-out even before my cancer diagnosis. I realized that I had been under so much stress at work with responsibilities at home too, that all the anxiety associated with that was only relieved by getting cancer.

Pause. Breathe.
(Photo by Flash Dantz on Unsplash)

“Relieved by getting cancer”!!! What a ridiculous statement, and yet so true and telling. Sometimes we barrel forwards carrying so much responsibility (and, yes, guilt) that we don’t stop to question whether there’s a way to do this without driving ourselves into the ground.

And that, my friends, is why I’m forcing myself to stop pausing from time to time to reevaluate whether my expectations for myself are reasonable. No, that doesn’t mean practicing “deleterious self-care” that can be harmful–for the record, eating half a box of donuts in bed while binge-watching an entire season of a Netflix series does not qualify as true “self-care”, no matter what Instagram is trying to get you to believe.

Rather, I’m noticing where I am applying pressure on myself in a way that ultimately may have negative effects. It’s all about finding a healthy balance.

And so, there was no post last Monday. My hope for you is that you also take a break when it’s beneficial for you to do so. Have a great week!

I Am an Imperfect Yoga Teacher

(Title image: Photo by Cameron Raynes on Unsplash)

A couple of months ago I received an amazing invitation: to teach yoga to cancer survivors at our local Cancer Survivors Day event on June 1st.

What an amazing opportunity! The sole reason that I had gone through yoga teacher training and registered with the Yoga Alliance was to eventually teach cancer survivors. To have this invitation fall into my lap was serendipity at its very finest!

It was also terrifying.

Ever been offered an amazing opportunity and felt like you’re still a little too ‘green’ to handle it?
(Photo by Nagara Oyodo on Unsplash)

My first impulse was to run and hide under the most solid object that I could find. You know, sometimes you have great goals, but you don’t consider what you will do if you actually manage to achieve them. I didn’t feel confident that I was ready for something that had always seemed several years away.

But I still had enought time to prepare for this class. I had taken a specialty 5-hour training on teaching cancer survivors, I had 16 years of maintaining a personal trainer certification with a clinical/academic focus and, importantly, I was a cancer survivor myself. I kinda knew what’s what.

At the same time, I felt a nagging doubt. What if I created a yoga class that people hated? What if someone got injured? What if I couldn’t memorize the sequence, kept stumbling over words or blanked out in the middle of it?

The more I practiced the sequence with friends and family, the more opportunities I had to beat myself up over every time I said “right” instead of “left”. Or said “arm” instead of “hand”. Or anything else that seemed less than perfect. The possibility of looking like a bad teacher and shaming myself opened the door for anxiety to flood my mind.

Nothing quite like thinking you’re not good enough and then proving yourself wrong!
(Photo by Clay Banks on Unsplash)

Eventually, I recognized that I was driving myself nuts with unrealistic expectations. I also realized that this is a bad habit that I’ve fallen into on other occasions too. So I took some time to sit quietly and reflect on what was happening.

I am an imperfect yoga teacher. While I try to mirror movements for my students, I mess up once in a while (mirroring can be really hard!). I might not always use the right word to describe a body part. I might forget to mention a cue and then have to stick the instruction in later. I might even forget whether I forgot to say something!

But when the day came to teach to this amazing group of people, my students followed along without a problem. And you know what? After class, they clapped for me. My heart was so full!

I may be an imperfect yoga teacher but maybe that’s okay.

The Satisfying Pleasure of Letting Go

If you’ve read my last couple of posts (here and here), you’ll know that I’ve been dealing with the frustrations of water leaks, never-ending renovations and unfortunate coincidences.

Hopefully, this will be the third and last installment of the trials and tribulations concerning this situation. But just to catch you up, the cabinets which were supposed to be installed Thursday, not in time for our houseguest’s arrival on Wednesday, but just a day late…were not.

Yet again, there were dashed expectations: one of the cabinets arrived with a crushed side and was unable to be used. So the innards of these cabinets are still piled up on and under the dining table and the place looks disheveled.

When things start blowing up, sometimes all you can do is sit back and enjoy the show.

And due to the completely unrelated construction taking place outside, which will prevent daytime access to our unit for several days, there will be no cabinet installation for at least another week, regardless of when the new cabinets come in.

But you know what? It’s okay.

I had wanted to have everything put together for our guest. That was not possible, so–admittedly after much jaw clenching–I completely let go. The crushed cabinet, the disruptive construction, I’m simply accepting it and that feels so good.

It really doesn’t matter when the cabinets are put up or what other monkey wrenches are thrown into the mix. We’ll get to closure when we get there.

Which is a good thing because on Saturday evening, I discovered another leak in the walls that soaked the new (still unpainted) drywall and flooded out the unit below us. And I’m totally serious. The inside of our hall closet sounded like a rainstorm.

Well, we needed rain…

I guess I could have been more stressed about it, but with everything that had already taken place, I shrugged. We notified out unit owner, we called the plumber, we waited for the leak to be fixed.

Another day, another leak, another disruption, another hole in the drywall. Still okay.

These are still problems that need to be dealt with. But whether it’s skillful mindfulness (probably not) or simply emotional exhaustion (more likely), it’s not getting to me and it feels amazing to stay calm under such circumstances.

I know I cannot avoid stressors in my life. So I’m trying to remember what this feels like. If I can draw on this experience the next time an upheaval occurs, perhaps I can slip into gentle acceptance and let reactive anxiety pass me by?