What Did You Expect?

Expectation.  

That word says it all.  Through my life I have expected people to come through. To be something that they could, would or God forbid, I think they “should” be.  Only to let them and myself down with this expectation.

I actually have no idea where to begin, I had the thoughts all in my head as to how I could best express to all who read this the most important point, which is to let go of your judgements on people because of what they do and who they are.  Specifically in the world of yoga since that is where my work is.  However the mind bottling thing is that the only reason we have so much expectation about others is because we are judging ourselves for the same thing we are projecting onto other people.

So, where do you begin an article like that, and what do you start to express first?  Here lies the dilemma of which one comes first, how do we approach this?  Well, we, most of us reading this either meditate or practice yoga or stay conscious about our eating habits, etc to address this.  But there we can so quickly run away with the thought that we are living righteously.  But are we?

What is the right way to live? 

What do we expect of the people in our lives, but deeper yet, what do we expect of ourselves?

While dancing my face off one Halloween weekend I was given the opportunity that so often happens when you work in the public eye.  I ran into yoga students, people who had heard about my classes, people who had taken my classes, and people who I had taken classes from as well.  And, even though I was there to party down I suddenly felt a large amount of pressure to act a specific way.  To appear “yogic”, but what on earth does that mean?  All I could think, as I talked to the myriad of individuals was “Oh my God I have whiskey in my hands”  “Did they see me smoking that Cigarette”, “Whew, my skirt is short”, and of course “Am I living a lie?” “Is this really the Yogic lifestyle, maybe I should go home and meditate”. 

Buzzkill.  

There I stood in a sea full of people dressed in wild costumes, drunk or on drugs, dancing wildly and decided that this moment is one of the greatest moments of my life.  Here is where the world of yoga and the “real” world collide for me.

So, I jumped all in, I danced until I stunk, a played hard with my friends and enjoyed the night.  As I pounded my feet on the ground, spinning wildly and bumping into those around me I scanned my memories of this life and I came to the beat stopping obvious thought… we are all on our own personal journey.  Here together to experience the life and the events but to move through it at our own pace. 

What do you expect of your teachers, your peers, and yourself?  In the world of yoga do you expect your teachers to be at home practicing, while you are out playing?  And if you are a teacher, do you have expectations that your students be at home deepening their practice rather than out having a wild night with friends and socializing? 

I remember the first giant let down in yoga… I had placed the expectation on an individual that because of the position they were in, they would be different from the other drama out there in the world.  I was crushed to discover that this person had their own stuff…. Really?!  I had forgotten and given no credit to the fact that we are all human.

Article Published 2011, Yoga Connection Magazine