Revealing the Invisible

Shedding Expectations, Moving with Intentions

A few months ago, at a session in the Bioneers conference, the panelists were asked, “What skills, wisdom and capacities do we need to grow to live the future we want to see within 40 years?”

I love this question! (And I hope my Substack always speaks to this question.) There are so many things I could say, and today, I want to focus on the wisdom to shift from expectations to intentions. It is such a simple little thing, and yet, the more I work with leaders, organizations, and communities of all kinds, the more I see the dangerous results of operating with expectations and the profound openings that happen when we slow down and move with intentions instead.

I actually feel the difference in texture between the two. Expectations come with a rigidity and an invisibility. They usually lay beneath the surface, unseen and unvoiced. They pretend to be ‘objective’, when they are often a fabrication of the mind, constructed like unyielding stone. Intentions, on the other hand, call forth light and flexibility. They are a guide, like the North Star, offering many paths to travel to reach a destination. By invoking both purpose and clarity, intentions signal grounding and simultaneously engage with emergence.

Remember that story where people are stumbling around in the dark and they come across something? And one says, “It’s a hose,” and another says, “It’s a broom,” and another says, “It’s a fan,” and so on, and it turns out that it’s actually an elephant? Each person was just touching a different part of the creature (the trunk, the tail, the ear) and missing the whole. That’s what expectations are like in my experience. Just add in a good dose of belligerence, a certainty that everyone else is wrong but you, and an unwillingness to turn on the lights.

I am thinking back to so many relationships and situations in my life where I didn’t name or check my expectations, and how they ultimately resulted in so much pain for me and for others. I desired something – a process, an outcome, a way of being, a kind of connection – and I didn’t explicitly share it, because I assumed the other person or people already understood the same thing. Of course, they didn’t behave in ways that reflected my (unspoken) understanding. So, I would get frustrated and feel let down and want to blame them or myself, for not getting to where I wanted to go.

Many decades ago, I remember this coming up in my relationship with my dear sister-in-law. When my brother got married, I expected that she and I would be best friends, that we would make fun of my brother and gang up on him, and be vulnerable and free with each other. That was my story of what ‘sister-in-law’ meant. When that didn’t happen, I alternately judged myself and/or blamed her, felt sad and disappointed, and distanced myself in our relationship. It took me many years to realize that I was operating with expectations. Our relationship wasn’t based on what was there but rather on a fantasy I created. (Healing fantasies are actually fantasies, you know.) I hadn’t stopped to consider that she grew up in a different place and time, and she might have a different idea of what a ‘sister-in-law’ would be. Caught up in my expectations, I missed who she actually was for far too long, missed sharing myself fully, and missed building the relationship we could have had. I’m grateful that I shook myself out of it (eventually) and released the expectations. Now, I move forward with intentions when I interact with her, as in: I intend to listen, to connect, to be open and kind and curious, to relax and have fun, to be present to what emerges. It makes our time together so much more authentic and free for me (and hopefully for her, too).

When I move with intentions, I meet people as I want to meet them, putting into the relationship what I want to bring to it. Then, I am listening for what is possible in our co-creation and adjusting accordingly. Different kinds of vulnerability express in each relationship, and intentions let me be present to the particularly unique expression this relationship is. On the other hand, when I operate with expectations, I am waiting for people to meet me as I want. I am deep in my healing fantasy, making up a story or comparing this relationship to other ones, which means I am not present to what is. It’s a total set-up, and usually I am the one who loses out.

When I am lucky and smart(er), I slow down and look at my expectations. I see that the person or people in the situation cannot read my mind and didn’t agree to what it was I wanted — much less that they even knew what it was in the first place. Rather, I was imposing a story on them, projecting an expectation, which they didn’t stand a chance of actually meeting.

Unvoiced, invisible expectations are at the root of so much conflict that I experience, either directly or indirectly. Just ask my beloved, Austin, about how often it comes up between us, around household work or how we engage our social time — when I assume he sees things the same way I do and will act accordingly. Big mistake.

And this mis-step does not just appear in one-on-one relationships. I see it happen in organizations, social enterprises, co-ops, and communities. Unchecked, un-agreed upon expectations lead to breakdown. It showed up with a group I was working with last year. They were an intentional community that had grown quickly during the pandemic and were struggling with changing their overall culture. The leadership wanted to bring new residents in, and so I asked them: Have they made their community agreements clear? And, first, are they all in agreement about their agreements? What implicit expectations do they have, and can those either become more explicit as agreements, and/or can they transform into personal and collective intentions? This process of revealing our expectations asks for much more slowing down and mindfulness than any of us are really accustomed to. And, yet, unless I and we check out my/our expectations, and dialogue about them with the people involved, they will come back around and bite me/us in the backside.

I find that whenever I introduce this piece in a group, there are several aha-s in the room. It usually dawns on people like: Have I been having unvocalized, unchecked expectations of someone or something? Have they been contributing to conflicts/ disagreements/ missed understandings between or among us? Have I ever shared my true intentions — what I am there for — with others? Have I invited and listened to their intentions? Without that sharing and listening, how will we know how to support each other with our intentions?

Of course, they say that the road to hell is paved with good intentions, and so I think it’s just as important to share what those are with each other and check them out together, too. Unvoiced intentions are a little less dangerous because they are more on me, and yet, if I want to co-create with others, it’s far easier if we know what everyone is coming into the proverbial room with. Honestly, when building conscious containers with communities, I find so much relief comes in when people hear each other’s intentions and make visible their own. This exchange of intentions is complemented by grounding, agreements, introductions, ‘I’ language, and listening. With all of these elements together, we can set a powerful foundation for community learning and action. We have something to stand upon when inevitable conflicts arrive. And, I have seen how such a small shift, from invisible expectations to vocalized intentions, can both heal existing conflicts and prevent future ones.

Given all of this, what do I do when I realize I was operating in a relationship or situation with unchecked expectations?

Here is where I distinguish between making excuses and having self-compassion. I can be honest when I am compassionate to myself. When I realize I have been projecting my expectations, I have to name honestly what I wanted, what I hoped, what I meant to do/see/experience, and also acknowledge that it didn't work out. I try to offer myself compassion and learn more about myself from my experience. I can also learn more about the other people involved, by noticing how my assumptions and projections were a set-up for them and a block to our authentic relationship and understanding. As in the example above with my sister-in-law, this compassionate reckoning gives me a pathway to change.

I think when I am making excuses, I don't want to feel what I feel. The shame, the guilt, I am trying to push those away and work from my mind and justify why things happened this way. When I am practicing self-compassion and self-forgiveness, I am embracing the shame and guilt and say to myself, “Hey, I see you. I made a mistake, a misstep, and I am willing to acknowledge that and feel what I feel for it.” And then I can offer myself some healing energy: “I can learn from this, I can grow. I can let my heart get bigger and expand from here, instead of contracting, because that's what compassion and forgiveness and learning do. They help me get bigger instead of shrinking from shame.”

I then ask myself, “What could I do next time to slow down with my expectations? Could I check them out and see if there is agreement on them? And/or transform them into intentions instead?” The simplest thing is to take them out of the shadow of my mind and bring them into the light of day. If I put my expectations on paper and look them in the eye, then I can invite in the support I need to find my way to meeting them. At the very least, I can also see if the people around me agree with what I am asking of them. If not, we’re not going to get very far together.

I want to invite you to join me in developing this wisdom and skill. I know when I practice in a community, I get stronger. I become more conscious and am more actively making that future world right now, in each moment. Maybe shifting from expectations to intentions can be like a chiropractic adjustment, a brrrrrruppp our spines to alignment. Maybe it can be a North Star for relationships and communities. Or, maybe it can be as simple as turning on the lights and seeing the whole elephant.

What expectations are you ready to shed and/or convert into intentions? I would love to hear your own stories. Please share in the comments.