"Expectation is the Opposite of Relationship." - Stephan Hausner
I'm absolutely blown away by the Family Constellations workshop I just got back from. Today I'm simply integrating three days of Family Constellations lead by veteran facilitator Stephan Hausner.
The quote pictured is a standout from the gathering.
What this points to is that as soon as you create an expectation for a person, you have now created a relationship to that expectation instead of to the person.
When we hold expectations, it's much harder for us to see other people. In expectation, our awareness becomes a filter that hunts for information to either confirm or deny the expectation. We begin categorizing our experience into a simple yes or no. And the side effect of this filtering is that we start ignoring all the information that doesn't fit neatly into either bucket.
Developing a relationship to the expectation is always a movement away from the other person as they are. It's a movement away from authentic connection.
In order to take in the world as it is, we need to actively resist the creation of expectations and developing relationships to these expectations. We need to allow ourselves to not filter our world, and in that process, receive more.
In a sense, I'm saying that we need to actively engage in healing practices. Much of healing can be thought of as a process of expanding outside of our previously held expectations. It’s a process of expanding to allow ourselves to develop new relationships to what's happening around us, within us, and between us.
What's bubbling up for me is that this all leads to why striving for authenticity is so powerful. Another definition for authenticity could be the process of listening to your heart and allowing it to guide you out of expectation. You can never know what your heart will feel at any moment. So simply opening to it and feeling it already gets you out of the trap of expectation and back into life as it is.
The universe is unexpected. The planet is unexpected. Every person you ever met was and is unexpected. This moment is unexpected. Your birth was an unfathomable stroke of luck. You are unexpected.
