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“You’re braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”
— A. A. Milne
Now that you are beginning to reorient yourself from the inside out rather than the outside in, you are ready to dive into your treatment plan. The most effective prescription tool I have developed to respond to Expectation Hangovers holistically is called “role-playing Rx.” This method uses the metaphor of a familiar role — one whose basic activities, mind-set, and skills you’re acquainted with — to help you understand how to do things that may be unfamiliar to you.
Most of us need a picture we can relate to, to help us transform our emotions, thoughts, behavior, and relationship with a Higher Power. Stepping into familiar roles with new viewpoints and strategies is an effective way to gain altitude on situations where we feel highly charged. Role-playing Rx will also allow you to think more creatively and use your right brain more, thereby giving your rational, analytical left brain a rest.
Throughout this treatment plan, I will also be sharing “transformational truths,” which are principles that will reduce the severity and length of your Expectation Hangovers. These truths will help you perceive your disappointment in a way that assists you in moving through it faster. We all know that being “book smart” means being able to succeed scholastically, which creates external results. But being book smart only gets us so far, and, as a 4.0 student, I can attest that it definitely does not prevent disappointment. In order to be life smart, we must see beyond the illusions of our judgments and conditioning by keeping these transformational truths in mind.
We get so caught up in the disappointment of our Expectation Hangovers that possibilities pass us by. We waste time on mindless activities, like tweeting while stuck in traffic, gossiping, and making to-do lists that really aren’t helping us do much. We stuff our schedule with fillers rather than spending time on things that are truly fulfilling. We rely on ineffective coping strategies. We complain about our outer circumstances because we forget we have the power to change our inner experience at any time.
The techniques in part 2 are all about actualizing your potential by committing to no longer settling for mediocrity or complacency. It is time to milk your Expectation Hangover for all it’s worth rather than wallowing in it. As your coach, I am enthusiastically calling you forward and offering you new tools to deal with old emotions, thoughts, and patterns. It’s actually quite easy to leverage your disappointment in a way that supports you in optimizing your potential, but it requires commitment on your part. Challenge yourself. Do things that push you out of your comfort zone — change never occurs within the walls of your comfort zone. Commit to learning new things. Develop skills that do not come naturally to you. Treating your Expectation Hangovers is not about changing your reality, but about changing your reaction and responses to it so that true transformation occurs.
“The walls we build around us to keep sadness out also keep out the joy.”
— Jim Rohn
An Expectation Hangover catalyzes and magnifies feelings that most of us would identify as undesirable. (From my perspective, there are no “positive” or “negative” emotions, but for the sake of clarity I will use those words in this chapter to describe the feelings we desire more and the feelings we desire less, respectively.) Since no one enjoys feeling bad, the immediate impulse is to get out of the negative feeling as soon as possible instead of fully experiencing it. This is because we do not know how to manage our feelings in a way that leads to healing through expression, understanding, compassion, and forgiveness. Plus, we often consider strong emotions to be dangerous territory — we’re afraid they’ll move us closer to being crazy, hysterical, or losing control.
We try to put distance between ourselves and our emotions in all sorts of ways. We overthink or overanalyze our feelings, to stay in our minds. We deny the emotions we don’t want to experience by pretending we are “FINE” (Feelings Inside Not Expressed). We throw ourselves pity parties and become victims. We numb ourselves with behaviors, sometimes to the extent that they become addictions. We criticize and judge ourselves, or blame or judge others. But avoiding feelings pushes them below the surface of our consciousness, where they continue to do damage. And the harder we try to avoid feelings, the deeper we push them. This can lead to unhealthy thoughts and behaviors, and even to illness.
The human experience is all about contrast: yin/yang, male/female, light/dark, joy/sorrow. Every dark emotion has a light side; and in order to fully experience the light, we must journey through the darkness. If we stop resisting, we can find unexpected insights and gifts in the darkness. We know joy because we understand sadness. We know peace because we understand anger. We know compassion because we understand shame. Remember, we are not one-dimensional beings — we are here to experience the full range of emotions.
PATRICIA’S STORY
After being laid off due to corporate downsizing, I decided to travel abroad to fulfill a lifelong dream of immersing myself in another culture while also escaping the uncertainty I felt from not having a job for the first time in twenty years. I had anticipated that traveling would be enlightening and exotically romantic. The reality was far lonelier and more disillusioning than I ever could have imagined. However, physically removing myself from the constant hustle and obligations of home was like an “out-of-life” experience — I had the opportunity to view my life from a fresh angle, to pause from the go-go-go and take stock.
Pausing was not something I was used to. Within thirty-six hours my world had become quiet — and I felt like a junkie going through detox. Long-suppressed emotions bubbled to the surface. The lid came off of feelings that had been ignored for decades. Some days I was overwhelmed by anger, sadness, hurt, and anxiety. My stomach would be in knots, and I would lose my appetite. The hardest part was dealing with the shock of how lonely and sad I felt after finally realizing my lifelong globe-trotting dreams. I did not anticipate that all the internal issues I was trying to run away from would follow me halfway across the world. I had no choice but, for the first time in my life, to allow my feelings to breathe. I gave them space, I sat with them, and I honored them. I found the courage to be vulnerable. Often I was terrified of what I would feel, but my feelings were grateful for permission to express themselves.
Some days I would come home from a good run and just sit and cry. It was an incredible release. I discovered a lot of compassion for myself. I did a lot of writing. I set off on my adventure with the intention of writing a travel blog while I was overseas, but I mostly wrote about things I had struggled with back home. I actually had enough time to process everything and enough perspective to begin to make sense of it. I returned home with a six-hundred-page non-travel, feeling blog.
The biggest lesson from my Expectation Hangover was that the most effective route to the other side of pain is through it. I had put so much effort into avoiding yucky emotions — by numbing, suppressing, ignoring, and not having time for them — that I was also cutting myself off from feeling joyful, inspired, and alive. It is now crystal clear to me that no matter how extremely you change your external circumstances — even if you wake up every morning sipping Turkish tea as the sun rises over the Bosporus — ultimately, you need to embrace your own truth and love your sadness if you truly want to be happy. Knowing that happiness cannot be found outside of me has radically shifted my expectations and helped me realize the limitations of changing my external life. I am grateful that I had the courage to actually feel my pain because now, even as an unemployed, single, forty something, I am actually happier than I have ever been before.