You might have noticed that your feelings keep getting hurt in relationships and interactions with people in your life. You feel disrespected, undervalued, ignored, insignificant, like nothing you say or do matters.
If you ARE being disrespected, undervalued, or ignored, then you your feelings are legit and you have some toxic relationships around you. That is handled in a different way. But if you only assuming you are being disrespected, undervalued, or ignore, it might be a problem in your expectations.
Expectations are when I set a standard of how I want to receive communication, feedback, and reactions. It is the level of what I want to get, and it is usually high. And sometimes not realistic. And it is usually secret. Kept just by me so that I can use it as a ruler of whether someone actually loves or respects me. Sound familiar? Read on.
Expectations will trip you up. They will make you try, sentence, and execute someone for something they didn’t know they did. We like the secret feeling of control as we are the judge, jury, and executioner in our own little court of other’s behaviors. Doesn’t sound healthy, does it? So, what would be a way to identify and deal with these thought patterns and processes that make my relationships harder than they need to be?
Identify Your Expectations
First, take some time to chart out your thought process when you get your feelings hurt. Something like this table will help you take some notes.
| When I say/do… | I expect… | When I hear/see… | I feel… |
Evaluate Your Expectations
The list that results should help you see what you are expecting, how you are hoping to be treated. It will also give you the chance to ask “Are these expectations realistic?”
- Notice if you are holding certain people to higher standards than others
- Notice if you are interpreting their behavior unfairly
- Notice if you are enjoying the “victim” mentality
- Notice if you use your feelings as an excuse for a pity party
Our need for approval, acceptance, and affirmation can drive us to twist and misinterpret the way others relate to us. We will hyper-scrutinize their words and actions to the point that we determine they insulted us, hurt us deeply, or scarred us for life in an overly dramatic interpretation of their legit or normal words or treatment.
Adjust Your Expectations
If you have found that your expectations or demands on how others treat you is out of whack, you can work on YOUR side of the equation.
- If your expectations are unrealistically high, lower them. Demand less.
- If you wrongly interpret people’s words and actions, ask them what they mean.
- If you judge people by your ability to mindread them, stop and let them own their own opinions. Ask for clarification and ACCEPT it.
In each case, ask yourself “Are they intentionally being mean, harsh, disrespectful, or is that my interpretation?” You may want effusive praise, gushing adoration, or torrents of affirming words and actions. That might not be that other person’s style or manner. Their love language might not match yours. Their simple “Thank you, I appreciate that” might be the highest anyone will get out of them. Their “Good job” might mean more to them when they say it than what you hear. Work towards crediting them, their words, their behaviors, with a greater power to give you the feedback you need. You may never get the quantity of over-the-top praise that we only see in our dreams and fantasies.
The White Book wisely tells us that in relationship conflicts, there is always something that is wrong in us. There is always something we can work on to fix our own expectations, our fantasy-driven hopes, our overly needy emotional demands. As we fix those, we may find that we can be content and at peace with the interactions we have when we interpret them correctly.