The biggest heartbreak I ever had, originated from my expectations.

Did you know that we tend to put ourselves on the stage and imagine that we get the attention of other people?

Social psychology proved that we don’t get as much attention as we imagine we do. Also, it proved that for us doesn’t matter what other people see or think about us but what we imagine they see or feel.

Interesting, isn’t it?

With these two statements in mind, I wrote the story today. It is about how expectations I crafted in my mind gave me the biggest disappointments in life. And is also about how those heartbreaks pinned me into a victim seat for some time.

The suffering I experienced in my life mainly came from the incongruence between what I imagined other people think and their blunt and personal opinion, or between what I imagined other people want (many times the same things I wanted) or need and what they really wanted or needed.

Dream vs. reality

I was dreaming. Daydreaming. Imagine I live the perfect life: ocean house, perfect love relationship, perfect job aligned to my higher purpose, ideal self-relationship, family, friends and community impact, amazing playful kids… all the staff a Hollywood movie would set the standard for.

The reality though was slightly different: a regular job, a typical house in a Romanian city, a good relationship both with my husband and myself, family, friends, books, school, learning, and teaching. No ocean and no waves except for holiday time, too less time to travel and it depends on the number of days off. Job partially aligned with my higher purpose, spending a lot of time in self-discovery, understanding, and finding the way to materialize that perfect life. Busy. Too less time to enjoy what life had to offer.

The victim seat in the first row: is reserved!

Before this reality check, I used to feel like a fallen angel when I was done dreaming. I found myself in a reality that wasn’t the dream and started complaining about it. I booked the victim seat in the first row with this recipe. I was focusing on WHY, and WHAT was missing, I had a handful of excuses. The conclusion was that’s not what will happen anyway, but it was a good dream. And I was coming back to my activities feeling sometimes hopeless, other times helpless, or just saying to myself, get over it!

In that victim seat, there is no action taken – it is an endless waiting time in a motionless expectation. In that victim seat, there are an impressive number of hilarious excuses varying from karma, destiny, cat, and pipes to people and events that prevented the accomplishment of whatever. In that victim seat, there are expectations cast towards other people and dependencies ingeniously defined so that even the tiniest action would have to happen after something else, and that’s the only way to do it. „I do that after you do that” or „I do that if you do that” are commonly heard lines. And „if you don’t do it, I won’t do it either,” and it is your fault that I did not. So I am exempted from responsibility. This attitude is often marketed as a shared responsibility between couples or siblings. But it is not at all that. It is just a blame game that goes on and on, that drops anger, deception, and misunderstanding in people’s hearts, poisoning them slowly but surely every day. It is the paradise of wounds such as rejection, abandonment, injustice, or betrayal. They have the fertile ground to install and comfort inside the poor victim’s soul. And that is heartbreaking and heartbreaking.

In my dream, I expected people to do something, so I could do better, be better, and feel better. But, even in that ideal world, a hero came and took me out of the suffering, comforted me, and helped me heal my wounds. It was someone else that recognized in me my worth and gave me wings to fly high, above the skies.

In my real life, I projected that hero responsibility to people who loved me. That was selfish, but that is the victim’s game. The heaviness of such burden was almost breaking them, so they could not endure that for too long. In the best case, it just destroyed or eroded the connection.

There is no savior, no hero who can or will save us from ourselves!

But that kind of hero who can and wants to save us from the abyss of our minds does not exist. Sorry if I crush many dreams with this statement! There is no savior who will come and solve your problems. There might be companions, yes! People who stand by your side and witness you changing; are morally and/or physically there, creating a safe space for your transformation. But they don’t do the work. You do! They are just holding your space.

The transformation is yours alone!

The transformation journey is yours alone. The expectations are yours too. The hero role is solely yours. No one else fits in it. And the simplest thing you can do to save yourself from the (self) blame game is to take responsibility and start acting.

If you want to go out for a walk, just go – don’t expect anyone to do anything first, come home first, or to call you first, or give you the blessing. Don’t blame them for your choice. Yes, it is your choice to go walking or wait for something. Choose the action and take responsibility for it!

Do you want to clean your house? Clean it! Don’t wait for the significant other to tell his/her how many dishes or laundry are waiting to be washed and what else in the house needs to be cleaned or organized, casting the blame shadow on them.

Do you want to wear a dress/pants/shoes? Wear them! Don’t wait for others’ validation, input, or anything because you deserve to choose for yourself. It is not their fault if afterward, they don’t suit you! Deep down, they might not even care, so don’t make it their fault.

This is the key to ending the blame game: don’t create an unnecessary backlog of things to follow up on others, so you can do yours. It is exhausting and draining, and at the end of the day, it does not solve any issue.

I often ask my people when they complain about problems: what is that you want? Do you want to solve the problem or throw the blame at another? And funny enough, sometimes I get the second answer.

So in my story, the day I asked myself what game I played, I chose to solve the situation. On that day, I checked upon my reality. On that day, I was pretty impressed with myself and my accomplishments. Then I understood all that I do, think, and believe has the power to take me to the ideal me. There are things I might change along the way, yes. They are just a choice away. I know them and have the means to perform any change I choose. And I can even change my mind if that’s what I choose. It’s all on me. There is no more blame. There is no other hero in my story.

So, what game do you play?

Stay safe.

Photo credit: Steve Halama on Unsplash