Are You Holding Someone Else’s Expectation

Many times in BodyMind coaching my client discovers that what on the surface appears to be a restriction or a block, can actually be an external expectation that she is subconsciously holding.  These expectations may come from a specific person or they might come from your culture or a sub-group such as an organization, company, or even your extended family traditions.

I had a client recently who discovered just such an expectation, which in her case was around exercise.  My client came to coaching to be able to function better in her life, specifically in managing a pattern of anxiety.  Part of this management revolved around the balance in her daily activities in taking care of her family and herself.  Within a couple sessions, she had a new anxiety tool kit in place and was functioning significantly better.  It was at this point that she choose to explore how to make exercise a more consistent factor in her self care.

As we looked at her exercise patterns, what kept coming up was that exercise didn’t make the top of her priority list yet she had a continuous underlying message that she “should” be exercising more often.  As we delved into the should and what the exercise should be and look like, she found that both her background as a nurse and her husband’s way of exercising had created expectations about what exercise should be for her…but that deep down she didn’t fully agree with them for herself.  Just by seeing the origin of the expectation, she was able to begin to look at the role SHE wanted exercise to be in her life.  She flipped the external expectation to a personal intention.  And with that change, she changed the energy around how she felt about exercise. 

She is now exploring the idea that exercise doesn’t have to be the same and have a rigid look or feel.  Rather, she is looking at how exercise can fit into her life with flexible ease, as part of a natural desire.  I’m confident that through her realizations and change in perceptions that she will develop a new, empowered relationship with exercise to fit her own needs.  And the critical component in making this change was the recognition that she was holding someone else’s expectation.

Are you feeling stuck?  If so, look and see if you have a hidden expectation lurking beneath the surface!