managing our expectations and influencing someone else's

How do you manage expectations of a situation? How does your sharing of an experience alter someone's expectation of a similar situation?

I went to my 1st John Friend workshop the other weekend. When I returned everyone was asking me how it was and my response was "I had fun, it was good, I learned a great deal". Each time their response back to me was - "Just good?"

For years now I have been hearing that his workshops were "amazing, life changing, like nothing else out there". This is a very unfair expectation to put on a situation and a person. How can any one situation possibly live up to that expectation. It is very much like a movie that everyone is raving about for weeks telling you that is the funniest thing they have ever seen. You finally go to the movie expecting to laugh so hard you will pee in your pants. Well, it is funny but your bladder is intact. It has been built up so much that there is no way it could possibly live up to the expectation.

We need to be more aware of how the sharing of our own experience can effect another person's opportunity to create their own expectation from a similar experience.

be mine

I came across a number of quotes while watching a YouTube video "Message from the Infinite Heart". This one in particular really stuck with me.

You, yourself,
as much as anybody
in the entire universe,
deserve your love
and affection.

It can be so easy to focus our energies outward on other people that we can forget in order to share love with someone else we need to 1st love ourselves.

For this Valentine's day I will BE MINE 1st before I try to ask someone else to be mine or offer myself to be theirs.

pūrṇatā

pūrṇatā - fullness, completeness, perfection

I love the idea that we are always beginning. Each moment is an opportunity to begin again. We are only as perfect as that very moment. The next time we try the same thing it is an opportunity to begin again and achieve yet a new level of perfection.

doing small things great

We look around a room and see someone in an amazing pose and think "I want to be like that." We hear of a friend going on an amazing trip and think "I want to do that." We see a colleague at work get honored for their achievement and wonder "how do I do that." It is so easy to get caught up in the idea of doing great things or being the best at something that we can loose site of our priorities and the actual joy in doing.

I have been teaching for a few months now and am loving it. Each week gets better and I become more comfortable. I took a class with one of my favorite teachers the other day and was marveling at "how great" she was and wishing I could be like that. I started to compare myself and think about all the things I wasn't doing that she was doing. I then came across the following quote and it helped me re-align my focus.

We can't always do great things, we can do small things great.

As I pondered this quote I realized I didn't need to be great. I didn't need to be the best teacher. I needed to focus on the small things that I could do great while teaching a class which in the end would make the experience great. As I taught class last night I focused my energy on doing these small things with greatness and love. The energy put into the small things made the entire bigger experience - GREAT.