Hi, this is Keisunga and welcome this Tuesday to Radio Headspace.
So I found that I get into a lot of trouble when I enter into situations with an expectation of how it should be or how it should turn out.
What may happen is that the complete opposite occurs and then BAM!
There I am in a space of negative judgment.
And as I stated before on the show, judgment can lead to high levels of stress in many ways.
But that's my own behavior, and I can totally control and shift how I move through my own life, right?
The question is, how do you manage a situation where people are consistently putting their expectations onto you, especially if these expectations are causing you high levels of stress.
I remember I had a client, let's call him Q, and Q had a busy high paying corporate job, it was extremely stressful for him, and Q came to me to learn ways to manage his stress.
He said, all I need to learn is how to decrease my stress levels when I feel them rising.
My doctor said I have high blood pressure and it's due to my stress.
Can you help me out, Keisunga?
I responded with, but of course I can.
As a psychotherapist, I always found it interesting when a client just wanted to learn techniques for stress management without exploring and processing the cause.
That knowledge and awareness is so key, because without it, you'll just find yourself on a consistent roller coaster cycle of stress.
So I asked Q what the biggest sources of his stress came from.
In his words, my biggest negative stress by far is my job.
We were eventually able to come to the conclusion that the expectations that were placed on him by his manager were outrageous, and it caused Q to always feel pressured and stressed out.
Oftentimes we allow ourselves to bend to other people's expectations of how they want us to be.
We literally change our entire persona.
It starts from a young age in elementary school with our teachers and friends, and continues throughout junior high, high school, college, and eventually in our careers, and not to mention our own families.
And it's not necessarily a bad thing.
In fact, I think it's human nature.
So the idea is to become aware, become aware of when you're in that space of behaving according to other people's expectations, especially if it's causing you emotional or physical harm, and then immediately shifting out of it.
Mindfulness and meditation helps us to develop this awareness and also stress resiliency.
That's one of the reasons why I think it's so beneficial for children to practice mindfulness at an early age, as early as possible.
Make it part of their lifestyle from the very beginning.
So my client Q, he ended up being okay after about three months of sessions.
He actually quit his corporate job and followed his true passion, which was being a jazz musician.
As it turns out, he was a masterful pianist and he's doing quite well with his band.
And more importantly, he's happy.
Now I know that not everyone will be able to make a job or career change, but mindfulness can be a helpful tool in figuring out where expectations might be causing us harm.
And from there, each person can see what the best path forward is.
And if you need some help stepping away from the stress of your nine to five, I have a work stress meditation in the Headspace app, and that will be very, very helpful.
All right, stopping there for now, please, please send me any questions that you have about mindfulness, meditation, health and happiness, and really just life.
We're all trying to get through this journey of life, being as happy and healthy as possible.
And I'm here to help in any way that I can.
You can hit me up at any time by sending a DM to my Instagram account at kegiscombay.
I look forward to talking to you next time.
Take care for now.
