When You Don’t Think You’ll Ever Get There
There are times when we are the victims of our own assumptions. We assume someone is going to behave in a certain way, we assume things will go the way they did last time, we assume that our plans will “work” and go exactly as we imagine. And then they don’t and we are left with two problems: reacting to things not going as we’d planned, and grieving our assumptions.
Because it is a kind of grief. You had imagined a kind of life you wanted so hard that it was as if it had already happened, you’d started making plans for the other side of the assumption – about the kids that would happen after the wedding or the projects you would take on after you quit your job. And now those things won’t happen and it is really sad. Although it sounds impossible, you have really lost those things you never had.
I am a chronic daydreamer. If I had ten spots on a group programme I’d dream about what I’d do if thirty people wanted to join. I’d dream about the object of my affections arriving at my door just in time for midnight on New Year’s Eve. I’d dream that an unmarked envelope on the doormat was from a solicitor informing me of an unexpected inheritance. None of these things has ever happened. Nothing I’ve sold has ever been over-subscribed, no one has made a cinematic declaration of love, no long lost relatives have surfaced. And yet I still dream – still assume – these things will happen.
It’s like I’m in a near-constant Expectations vs Reality split screen. My dreams and assumptions play out in one pane while I look longingly at them from where the opposite is happening over in reality. Most of the time, the life you create in your head is better than the one you’re really living so you spend most of your time there, convince yourself that it might happen, even is happening. Then at a pivotal moment you are confronted with the fact that those expectations aren’t happening after all and the impact makes you stagger and fall back onto the sofa from where you never want to get up again.
It is easy to spiral from here. Crushed and disappointed leads to mourning and worry leads to “it’ll never happen for me”, “I’m not cut out for this, “I’ll never get there”. I’m no stranger to a spiral, to looking up part time vacancies because clearly I can’t do this. But as I don’t have a nursing qualification nor the gumption for telesales I needed to find a way to drag myself back up the spiral, create strategies I can return to and bring myself back to myself. This looks a bit like this:
Opening back up my mind
In disappointment, the mind closes shut like a mussel shell, impossible to open without stewing. So yes, I stew for a bit, both mentally and in a bath, maybe writing things down, maybe sulking. I find a problem with every solution, I don’t want to do any of it. But then I start to annoy myself and I begin to ease back open my mind by considering the possibility. Not whole-hearted belief or rigorous self-trust, just considering the possibility that something else might be true here, that all is not lost and I have what I need. If that were true, what might you do next?
Defining my own timeline
What often makes disappointment feel worse is the sensation of falling behind, of feeling yourself slip back from the dream scenario to square one. The thing is, the dream scenario never existed, you weren’t really there – you were always where you are now. But more than that, there is no line of progression; as I say in Mapping “Time in nature is inherently circular - three great spheres, the sun, the Earth and moon, going endlessly around and around each other, never going somewhere new but always returning to where they have been before. Trust us, the humans, to take this unending circle and straighten it out into a line to march along.”
Remembering that I haven’t fallen behind or got stuck on a line but are simply at a different part of a circle than I thought I was helps me to gain perspective. All is not lost, I am just at the beginning of spring rather than at the height of summer – but summer will inevitably come.
Getting into joy
Often the last thing you want to do is something that brings you joy; you want to wallow in how rubbish you are. It always infuriates me how much better I feel after a walk – in fact, after a morning wailing that the sky was falling down a friend asked me how I was feeling after a walk and I’d forgotten I’d even had a problem. I also find that following through on something I’d told myself I’d do – writing or posting, cooking, a yoga video – leads to feeling of competency which leads to a feeling of confidence which leads to feeling that maybe not everything is so bad.
Getting into some of your joy, whatever it is, doesn’t just make you feel better – it means you’re doing it. Whatever that expectation, assumption or dream was, it existed because you wanted to feel accomplished, happy, content, stable, insert-your-own-feeling-here. If you do something that makes you feel that way, then you’ve got wanted you wanted. You’re already there.
For the chronic daydreamer and constantly disappointed, I created Mapping. Mapping is a kit bag and guidebook on your journey from feeling so far away to experiencing fulfilment every day – changing the way you think, act and approach getting what you want. Find out more and sign up here.
