Is it Wrong to Have Expectations?

Tuning into the collective consciousness today, I feel a bit of confusion, as well as a bit of disappointment.  A feeling of being let down over not getting what was expected.  As I dig deeper into this, I find that the confusion is about living in a state of expectancy, as we are taught to do by all the great spiritual teachers and masters of manifestation, while simultaneously being told that we need to let go of expectations.  Many of us have been let down, feeling the overwhelming pain of disappointment, and ready to pull the plug, so to speak, and just give up.  This is too hard!  It can leave us feeling powerless, stuck in the heartbreaking mud of helplessness, living in the belief of “I can’t have what I want.”  This raises the question that I’m guided by Spirit to address today, which is:  is it wrong to have expectations?

The short answer to that is:  no.  There isn’t anything wrong with having expectations.  It’s similar to having desires.  Many of us have also been taught that it’s wrong to have desires – that desires are what cause misery, but is that really so?  Again, the short answer to that is no.  Desires and expectations go hand in hand.  Desires are our symbols that show us who we really Truly are, beneath our collective amnesia.  Desires are our life sparks, our engines for creation.  They come from our True Being, to help us to wake up and remember our Divinity.  We are Source – Creator – embodied in this lower vibrational frequency existence – but we are here to create, and it is our desire which drives our creative force.  Where there is desire, an expectation is born.  Expectations are also products of our Divinity.  So when we begin to create, and we don’t get what we expected, is it the fault of the expectation?  Certainly it is not, no more so than it is the fault of the desire.

One of the biggest challenges I find in conscious creation is that of remembering that it is a process – one that can happen instantly, or one that can take a very long time – a lifetime, or even many lifetimes, to complete.  When we get what we didn’t expect, oftentimes, that is simply one layer of the creation process being cleared away.  Think of building a house, for example.  Unless you buy the lot already cleared and ready to be built on, there is a whole lot of clearing away that has to happen first, before you can build.  The clearing away and preparation of the lot can be likened to our own subconscious and unconscious debris being brought to the surface to be cleared.  Whenever you form an intent based on desire and have an expectation for outcome, all of your blockages and beliefs – the belief in lack, for example – are going to come up for you to see, to be observed and corrected – in essence, cleared away, before you can actually begin to build.  It’s important for us to recognize this, and to remember it whenever we set an intent to have what we want, expect an outcome, and get the opposite instead.  You haven’t failed.  You are just getting started.

Detach yourself from the outcome.  Recognize that you have your desires and your expectations, and don’t judge either of them as being wrong.  Don’t criticize yourself for having them.  Accept that they are what they are – part of your Divinity, and have compassion for yourself.  It’s not your desire nor is it your expectation that needs to be eliminated, but rather, it is the ego’s attachment to the outcome you seek.  It’s important to let it be OK when you get something other than what you expect, and realize that you simply have not received it yet.  It’s also important to remember that, when you let go of your attachment to a specific outcome, you are also allowing yourself to open up to something that’s even better than the original expectation you imagined.  When you let go and let God, so to speak, it is your Highest good that comes – and oftentimes, that exceeds even our wildest expectations.