Karen Restivo
In Other Words....
Drawing a close to the end of 2025, I asked a handful of my coaching clients if they would share which one of the aspects of our work together had the largest impact on their growth and development.
Many were in agreement that the aspect of expectations challenged them to look deeper into how expectations can manipulate relationships solicited by our secret desire to control others.
When individuals in a relationship show us a position or behavior that doesn’t fit the story we have in our head, and reality ends up not aligning with what we think, resentment occurs.
Frustration, disappointment or anger ease into our opinion of someone when they don’t meet our expectations.
It felt like a topic that would benefit my readers.
Unmet expectations steer us in the direction of negativity.
Ironically, the resentment we feel doesn’t come from what a person does, so much as what we believe from the story we created in our head of how someone should behave.
Daniel.mp3 at awakenedsoul on Instagram says, “Most pain doesn’t come from what others do, but from what you expect them to do.
You wait for a call, a gift, support while the other person lives by their own set of rules.”
The only collapse is the one occurring in your internal story line.
Daniel refers us to an exercise to overcome setting yourself up with self-fulfilling prophecies creating disappointment in others.
Here is a simple exercise he uses from the story of a professor getting to the bottom of expectations:
“Write down everything you expect from someone close- attention, care, gratitude, then cross it out and leave only what the person actually does in reality.
“That’s the moment clarity hits.
“You weren’t angry with him; you were angry at the story living in your head.
“And, you suddenly see how many times you created your own reasons for resentment.
“When expectations disappear, freedom appears- the freedom to choose whether to stay or leave.
“Instead of accusations, reality shows up.
“If a person gives less than you need, it’s not betrayal, it’s information.
“And now the decision is yours. This is where strength is born, not bitterness.”
In other words, the dark side of expectations is our hidden desire to control what others do, setting ourselves up for continual disappointment.
Alleviate the control, and see who the person really is and not who you think they are. Daniel concludes, “That’s when lightness appears and toxic dependency fades, the kind where resentment becomes the background noise of a relationship.”
Karenrestivo57@gmail.com