How to have
0 Expectations
Letting go of expectations: Heather Marshall at TEDxGreenville 2014
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I am here to help you do even more
unzipping of your minds and of your
hearts Roxie clay came out here and
challenged your expectations and I'm
going to ask you to unzip and let your
expectations fall out and push them
aside all together because they're
holding you back
expectations are those lists of things
we build up that tell us how things
should be they keep us feeling safe and
they also often prevent us from being
fully present in our lives and from
living to our highest potential so I'm
going to tell you about my journey away
from expectation which also turned out
to be a journey toward self empowerment
and hope and then how it might apply to
your relationships as well I first
learned about the power of letting go of
expectation on my journey back to my
natural family my birth family I'm
adopted and my adoption is a fairly
standard post World War two story in
Great Britain my natural parents live
next door to each other in a small town
near the east coast of Scotland and when
they finished high school they went to
the west of Scotland to Glasgow a
whopping 38 miles away my father went to
Glasgow University my mother went to
nursing school
and when she became pregnant they
decided they were going to get married
but they were going to wait and tell
their families when they went home on
Christmas break
so they expected to end that year by
becoming a family that was December 1966
what they got instead was a tearful
break up outside my father's garage from
my mother that was followed by a stay at
a mothering home a daughter who left the
hospital before she did a bill for my
foster care and ultimately my adoption
my father paid penance by working as a
bricklayer for a year before he
to University in Edinburgh they never
saw each other again
whatever expectations they had were
shattered on top of that they were told
that they should be grateful privileged
that they had a chance to redeem
themselves and move on this is all
pretty standard stuff for that time in
place and I'm telling you this because I
want to note that although my parents
learned not to expect in the wake of our
separation this is not the productive
kind of letting go the kind of letting
go that they learned is rooted in shame
and in punishment
there isn't any hope in it it's about
shutting down and what I would like us
to do today is learn how to let go and
open up so fast-forward 18 years from
that tearful breakup in the garage my
adoptive father my dad had made it clear
that he would totally understand if I
wanted to go and find my natural family
this is a lot easier in Scotland than it
is here they don't alter birth
certificates the adoptee has the rights
to all the records so I took myself off
to the House of Records in Edinburgh and
got hold of my birth certificate it had
my birth name my mother's name her then
address it took me another 18 years to
decide to search the lead up to that
would take another TEDTalk or two mostly
something had shifted inside me on a
trip back in 2003 I walked past the
house listed on the birth certificate
and I just couldn't let it go after that
I was led entirely by my gut I kind of
had to be adoptees are less than 5% of
the population only a few of assert and
only a fraction of the people who search
actually wind up being in réunion there
aren't enough of us for there to be a
guidebook and for me this turned out to
be a good thing it did help that I had
had my own child my first child in
somewhat similar circumstances to my own
birth it also helped that I knew
two other friends who were adoptees who
were in reunion they had gone into the
reunion with a litany of expectations
one friend was in a relationship with
her natural father that could best be
termed as clandestine the other friend's
father drank himself into ICU the first
time they met their relationships with
all their natural families were fraught
to say the least
so I went in with an awareness of the
risks
I looked clearly at the risks and I
decided to go ahead I went in also
trying to pare back to what I really
hoped without the expectation and what I
hoped was to find my natural mother I
wanted to know where I came from
yes part of me did want the Oprah style
reunion you know the one where you go
and the whole gigantic attractive
successful natural family welcomes the
adoptee on whom they've been waiting
their whole lives but I did not go
expecting it I pared back and back to
what was driving the hope I knew I had
to hang on to that I knew I had to be
whole and I had to expect nothing when I
felt ready to do that I contacted birth
link in Scotland this is a nonprofit
agency that helps adoptees and their
families connect with each other I put
my name on the list for a searcher that
takes some months so in the waiting time
I searched more deeply within myself I
asked myself all kinds of odd questions
what would I do if I found my mother and
she was dying and needed my help
what would I make of it if I found her
and she was alcoholic obese if she was
destitute a retired prostitute and I
realized that anything that would bother
me deeply would do so because I already
saw it as a weakness in myself in other
words anything I might want her to
change was really something I wanted to
change in myself I believe this is also
called owning your own stuff
also talk to my brother he's also
adopted and he said look Heather the
only thing you really have to worry
about is if you go to meet her and she
comes to the door with her bags packed
and goes alright darling we are we going
cuz she thinks she's moving in with you
anything else you can just run away from
Stuart is often good for a little bit of
comedy with some truth embedded and he
was right either one of us could end the
relationship at any moment and isn't
that the case with all our relationships
we behave as though in our relationships
especially our significant ones we
behave as though we're operating with
some kind of a relationship union like a
pipe fitters union that's going to
uphold our expectation contract but the
truth is relationships live in a
right-to-work state any party and
sometimes a third party like sudden
death can end the contract with no
notice and no cause and that is a scary
truth to face but as with any other
truth all the expectation in the world
can't stop it what I knew what my net
natural parents and I had lived for
nearly four decades before we came
face-to-face is that expectation doesn't
guarantee you a thing so I entered the
relationship knowing the risks I entered
the relationship owning what I brought I
entered the relationship without that
guidebook and here's the good thing
about there not being a guidebook there
aren't any articles about what a good
reunion looks like like the articles you
read that imply that all the other
married couples have more
sex than you the skinny woman next door
eats cherry pie for breakfast the other
guy's business makes more money than
yours and it's more fun to work there
all the things that build up our
expectations and they record chances of
honoring what's right in front of us so
when I entered the relationship in this
way what I found that I was able to
really rest in and notice small moments
and to take joy there I noticed for
instance the grain of my mother's
freckled hand wrapped around her mug of
tea the first time we met I got to
experience her with the surest sureness
of adulthood and the heart of a child I
didn't have my expectation checklist
running through my head that's what
expectations do they tend to run through
our head act like a third party in our
relationship constantly vying for our
attention and that feels okay when
things match up but even then we've
stepped away from the moment and the
relationship to check in with them and
when things don't measure up then we
really go aside we start talking to
expectation asking it for affirmation he
should have brought me flowers shouldn't
he she should run those meetings on time
and our expectation list says oh yes
honey you are right get back in there
and make them do it your way so you keep
asking and asking and getting grumpier
and grumpier when things don't measure
up if you've asked a couple of times and
you haven't gotten the response you
wanted you're probably not going to get
it and in that stepping away to measure
up with expectation you've missed the
moment and the relationship as it
unfolded that might have offered a path
forward and even when the worst thing
happens when your expectations aren't
met and another path forward isn't on
offer
you're then
resting in the truth and you can choose
to move yourself forward from the truth
of that relationship in that moment
expectation does not stop painful stuff
from happening it just blames it on
somebody else what expectations do is
pull us out of the moment they hold us
in an infinite loop of false possibility
so I challenge you today to free
yourself from this loop of false
possibility before you leave this
building this afternoon think of one
relationship that has one unfulfilled
expectation in it let the expectation go
search yourself own your stuff
commit to entering your next interaction
in that relationship without the
expectation hanging on to some hope and
then just allowing yourself to fully
rest in the reality of the moment
whatever needs or wants you might have
it's possible that those can be met in
some other way but not by this person at
this moment settle your heart to that
and then move yourself forward I think
you'll find that if you can be brave
enough to rest in reality human and
flawed and possibly beautiful reality it
will take you places better than you've
ever dared to expect
