Preoccupation with the past and the future fuels our anxiety, and prevents us from focusing on what is happening in the present moment. Expectations and judgments are the cause.
Expectations (whether about preferred or feared outcomes) cause us to focus on the future. Judgments (again, whether they are positive or negative in nature) keep us locked in the past. Expectations and judgments are not helpful in healing from our anxiety.
Expectations
The expectations we have about the future take many forms. Here are some of the more common ones:
Anticipation of Disaster
Often, the expectations are really fears about things going wrong, having a panic attack, or being unable to cope. These we must dismiss as gremlin thoughts, and not engage with them. It helps to reassure ourselves we will deal with the situation if and when it arrives. After all, we are here now, so we have a 100% record of coming through everything we have faced up to now.
Perfectionist Thinking
Another form of expectation is the “perfectionist” thinking, where we hold ourselves to a ridiculously high standard. We do this because we think it will help prevent failure, unpleasant consequences, and negative judgment and criticism from others.
Of course, it mostly just puts an unreasonable amount of pressure on us, which leads to self-criticism when we cannot meet those self-imposed expectations. And it is this self-criticism that is the most damaging of all. So ironically, by having such high expectations of ourselves means we are almost bound to fail and then feel inadequate.
Perfectionism doesn’t make us perfect, it makes a failure in our own eyes.
Judgments
Expectations themselves lead to judgments later on. “Did I do something well enough?”, “Was someone happy about what I did?”. “Did things work out like I had hoped?” None of this is productive or helpful. The preferable alternative is to not have expectations, but simply do the best we reasonably can, and accept however things turn out.
We can still have “goals”. Goals are targets — standards or levels we would like to achieve. They are useful in focusing our efforts, and letting us know when we have done enough. They make us more productive.
Don’t confuse goals with expectations. Expectations imply that there is no flexibility or permission to fall short, or achieve less. If we don’t meet a goal, then we just decide whether we do more, or accept what we accomplished. An expectation on the other hand, if not met, leads to the judgment of the type: “I should have_________”, “Why didn’t I ________?”, “I am useless”.
Another type of judgment is rumination about the past. This is usually about things that didn’t go well. Especially situations we have decided were our “fault”, or events that embarrassed us, or put us in a bad light.
These are typically things that have come up repeatedly over the years and we just aren’t able to let go. They are very often a self-critical judgment of what we said or did, or what happened to us. They particularly show up when we are feeling not good about ourselves. It’s almost as if our brain recalls them for the specific purpose of beating ourselves up with them.
Of course, that doesn’t make any logical sense to us. So we try very hard to resolve these thoughts that keep bugging us, but they only make us feel bad about ourselves.
Intrusive negative thoughts are typically about things that cannot be changed. However, where a correction can be made, then we need to make that and set the issue to rest. If it is something that we regret or are embarrassed about, then the only thing we can change is if or how we react to the thought, and how we think about it.
The goal is to accept that is what happened, accept we did our best at the time, and let it go without judgment. At the same time, we face, connect with, and allow any emotions that have accompanied the thought.
We may need to do this many times over before that thought loses its ability to trouble us. It will then show up less often, and eventually stop showing up at all.
If we have hundreds of these types of thoughts, we just practice on any that show up. Practicing on one helps with all of them. In other words, the more we practice on one such thought, the less all of that type of thought will affect us.
Staying in the Present
As stated, the expectations and judgments keep us focused on the future and in the past. But what is most important for our mental wellbeing, and a peaceful, healthy life is fully experiencing what is happening in each moment. This is the only area where we can make a direct impact on our lives, the direction our life goes, and our enjoyment of it.
The simple fact is that we become better at staying in the moment when we learn to worry less about the future, and ruminate less about the past.
While we can plan and prepare within reason for future events, we can let go of the worry aspect, trusting that we will be able to deal with things if and when they happen. We can stop placing expectations on the future, and be willing to let it unfold by itself.
In my experience, when I do that, it often turns out to be better than I ever imagined. I believe this is because expectations are constraining, and put limits on the directions things can go, or how good things can be.
Often things can turn out better than we ever imagined or anticipated if we go with the flow.
For rumination, all we need to do is become aware whenever we start dragging up useless old memories of failures or embarrassments and using them to put ourselves down. We can instead accept these things happened, remind ourselves our intentions were good, and let them go.
As with all aspects of recovery from anxiety, this takes practice, repetition, and time. But, it is achievable.
