Expectations

Many times we get what we expect. I have lived and prayed for what may appear negative to turn into the positive. Have you ever noticed that what you expect is what you get? I discovered when I went out to eat with a friend that always sent their food back and they did this often with me, they expected their food would not be prepared to their liking. They received exactly what they expected. After gently mentioning to a friend that I noticed this happening every time I was with her, we had a good discussion with no blame. She decided to change her expectations and it all changed. Life became better for her.

We all come to earth to learn. Thus, I believe that we each bring “our own lessons to earth with us.” We are in school! Life school! Some of my lessons were most difficult. How about your lessons? Looking at my past, I now see my mistakes and understand how I made those mistakes. Some of my mistakes were simple for others to see but not for me to see.

When I entered this earth, I entered a family, attended schools, and went to churches that brought forth my patterns. Some were good, but some had to be discarded later. For instance, my family always struggled with money issues due to my mother’s health care needs. She learned that she had diabetes during her pregnancy with me. I followed that pattern and struggled with money until I could “see” my patterns. Becoming a good codependent was another problem. I knew my mother might go into a reaction or a coma at any moment of her life, so I had to stay aware of my mother’s situation, what she was doing, and how she acted. I worried about her much of the time. My role in my family became a peacemaker, a caretaker, and sometimes, a controller. At six years, I got a little sister. She was born early and also had physical problems. I strived even harder to keep everyone happier and calmer so that there would be less tension in the home.

A great thing is our family always had love and positive attitudes through difficult times. Both parents taught me to believe that I could accomplish much in this lifetime, and they also said to expect something good right around the corner. I attempted to stay positive even in the worst of times. For a period of my life, we had no car. We got one shortly after I began school. I loved school, possibly because it was a diversion from my fears of losing my mother in our home life. I excelled, graduating from high school with honors and with lots of friends. Working was a big part of my life. I began working for my Dad at 10 and then always worked part-time or full-time. During my first two years of college, loans and working part-time paid most of my way. With an AA in business, I quit school to go to work and pay off the remaining debt incurred with the hope of returning to college later. I went back sixteen years later and did my best to keep our active family going while also working. I finally gained the courage to return to school, taking two classes each semester. At this rate, it took many years to acquire my Bachelors’s degree. I continued in school and even acquired my MBA.

I had a pattern in the relationship area of my life. After quitting OU and going to work at OU’s Speech and Hearing Center, I met Don. We dated for six weeks, got engaged, and married six weeks later. He was about to graduate with his Masters. We had a plan. I intended to put him through school and have no children until his Ph.D. was complete. However, I misread a label on birth control, and we quickly had one precious child and, seventeen months later, another one came along. We had very little money. Looking back, I realized so many lessons were coming forth, but I did not see them. I just seemed to happily, and sometimes unhappily, function through every difficulty. I hoped to stay home until our children were in school, but I went back to work when “he accepted a job for me” without first asking or telling me. Not good, but I ended up liking the job. He then wanted to move and go back to school to complete his education. In Iowa City, I worked. With his Ph.D., he became the Director of the Speech and Hearing Clinic and taught at a university, ran for Congress twice and lost twice, was appointed to national committees, and participated in community theatre during off-years campaigning, always playing the lead role. With all of that, he was gone much of the time. I was a great codependent without knowing it.

I held a job I dearly loved in New Mexico as an administrator of a mental health center. I did not intend to get this job. It literally came to me and was a God deal. They reached out to me and then realized I only had two years of college. They were looking for someone with a Masters’s Degree in Psychology. Unexpectedly, they called me back to discuss the job they told me I was not qualified for. They planned for me to shut down the program, but I got money to keep it open. They let me keep the job. Everyone assumed that I had a degree. Nope, not yet, but I was working on it. I did go back! The mental health center grew from one to 168 employees. I sat on many committees, local, state, and even one national. I was elected as the first female President of a large state mental health organization. Then my world fell apart for the first time when my husband acquired cancer and died at age 39.

Many asked what I did to make it through difficult times in my life. A most difficult time was when a doctor at Mayo Clinic told us that my first husband of seventeen years had cancer and that he would die within six months. Another bad day came when another doctor shared at M.D. Anderson shared with us there was no more treatment to help Don and that he would not live six more weeks for Christmas. Less than five minutes later, we learned by telephone that Dawn and Johnny were alright, but our house burned.

Two years later, I remarried. What felt like a disaster may have been my saving grace. My lessons became so strong that I could not avoid them. My life was no longer manageable by the end of five years with an emotionally abusing husband. The night that I married that second husband, I knew I made a mistake, but I was not ready to admit it to myself. I felt certain that I could make it work. I thought it was fine when a friend chose to divorce, but not fine for me. My belief within and what I heard from parents, friends, and church all of my life was not helping me personally! I had to begin figuring out my life, my pattens, why I always had money problems, why I chose a person in each marriage that had the same issues, and why I ignored signs? This relationship literally brought me to my knees.

Now through all of this, I was a high achiever. I was selling nutritional products and doing seminars about life for my group. I stood on the stage for the fastest growing business in America one year. No one would have known what was going on with me or inside me. I was a wreck. I knew it, and my children saw it! However, it took both my husband’s death and the divorce to get me to slow down enough to grieve Don’s death. On my knees with tears flowing, I said a major prayer and switched my life.

Every challenge brought a great lesson!. Every loss brought gain. I slowed my life down to work on myself and change my patterns. The losses and the programs I attended brought more empathy. Of course, I could not see that until later. On my knees in a major prayer, I had asked God for help. Now I had to do my part! I put God at the beginning of every list I made in my planner for each day. I took steps to acquire counseling. That was humbling after running a mental health center, doing presentations in schools, and counseling difficult children. Next I asked a friend I respected to be a prayer partner. Beginning with these two things, I kept faith and hope and expectation in my mind and in my heart of a good life being possible. I also balanced in the morning by reading inspirational books for at least fifteen minutes. This helped me have a better attitude throughout the day. I began with books like “Jonathan Livingston Seagull,” “Illusions,” “Diamonds In Your Own Back Yard,” “Women Who Love Too Much, “Tough Love,” and “The Road Less Traveled.” Later I read “Course of Miracles.”

In counseling, my counselor gently suggested Al-Anon or Codependency groups. Being offended, I decided to try fasting for a different answer one day a week for four weeks. Then one weekend, shortly after I quit fasting, we went snow skiing. While riding on a chair lift to the top of the mountain, the man sitting on the chair lift that I did not know told me that he saw the pain in my eyes as I walked toward the chair lift. He said it was like the pain others used to see in his own eyes. He continued, saying that he received answers through a program called Al-Anon. I sat there stunned as he shared that AA teaches a person how to stop drinking, but Al-Anon teaches a person about life and how to live it. I knew that was from God. On my return home, I found a meeting. Believe me, before long, I knew where to go to find answers. I quickly got a sponsor to help me through the steps, and boy…what an amazing program. I learned about a God Box and gained the courage to let go and let God take over completely with both my marriage and my entire life. I felt we could continue in this marriage and still be like this when we died, or I could face the fact that he would not change while with me. I had to change a belief about divorce, and I did that through affirmations and working with God. I absolutely do not believe God wants us to live in this kind of pain. A part of “letting go” was filing for divorce. I planned to continue to work on myself, and it would be up to him to make his life better. He was a grown man. I did not need to take care of him any longer. So when my life fell apart, I took those initial simple steps I mentioned earlier, and then counseling led me plus the answer from God to the program Al-Anon.

Al-Anon and my sponsor helped me see my life patterns. As I looked at my patterns, I realized both marriages had the same issues, but the second was ten times more difficult than the first. I could see how I became a controller deluxe. I began a serious study of my past that created me in the present, married to an emotional abuser dating my best friend. I filed for divorce and then learned he had also been dating “many” the whole time we were married. He had run five of my credit cards to their limit that I did not know he had. The divorce judge did not give him my business he wanted, but the Judge did say that he had to give me all the bills because he never worked while in our marriage. My $1,200 house payment became difficult with the payments on all of the credit cards. I sold my home for $100 above what I still owed on it and then moved into an apartment! I wrote out new goals. My new goals allowed me to work on “me” and spend more time discovering answers directly from God.

I worked on my intuition. How? One way was by going to bookstores and standing in front of self-help or inspirational books, reading titles to see what I intuitively was drawn to. I had read the Bible my whole life, attended Sunday Schools, home Bible studies, etc. For ten years before Don died, we went three times a week. Now I had received some answers from the inspirational books I read and wanted to see if my God, through intuition, would take me to books that were bringing additional answers. You see, I told God that I wanted a personal relationship, and every time I heard the name of a book three times, I would buy it. I did my part and read. Every book had at least one answer in it.

I read about affirmations and wrote out good ones to change the subconscious. I wanted to see what I would draw to me that was mine to do physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. We each have an inheritance from God, and I wanted to see what mine would be if I developed my partnership with God and did my part. I wanted to create a life of joy and peace. I understood that I might have to change some of my beliefs and allow myself to step outside the box to receive and follow my guidance even if it looked strange to others…and believe me, I was doing some very different things that were not normal for my friends. I pushed myself to see what beliefs of mine might be wrong and what was right for me. I listened, paid attention to my dreams, and took steps forward. My expectation for good to come was about my partnership with God. I knew that I had to ask for healing if I wanted one and then listen. I had to pay attention to my dreams. I had to listen to every word people said to me. I explained things to God. I did not know how to hear. That is why I said: “If I hear the name of a book three times, I will get it.” Then I listened.

If a person reading this is going through a bad time, do your part to listen and take action. Do ask your divine source for help!!! Keep your expectation in front of you that good is coming. I became delighted when I was alone because affirmations led me to an amazing life. I was happy in life alone due to these affirmations, and then John appeared. He was doing the very same things I was doing. He was working on himself, searching for answers, had been a good codependent, and we understood each other completely. Today our house is full of peace and laughter even though the coronavirus had kept us inside. Years ago, our son Johnny lived with us for months when he was going through a difficult time and returned to school in his 30’s. He saw what a good marriage could be. Boston, our other son, lived with us for six months of this coronavirus. He saw how John and I are in our relationship. No matter where you are in life, know it is great to be alive and “to know yourself.” This can happen. You are a beautiful person with lots of ability to touch lives on a normal day. However, it may take time to nurture yourself and to learn “who you are.” I know that positive change can happen at any age!!!!! I have seen it!

It is fine to have great expectations. Expectations will keep you in a state of gratitude for all the good coming to you that you cannot yet see. Take steps forward and dream big. Set Goals and do vision boards with a friend. Afterward, explain what you want to see happen when you discuss your vision board with your friend..\ If you are still stumped and have no idea, flip through magazines and see what comes to you. Do affirmations. Do not fret over how or when your good is going to arrive. Claim the peace and joy you want at the center of yourself. Be confident it is on its way to you and your life. Maintain a joyful expectation and see what you draw to you!

LESSON; PRAY and expect good. Write down your prayer and put it in a God Box. Then let go! Knowing that sometimes we move through the negative to the positive. Ask to have joy and peace and prosperity as you move through both and have expectations that it is truly coming. Next, do your part here on earth to nurture yourself and take care of yourself so that you may touch the lives of others in a good way. Take steps forward.

GIFTS: For years, I told people that if I needed to heal, I would go to the mountains of New Mexico or the red brick streets of Pauls Valley, Oklahoma. I was creating a self-fulfilling prophecy that would come about. I live with John on a red brick street in a home in Pauls Valley, exactly like one of my grandmother’s homes used to be.

I grew up happy, having great expectations for my future life. I had to open my eyes and see, really see, and I believe the difficulties caused me to look within for answers finally. What I put in this blog today brought me to open eyes and gave me the ability to hear God and Spirit provide guidance through others or directly through my thoughts, sometimes when I least expected it.