“The best things in life are unexpected—because there were no expectations.”
-
Eli Khamarov -
Whether we realize it or not, many of us are affected by expectations we have for our physical
spaces. For example, we might expect a vacation resort to induce a state of
deep relaxation in our overworked mental space. Prior experiences with a physical
space might cause us to try and recreate a feeling we've previously experienced
there (with varying degrees of success). Or, not understanding what is expected
of us in a space might cause some discomfort. Understanding
why we have certain expectations of physical spaces, and adjusting the
thoughts in our internal spaces can help, and set us up for new adventures we
may not otherwise have the opportunity to experience.
Navigating Spaces
My friend Vianne and I are planners. Whether it’s for dinner, dancing, or other activities, we
mutually agree on when and where we get together—very much in advance. My
husband is a planner too, so Vianne has also gotten used to receiving
invitations to our gatherings, along with a list of suggestions about what
would be helpful for her to bring. So during Independence Day weekend, when
Vianne and I received a text message from our friend Craig about an impromptu
cookout at his place, it caused a bit of a kerfuffle. Text messages between the
three of us flew by: between he and I and she and he, trying to ascertain when
the event would start and what we should bring; and between she and I,
expressing frustration over Craig's confusing or nonexistent responses to our
questions. We wondered: did he think we would bring food and contribute to its
preparation? Or, was he wanting us to just show up at his house and allow him
to host? I don’t think Craig had any expectations for us, yet we were troubled
by all this uncertainty. At dinner one night after Craig's gathering, I asked Vianne
whether we would have minded if he told us he expected help. Her response was,
“No, not at all.” Then I asked, “And if he wanted us to sit back and relax so
he could pamper us, would that have been OK too?” Her response, “Of course.”
This got me thinking—if either outcome was fine (and in actuality, we did a
little bit of both), why did it cause us so much angst beforehand? Why did we
feel so strongly like we needed to know what to expect when we were visiting
Craig’s house?
When I told this story to my friend Paige, she put her finger on it: Vianne and I needed to know
what to expect in Craig’s space because we didn’t want to “get it wrong.” See,
Vianne, Paige, and I have all experienced significant uncertainties growing up,
which means that as adults, we try to avoid it at all costs. When we aren’t
clearly told what to expect, the children in us still believe we might do
something inappropriate, or won’t be prepared for or live up to what is
expected of us—and we’ll suffer the consequences. Whether this means people
will cease liking us and wanting spend time with us, we’ll get in trouble, or
be humiliated, these concerns are not at all rooted in the present day.
When Vianne and I chatted more about this, we decided we needed a way to regain some balance in
such situations—in other words, one of us needed to cue the other so we could
recognize when we were truly curious and wanting to be helpful, versus when we
were being neurotic! This would require moving the amount of consciousness we had of ourselves after the fact to when
we first found ourselves getting into such a state, which is easier said than
done. In retrospect, calling her and talking it through to see how we really
felt about each alternative could have helped us both discover that either
option was fine, and that our worry wasn’t really about what it appeared to be
about.
A more significant issue for me about Craig's impromptu invite was whether to go at all. See, when
I received his text mid-morning that I could head over any time that afternoon
to enjoy food, drink, and the lake behind his house on what really was a
gorgeous day, it actually stressed me out. I knew Craig wanted to entertain in his new home, but my husband and I
had already made a slew of other plans. I went into a tailspin about what to do
with my “time space”, for which I already had some pretty high expectations. In
addition to my normal morning routine of journaling, working out and
meditating, I had plans to work on this book, and we had a whole chicken in the
fridge, on which we planned to try out a rotisserie attachment for the grill,
since I had given it to my husband as a birthday present. It was supposed to
rain on Monday, so Sunday (the day of Craig’s cookout) was the only day we had
the time required to actually rotisserie a chicken! I spent what felt like
hours going back and forth, evaluating pros and cons, trying to figure out the
best thing do to: act spontaneously and change my plans, or deny Craig’s
request because it was too last minute, and potentially miss out on a fun time?
Looking back the whole situation sounds quite ridiculous, but at the time, it seemed perfectly
reasonable. As I said, I am a planner, and there’s something oddly rewarding to
me about making a list of “to do’s” and crossing things off throughout the day.
This was instilled in me early in life—even as a young child, I had a long list
of chores to complete, after which completing I would get some recognition from
my parents. Logically I recognize that I don't need their approval now, and
that I could stand to be more flexible, but old habits die hard! Thanks to my husband’s extreme flexibility
with our plans and Vianne’s encouragement to go with her, we did all end up
going to Craig’s party. We had a great time, and Monday turned out to be
sunny enough for us to rotisserie the chicken after all!
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Transferring Expectations across Spaces
Every year, my company treats its employees to a weekend outing in the White Mountains of New
Hampshire. This outing includes accommodations for our families, live music,
and plenty of food and drink. The first year I went to the outing, I brought my
boyfriend, Jason. The series of events that unfolded are still, almost five
years later, not comical. We underestimated traffic, turning the three
hour trip into something like seven. Our first hotel room smelled strongly of
mold, and when we went to open the slider door to postpone dealing with the
issue until morning, we discovered a whole army of spiders congregating around
the handle! After driving back to the front desk securing a new key, and
driving to a new building, we stared in amazement at a row of rooms numbered
seven, eight, and ten, feeling like we were in some bizarro world with our key labeled
“#9”. Back at the front desk we were told our room was tucked back in a corner
we’d missed. The next day we tried to do several activities, all of which were
thwarted for various reasons. I did end up having a lovely lunch of lobster
roll and chips, and we shared a milkshake for dessert. Unfortunately, this was before
I realized that my body was starting to become intolerant to
lobster—violently intolerant. My stomach twisted and pulsed for the rest of the
day, which I spent almost entirely in room #9’s bathroom. Saturday night I
tried to be a trooper and get ready for the big feast (so Jason could get
something to eat). This required us to drive a half an hour to the main hotel,
during which my insides felt like they were going to burst, and I was deep
breathing as if in labor. We had to park the car about a mile away, and walk up
a steep hill or take the shuttle. Since I couldn’t wait for the shuttle,
we raced up the hill (me with a sprained ankle that wasn’t healing well to
begin with). At the top, I made a bee line for the restroom and told Jason to
get some food. I was able to make a quick appearance in the dining room to tell
him we had to leave, and then a similar drive back to our room ensued.
Obviously, neither of us had very much fun!
The following year I didn’t go to the outing, and felt completely comfortable with my decision.
The year after that, I found myself in a quandary. I was dating a co-worker who
had been with the company for almost fifteen years. He really enjoyed the
outing and wanted me to go with him. He had seniority and would get a room in
the main hotel, so there would be no driving back and forth. But even after two
years, I still had all the horrible memories to overcome—my default expectation
was that if I went, I’d be absolutely miserable. But because it was important
to him, I decided to see what I could do to take my experience of this space
from horrible to truly fun and relaxing. After all, this was a free weekend
vacation at a beautiful resort in the mountains—something most people would pay
a lot of money for. I found a restaurant with an interesting martini menu to
visit the Friday evening we arrived, and arranged for a colleague and her
husband to meet us there for dinner. Since it had been a long day of working
and passenger-ing (my husband did the driving), I decided that when we got back
I would take some of the chill out of the mountain air by making use of our
room’s lavish fireplace. Thoughts of curling up on the sofa with a blanket and
a good book made me smile with anticipation. In fact, this reminded me of
Kripalu Center for Yoga and Health in Lenox Massachusetts, where I try to go
every year for some rest and relaxation. I figured that if I could do some
Kripalu-like relaxing at this resort, I could definitely make the outing into
something I would enjoy!
Since we were in the main hotel, our room was “near the action”—right over the action,
actually. The music was loud, but I simply adjusted the volume of the Chinese
bamboo flute music streaming from my iPod dock, and continued to read just
fine. When my eyes started to get heavy around eleven o’clock, I decided I
would turn in. Unfortunately, no amount of effort on my part (and there were several different attempts to be resourceful!) would stop the bass from reverberating through every cell in my
body, mercilessly chasing sleep away. My husband came in around one in the
morning (when the party ended), and I was finally able to sleep. What I
realized the next morning was that with best intentions, I tried to use the
space in a way that conflicted with its clearly designated weekend purpose,
which was to party with fellow co-workers. I’m happy to say that I learned from my experience—the next night I had
drinks and danced badly to bad music with my colleagues, and I had a great
time! My understanding (and acceptance) of how this physical space would be
used allowed me to flow with the
current, rather than against it. And sometimes, you just need to do that!
Transferring expectations across spaces apparently is a very difficult thing to do, even
when a whole group of people is
trying to make it happen. Every Tuesday night for as long as I can remember, a
West Coast Swing dance is held at the Elks Lodge in Arlington, Massachusetts.
This is a small space, but usually gets a good crowd. On the left side of the
room there are three rows of chairs lined up, on which dancers put their
jackets and under which they leave their street shoes. It’s a single file in,
single file out kind of thing, and you’re inevitably in someone’s way. Toward
the front of the room, where you enter, is the table where you are greeted and
where you pay, and slightly behind that, the table with the DJ’s equipment. On
the right is a small bar. There’s nowhere to stand and have a conversation
without being in the way or being relegated to the dark alley of chairs. The
floor can get sticky, wreaking havoc on one’s knees. Most of the year it feels
like you’re dancing in a sauna, regardless of attempts to get the air
conditioning working.
To their credit the Elks started updating and renovating the space, and at one point we needed
to find a temporary place to dance. For a few weeks, the Arlington dance was
held at a nearby Elks Lodge in Lexington, which for all intents and purposes,
was a superior space. It was much larger, the ceilings were higher, with round
tables and chairs spread out on one side so people could hang out. Although the
quality of the floor was still variable, it wasn’t as hot and sweaty as
Arlington. The dances were held on the same night, at the same time, and with
the same DJs—yet, it lacked the same energy
as the Arlington space! As I sat in the back of the hall at a table with my
friend Jason, we got to talking about it, and theorized that having too much space actually killed the vibe. Because it’s small and there’s nowhere really to congregate, its very nature
pushes people to get on the floor and just dance. Plus, while gross, the whole
concept of being in a sweaty, lackluster space together is a mild form of
mutual suffering that bonds dancers. Just the “ugh, I’m so gross!” comments one
hears and makes to others creates a feeling of being in this “terrible”
situation together. By the nature of the space, Arlington forces intimacy, and
that intimacy alone makes for a great night!
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Working through Discomfort in Spaces
After watching too many episodes of L.A. Ink and seeing too many women in yoga class with
beautiful artwork on their bodies, I decided that I wanted to get a tattoo.
This meant I also had to decide what to get and where to put it, find someone
who could translate the concept in my mind to something tangible, and locate a
reputable tattoo parlor and artist to do the work. A year or so after I had the
idea, things fell into place and I met with a woman name Julia, who did both
custom artwork and tattooing. Since she had her own shop close by, I decided I
would get the tattoo as a present for my thirty-sixth birthday. The artwork
would be ready on my appointment day, and I was assured that Julia and I would
work together to make any needed changes. Then she’d do the tattooing. Although
my husband was supportive, I asked my close friend Paige to accompany me
because I felt like I could talk with her about anything and everything, and I
might need some distraction during the procedure.
A week or so before my appointment, I shared some nervousness I had about getting the tattoo
with Paige. What if the artwork wasn’t right and Julia didn’t understand what I
wanted? How much did getting a tattoo really hurt? Paige responded in stern,
motherly tones that I needed to really think about whether this was something I
wanted to do. I was initially puzzled by her response, because I didn’t think I
was feeling that anxious about it, but given how well she knew me I
thought it was worth considering. Was I ignoring some a “gut feeling” that was
telling me I was about to make a big mistake? Although I asked myself these
questions, and chatted with my husband about it, I was never able to identify
what Paige seemed to see. I searched and searched, but didn’t feel seriously anxious about it—it was more like a curious excitement, with some fear of not knowing what to
expect. I kept the appointment, telling Paige I thought I really was fine about
it.
The morning of the appointment, Paige drove me to Julia’s tattoo shop but seemed a bit distracted.
Since she was in the middle of preparations for a cross country move at the
time, I chocked this up to the fact that she had a lot on her mind. But as soon
as we arrived and I started filling out paperwork in the waiting area, I could
see her taking in the décor, which was as you might expect—lots of strange
pictures and trinkets attached to the walls, including some skeletons with
wings. Everyone working there was covered head to toe with art. It was
difficult to ignore the fact that Paige felt uncomfortable in this space, so I
tried to acknowledge her unstated feelings. I told her how nice Julia had been
during my consultation, and about a dear, sweet friend I’d had whose style
totally aligned with the look of this shop. Paige nodded but remained pretty
quiet.
A few minutes later, I got to see the artwork and to my dismay, it wasn’t what I wanted at
all. Yet, as Julia and I started collaborating, the piece started to take
shape. After ten minutes or so passed, I felt badly about Paige sitting by
herself in the waiting area, and asked if she wanted to join us. She declined,
and then said she couldn’t stay. She was very uncomfortable being there and
wanted to leave. I called my husband and asked if he could trade places with
Paige.
Paige moved away, and I never found out what it was about the tattoo shop that caused her so much
anxiety. But as she always used to say, “it’s never really about what it’s
about.” Although she really wanted to be a good friend and support me through
my experience, the concept, physical décor, or other people in the shop
triggered some troublesome feelings that she just wasn’t able to bear or work
through at the time.
Actually getting the tattoo—on my closest physical space—was a prime opportunity for me to work through discomfort. When I
asked people who had tattoos about their experience, I received answers ranging
from “it’s as painful as childbirth.” to “the vibration feels good.” After
hearing so many different opinions, I decided it must depend on where one is
getting the tattoo done, and one’s own tolerance for pain.
My tattoo took two and a half hours to complete. Julia started the process slowly, and at the
beginning I was surprised because it didn’t hurt much at all. But as time
passed and Julia started wiping the tattoo between inking sessions, I found I
had to leverage some techniques to keep my mind in check. I closed my eyes,
went inside, and tried to focus on taking long, deep breaths, noticing where in
my body I was holding tension and intentionally trying to relax that area. When
we were halfway through, the physical pain and intensity of my mind whining,
“Are we done yet?” started to increase. Yet, I calmly responded to myself with,
“We’ll be done when we’re done, just accept where you are right now and
continue to breathe.” I believe these approaches to calm my mental spaces
helped me tremendously in dealing with what was a voluntary, yet uncomfortable
experience in the physical space of my own body.
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Using Spaces to Feel Accepted
When I was twelve years old, my family moved
from a house that was about an hour away from the nearest grocery store to one
in a more populated area. Although there were many children on my street, I was
the oldest—but by number only. In comparison to my new cohorts, my previously
isolated environment had kept me young. I was still riding a Strawberry
Shortcake bike that had originally come with training wheels when everyone else
had dirt bikes and fancy ten-speeds. It didn’t take long for me or my family to
realize that I had some catching up to do. Before I knew it, I had a
twelve-speed that was too big for me to ride comfortably, new clothes, and a
large in-ground swimming pool complete with diving board and slide. While
several other kids on the street had pools, mine was the biggest, and
all the kids knew it. Everyone—including the very same kids who made fun of me
when I first moved in—all wanted to be my friend so they could be invited to
swim. And as one might expect, there were some kids on the street who didn’t
like each other, so if you invited some friends you were automatically
excluding others. Looking back, it’s interesting to me how these material
possessions and alterations to our home gave me a sense of power and control
that I’d been missing when I first arrived. In retrospect I also recognize that
most of the children I thought had wanted to be my friends because they liked
me were mostly just using me for something I had.
As an adult, I often still feel like that backwards little twelve-year-old in
unfamiliar social circles. I have a great husband, a good job, and a nice
house. We have lots of friends, and we frequently have parties because we enjoy
making new drinks, food, and entertaining. But it’s always interesting to see
who offers us money for alcohol, who shows up with munchies, who asks
what we need when we’re planning a larger get-together—and for those without
much financial wherewithal, who offers time to help set up or clean up. At
first glance, everyone appears to be a friend, but it’s sometimes
difficult not to wonder how things would be if we weren’t fortunate to have all
that we do. This is especially true for me I think, because I do have a
certain level of insecurity about myself and am frequently concerned with how
others perceive me. Growing up, I never really had anyone love me just for
being me, and so I’m not sure how to recognize when people actually do it.
While it might be easy to leverage one’s physical environments to meet an unmet
emotional need, there are also ways one might consciously or unconsciously pull
directly at other people’s emotions to get something they’re lacking. When I
was around thirteen years old, I remember having my first real boyfriend, who
was then fifteen. We met at a music camp one summer, and I was smitten. Between
home and school, my life was miserable, and Damian was the first person who
made me feel truly loved. For a short time this made me feel really good about
myself, but pretty quickly, so many years of love deprivation meant I needed
more, more, and more from him. Although the affection and attention he gave me should
have been enough, it wasn’t. I was an endless well, an unsoakable sponge.
To make sure Damian really loved me, I made up stories I thought would upset
him. And when he did get upset, such displays clearly illustrated just how
important I was to him. Over the course of our nine month relationship, I was
going to have to move away, I couldn’t see him anymore because my parents were
against it, and even worse, there were days when I was potentially dying of
some awful disease. I’m obviously not pleased with the things I said and did in
that relationship, but with a lot of introspection and passing time, I realize
I was using Damian and all the capacity for love to make myself feel as though
I mattered. And although I wasn’t conscious of it at the time, I really,
desperately needed that.
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