***The What and the How

The work will wait while you show your child the rainbow, but the rainbow won't wait while you do the work.
- Patricia Clafford

Introduction
How we approach each person and each task in life may be as important as the content of how we relate and what we do. This has been explored extensively in psychotherapy literature, with observations about how non-verbal communications contribute to the positive or negative responses we get. Going beyond this level, considering spiritual healing interventions, we often find that when we hold a healing intent in our mind and heart, everything we are and do can become a meditation, a prayer and a healing intervention.

Expectations - stated and unstated

I will succeed.
Today I will resist
pessimism and will conquer
the world with a smile,
with the positive attitude
of expecting always the best.
Today I will make of every ordinary task a sublime expression,

Today I will have my feet on the ground
understanding reality
and the stars' gaze
to invent my future.

Today I will take the time to be happy
and will leave my footprints and my presence
in the hearts of others.
Today, I invite you to begin a new season
where we can dream
that everything we undertake is possible
and we fulfill it,
with joy and dignity.
- Linda DeBow

Our personal, inner expectations shape our lives. What we get out of the way we play out our game of life depends on how we play our cards, invest our chips and move our pieces on the board that is our world of interactions with the people in our lives. More important than the rules and the mechanics of our life game is how we relate to ourselves, to the game and to each other. For some, the goal is the accumulation of ever more chips and the possessions and power that these can purchase. My observation is that this often ends up as an addiction, an endless chase after ever more chips and things, and never truly satisfying.

When we extend our awareness to our interconnections with other people and our environment, aware that we are co-creators of our relationships and of our world at large, there are usually much deeper satisfactions. The journey becomes our focus rather than some arbitrary destination, which, when achieved, leaves us having to find other destinations to work towards to satisfy our addiction to achieving or attaining ever more of something outside ourselves.

Our interpersonal expectations shape our relationships. When we are clear within ourselves as to what we want, it is helpful to share this with those who are interacting with us so that we are on the same page. Many potential conflicts can be avoided when mutual expectations are clarified and agreed. Too often we assume others are on our page, while they are assuming we are on theirs.

1. Years ago, before cell phones existed, I had the silly experience of making a date with a friend when I was living in an apartment in New York to meet downstairs. I waited 45 minutes, then went up to phone and find out what had happened. We were each annoyed at the other for not arriving at our own downstairs.

2. In personal partnering relationships, each participant comes with their family styles of being in the world. Each will often assume that the way they were raised is the way the world functions. What a surprise and eye-opener to discover that a partner may have habits that are totally outside the range of our experience, expectations, and tolerances! We laugh about toilet seats left up or down, but may be harder to laugh over major mismatches in manners, cleanliness, dietary, loudness of music or sexual behaviors preferences. There is a lot to be said for taking extended periods to visit or live together so that we can identify these differences and explore ways (and possible limits) to compromising.

Clarifying expectations and putting them on the table can go a long way towards enhancing the success of negotiations between groups of people. Very often, negotiations start from a base of negative feelings and distrust. Even the most severe chasms of differences that divide people, up to and including the perpetrators and victims of violent crimes and genocide, can be bridged when we have the chance to share our experiences and feelings, and come to a place where we can at least hear, if not empathize with, the experiences and feelings of the opposite parties.

It also helps when we take the opportunity to clear our personal negative feelings. WHEE: Whole Health – Easily and Effectively® is an excellent way to do this. It is particularly healing when facilitators in mediation, reconciliation or therapy clear their emotional issues that resonate with the issues involved in the conflicts that are being addressed by the parties who are in conflict.

A longer article with this title was published in the International Journal of Healing and Caring – on line (IJHC), 2007, Volume 7, No. 2.