It’s certainly an odd combination.
Specifically, one of my favorite traditions and one of my pet peeves.
Each year Vlad and I (and previously Belle) invite our friends over for a Christmas Tree Trimming party.
Beyond how delightful it is to host some of our favorite folks, it’s also an astonishingly efficient enterprise.
Akin to an Amish barn raising, many hands do indeed make light work.
Beyond this, I am also happy to report that this year, I’ve also grown less chafed by the eternal irritant of many people’s inability to respond promptly to invitations.
As always, I’m sure the party will be quite quite full––Vlad is VERY popular––but up until the last moment, we never know exactly who is coming.
This makes any catering plan nearly impossible, especially since this year I’m only serving gingerbread (and Prosecco).
Perhaps my growing acceptance of such foibles is helped by the Inner Work I’m doing.
I readily admit that this is one of my greatest spiritual challenges(and I know I’m not alone).
I’ve even made it the theme of this month’s new meditation HERE.
Namely, it’s Letting go of Expectations while being full of Abundant Expectancy.
As is typically the case, I was directly inspired by an Angel Card––one I drew this week––and this accompanying text:
Your attitude towards the present
builds your experience of the future.
Hold a positive outlook.
Stay miracle-minded and open to surprises.
Speaking of being open to surprises…
Last week I shared my thoughts about reclaiming the record albums I’ve stored at my mother’s house.
Although I managed to sort them into Keep and Discard piles, since Vlad and I were unexpectedly traveling by Amtrak, I had to temporarily leave them behind.
Bowing to my mother’s new urgency towards decluttering––or at least decluttering MY possession––I place an ad on Craig’s List, hoping for some student driving back from Connecticut to Brooklyn, someone who’d appreciate me covering their gas money and some modest fee for their trouble.
The first surprise was the number and range of responses I got.
These included folks who wanted several hundred dollars to others who were inspired to share their hard-luck stories in their introductory email.
The winning candidate emerged very quickly, however.
Last night Vlad and I met him at our storage space to claim my dusty LPs from decades ago.
The second surprise was much more sweetly poignant, however.
Namely, when picking up the albums earlier in the week, my 20-something Craig’s List hire was deeply inspired by my 90 year-old mother (she tends to have that effect).
In fact, my across-state-lines musical chauffeur texted me this update:
Even bolstered by such tender surprises, the challenge of Expectancy (without Expectation)can run deep.
Part of being human is to have profound desires and goals and ambitions that inspire us to move forward.
Indeed, it’s nearly impossible to be passionate about things and remain somehow Zen about it all.
It’s rather like asking someone to fall deeply in love without risking having their heart broken.
And yet, achieving a kind of Abundant Expectancy (minus that nagging feeling of expectation) is at the heart of so many spiritual practices.
As the angel card depicts, it’s like an ideal Christmas morning, one in which we’re delighted to open our presents with no clue as to what we’ve been given.
(No sneak peeks allowed, in other words.)
Speaking of which…
Last month, my business partner for our wellness app and I were honored by being selected for a tech start-up program.
One of the assignments was to conduct a few dozen exploratory interviews with our target audience.
We were cautioned repeatedly, however, to be open about these, not to steer them towards validating our business hypothesis or model but instead to remain open.
To listen far more than we talked, in other words.
Truthfully, our project is further along than most––we’ll be launching quite soon; I’ll keep you posted––so I admit to the early temptation to treat this as a purely pro forma exercise.
Once I got past that hubris, however, I learned so much from my expectation-free (or at least reduced) conversations.
My favorite juxtaposition of interviews was one with a dear friend and a fitness legend who’s been sharing wellness practices since 1980, immediately followed by a college-age neighbor who got certified in his modality just last year.
I’m so glad I allowed each interview––one with someone with a 43-year career, the other with a 13-month one––to shatter my expectations in different and surprising ways.
The key, of course, was remaining open, listening with reduced expectations yet still full of expectancy,trying not to anticipate their journey (or my own.)
Emily Dickinson famously wrote:
‘Hope’ is the thing with feathers –
That perches in the soul –
Although this open-hearted spirit, she tells us, is something that “never asked a crumb” it gives us more than we might ever realize.
Indeed, as is always the case, the spiritual lesson I’m struggling with most has already been perfectly mastered by my two-year old puppy.
Although he certainly has very clear preferences (and isn’t shy about expressing them!) for the most part Vlad lives his life in the spirit of Abundant Expectancy.
Indeed, whenever it’s clear we’re going somewhere, although he’s most often clueless about our finish line, he’s beyond delighted.
Yes, he knows what packing a suitcase signifies, but nonetheless our actual destination remains a complete mystery to him.
In fact, because he’s entirely process-oriented, the end-point is largely irrelevant.
Just imagine the possibility of living life that way, eager for the journey yet completely open as to where you’ll end up.
Truly, that’s the embodiment of Abundant Expectancy, again something I’m exploring HERE.
Once that “thing with feathers” is fully engaged, unexpected friendships between people with a 50-year age gap can happen, and unchoreographed conversations––whether they are with novices or masters––can flow more freely as well.
Right now, as I make my best guess at how much Gingerbread(and Prosecco) I’m going to need––knowing that the party will be endlessly fun but largely clueless about who’s coming––I’m attempting to do the same.
Ultimately, as this holiday season approaches Full Gallop, it’s my heartfelt vision that perhaps this year we can all embrace Abundant Expectancy together.
Namaste for Now,
