Living Life Free From Expectations

As someone who considers themselves a feminist it seemed crazy that I should give birth to a son.  

I cannot lie, I found this fact confusing and ironic.  Most of my friends are female.  

I come from a family of mostly women.  

The majority of my clients are women.

​I love being a women.

---

What on earth do I know about men?!  How can I bring up a boy?! 

It became clear I was missing the point.  I can bring up a boy to respect women.  To clean up after himself, do his own washing, cooking etc.  To be free of traditional expectations of male and female roles.  To know that no means no.  To understand vulnerability and power.  To embrace female leadership.  To be whatever he wants to be in whatever way he wants to be it.  In short, everything that I would have taught my daughter. 

The Yoga Sutras talk about living a life free of expectations, free of attachment to a preconceived desired outcome.  My baby is only 3 weeks old and I have been reminded of these philosophies on many occasions already over the last 9 months.  From the relationship with his father, to the birth, the postnatal infections I caught, to the startling reality that my baby gets colic and cries for 4 hours some nights trying to pass gas!   

I thought I could set positive intentions that would then happen.  That his father would want to live with us.  That my baby would just pop out in an easy natural birth.  That he would not get colic....  That I would be able to teach and lead workshops within a few weeks.   

It turns out setting positive intentions do not work so well babies and birth, with dads to be, with post birth healing.  Sometimes things are bigger than our intentions can accommodate.  Nature has other ideas.  Sometimes we must simply be free from expectations to avoid disappointment.  And also to allow something much bigger and better to happen.   

So, for now at least, I am embracing a mantra that covers everything that has challenged me over the last nine months, that will help me get through the unpredictable nature of motherhood, that will help me come to grips with no longer being foot loose and fancy free.  For now I remind myself regularly that  

                              "I know the best things always happen for me". 

I don’t need answers.  I don’t need to understand everything.  I don’t need a rigid plan.  I simply need to trust that even when things are not "ideal", whatever that means, something positive is in the making.   

The best things always happen, even when they feel like a set back.  Without expectations I can live free of boundaries.  I have an opportunity to grow, learn, achieve bigger and better things.  I have an opportunity to experience a fuller life.  To achieve a greater potential, to bring greater change.   

Would you like to join me practicing this mantra?!  Can you begin to apply this trust to your life?  Can you begin to free yourself from preconceived outcomes and attachments, and disappointments.  If you feel any of these things creeping in, creating stress, simply remind yourself that "I know the best things always happen for me".

Charlotte x