Episode 4: Great Expectations Are Not Goals, They Are Actually Attachments

[00:00:00] Erin: Hi, welcome to the Grounded in Love podcast, episode four. This is a podcast taking you through conscious living and loving. We hope you enjoyed last week's episode about the ego and relationships. In some of our previous podcasts, we've been talking about the idea of suffering. And we'd like to talk about that a little bit more today with the extension of attachments and we can also look at it through a different lens of expectations.
So Garrett, do you want to get us started on this? What does it mean to you when we talk about attachments.
[00:01:14] Garrett: Yeah. So great question. And it's great to be back here. I want to talk about attachments and expectations in a way that hopefully makes sense to the modern person listening to the podcast here.
So, the idea of attachments dates back to some Hindu texts and to yoga philosophy. Yoga philosophy, basically says that the more things that you are attached to, the more that you will suffer. And I believe that there's some Buddhism that is along that route as well. In terms of how we can think about it today, attachments can be difficult to understand.
But what we can say is instead of attachments, replace that with expectations. So, instead of saying, well, I'm attached to this, you could say, well, what am I expecting out of my life? What am I expecting out of myself, out of my kids, out of my future, et cetera, et cetera. And that leads to suffering as well.
And we'll dive into that all today.
[00:02:22] Erin: So is it the attachment to the expectation you would say?
[00:02:27] Garrett: Correct. Correct. It is exactly the attachment to the expectation. But we can kind of shortcut that by just saying it is the expectation. And we'll kind of talk about like what that means and what is an attachment, what is an expectation, and why does it take you out of the present moment and put you into the future?
[00:02:49] Erin: Okay. All right. So would you say I was attached to my morning coffee then or how do you use that?
[00:02:59] Garrett: It depends. And so one thing that I learned and I think is helpful is you don't really know what you're attached to until you lose it. Until it's not part of your life anymore. So in the coffee example that you have, let's say that one morning you are not able to have your cup of coffee that morning for various circumstances.
The question of attachment is, what do you feel like if you do not have that cup of coffee? Does your day and mood and being become worse without that cup of coffee? Or, do you say, oh well, I'll have a cup of coffee next time. My life is perfect and fine the way it is. Most people that drink coffee regularly have a dependency on coffee.
That is a physical response. It's a physical attachment to something and also a mental attachment. And that is why when you miss your cup of coffee you feel lethargic and tired and you feel like you just need a cup of coffee to be yourself. And so if we talk about attachments to either things like coffee or ideas, which we'll talk about expectations, that would be the way that I would define it.
[00:04:20] Erin: Okay. So it's kind of like the, Buddhism ice cream example, right?
[00:04:26] Garrett: Oh, so that was from yoga, yoga sutras. Okay. Yeah. So the, this example goes, they're all in class and the instructor is asking questions and students are saying, well, I feel like I should be able to enjoy my life to some degree and enjoy some of these pleasures that are in the world.
And the instructor, the wise master says, well, of course you are completely allowed to enjoy the pleasures of the world. It's not a matter of enjoying the pleasures. It's a matter of are you attached to them? So the student says, well, I really like this ice cream place and I feel like I should be able to eat there when I feel like it.
The instructor said, that's fine. Okay. But let's do an example. Let's say that this whole class today is going to go eat this ice cream after class. And we're all excited about it because it's ice cream. It's going to be delicious.
When we get to that ice cream place. The ice cream place is closed. At that moment, how do you feel about the ice cream place?
Do you feel like, oh, it's closed, oh well, next time we'll get ice cream? Or are you extremely disappointed that the ice cream place was closed? If you're disappointed, you need to look within and determine, are you attached to this particular thing? Because the attachment led to a form of pain, which is suffering. When you got to the ice cream store, you were disappointed, and disappointment is a form of suffering and pain.
And those are the things that we are trying to eliminate from our lives.
[00:06:07] Erin: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. So, that brings up the idea of pleasures and whether or not we have our ice creams and our coffees and where do we draw the line today? I feel like most of our lives, we are spending seeking pleasures.
Is that not true?
[00:06:32] Garrett: No, it's absolutely true. It's absolutely true.
It's also a very unconscious form of being here in the world. Because what we are constantly doing is we are going towards the things that bring us pleasure. And we are avoiding the things that bring us pain. So, essentially, our mind is making choices to try to give us more pleasure, more often. And to avoid pain or discomfort or suffering more often.
The issue is, is when you try to do both of those things, when you have pleasure, again, think about the morning coffee. If you drink that coffee, it gives you energy. It gives you an ecstatic feeling for a small amount of time. But then that goes away. And then you need another cup of coffee so that you feel that again.
And that's the drawback to being attached to pleasures is that you seek them out when they're happening, it's fantastic. But then when you don't have them anymore, you feel this emptiness inside of you that you try to fill with pleasurable things. And these pleasurable things are pleasurable to you.
The person standing next to you or your friend may have pleasure in other things. So everybody's different in that regard. But it's also important to realize we're not ever facing things that bring us pain or suffering. We're basically stuffing those down inside of us to deal with at a different time.
And that leads to issues as well.
[00:08:09] Erin: Yeah. So it's that idea that we have brought up in previous talks. About seeking things externally seeking our wholeness or things to make us happy. Things that fill us up from external things, say the coffee, the ice cream, the relationship, whatever it is. When really we need to be looking within and finding that wholeness and the things we need inside. And then enjoying some of the pleasures for just that purpose. Not to fill us in the way that we use them now.
[00:08:50] Garrett: I think that's exactly right.
So it's still enjoying life and and having pleasurable experience in life. But not being attached to them in a way where you need them to feel okay about yourself. To feel whole and perfect inside. And that's unfortunately, most of society, is attached to pleasures like buying materialistic things to make themselves feel better, eating certain foods. We're very attached to foods, very attached to alcohol, we're attached to many, many, many things.
And it's not out of enjoyment, per se, it's out of I need this to some degree, otherwise I don't feel okay.
[00:09:36] Erin: Yeah. So, I'd love to ask you then how do we just find everything from within and not externally be attached to things?
[00:09:45] Garrett: So attachment, at least in yoga, and I think it's a good way to look at it, is understanding the mind patterns associated with attachment.
So the first, we've talked about this before, but the first step is seeing your thoughts for what they are. Seeing your compulsions into what you need to find pleasurable or what you crave. And part of the way you can do that is by focusing on when you have expectations of thought. So if you realize that you, in your mind are thinking of expectations, this can be very helpful to identify when you may have an attachment that you could reflect on.
[00:10:34] Erin: So say you expect something to happen a certain way. If you see yourself saying, I anticipate that this will be this way, this is how I want it to go. Then you can see that it's an expectation, that you're attached to the idea of something being a way. And if it doesn't go that way, then you probably will suffer.
[00:10:56] Garrett: Exactly. Because in a lot of ways we're formulating an idea of our life. I mean, that's what our life is is all of our beliefs about what our life is. That's all it is. There is no more than what we believe our life to be. So when you get in this place of expecting your life to go a certain way, then it does inevitably lead to disappointment because there's nobody that knows exactly how their life is going to be.
And even if they feel like they can control it, they don't have control of all the factors. Like we have control over how we think and how we act and how we treat ourselves and other people and all the things that we talk about in this podcast.
But we don't have control of, I could get in a car accident today and be dead tomorrow. We have no control over those things. And we have no control over how other people are going to be reacting in their relationship to us. So there are so many factors that we don't have control of, that we think we have control of, which leads to expectations about where we think we are supposed to be in our life.
And those expectations are the things that make us feel bad when we are not getting to those things. Or we're not having the life we expect.
[00:12:23] Erin: So having expectations can lead to I guess, suffering, unhappiness. Because we're expecting things to happen that are outside of our control. That makes perfect sense. But what about being intentioned, because you're saying that everything is outside of our control basically, except for, you know anything in that, we decide or we do. But what about setting intentions for the future?
Or it seems like we would want to do that.
[00:12:56] Garrett: And we do set intentions. We're always setting intentions. I mean, that's what's driving the creation of everything in life.
So our intentions are very different though than expectations. And the reason that they're different is our intentions are coming from a place from within. Where we're saying, hey, we are this person and we intend to, for example, make the world a better place by spreading unity and love and being a loving person.
Okay, that's an intention. Now, an expectation is, I expect the world to be a more loving and unified place because of what I'm doing right now. And if it doesn't become that, now I've failed. Okay. So the intention is setting a goal or belief or objective with no attachment to the outcome. Whether something happens or doesn't happen, if your intention comes true or doesn't come true, there is zero expectation of it.
You are enjoying the process of doing whatever it is that you're intending to do and you're not worried about anything else.
[00:14:18] Erin: I love the idea of it. I feel like it may be a little bit difficult to, put into, action or into...
[00:14:26] Garrett: well, here's why we're trained, especially in our culture, that you strive to do stuff.
And if you don't accomplish your goals, then you're failing and you need to figure out a way to accomplish your goals. I. e. you're not ever successful until you've accomplished something.
[00:14:51] Erin: Yeah. That is the way our children are raised in school and within our households. So I could see that. I could see that's why we have it ingrained in our heads that we do need to have expectations that that is part of how we operate. But really, it does just have us trying to control things that aren't within our control.
[00:15:16] Garrett: I think it might be helpful to go through an example of an expectation and, and maybe in a relationship. Okay. So Erin doesn't know I'm bringing this up right now. So we have this thing in our house where we don't necessarily see eye to eye on when the cutting board should be clean.
So the way I like to do it is, I usually make prepare my food and I use the cutting board with salad. I'll chop some salad, chop whatever ingredients I need. And once I'm done with the food, I leave the cutting board on the table and I go enjoy my food for a while and then also digest and kind of relax.
So in other words, the cutting board is being left out dirty or with stuff on it for however long that it is until I get around to cleaning it.
Erin does things very differently. Would you like to explain how you do your cutting board process?
[00:16:24] Erin: Well, so I just, I cut up my salad ingredients, whatever. And then I immediately just take the cutting board and knife over to the sink and wash it and put it away so that I don't have to think about it again and come back to something.
I don't expect Garrett to do it the same as me. However, there are times where I, you know, the cutting board and knife sit out for a long time and it's getting all dried up. You know, all this stuff is drying on the knife, which is not great for the knife quality and I may need to use it.
So then I have to go over and wash it. You take it from here, Garrett.
[00:17:08] Garrett: So, we have these different philosophies on the cutting board. Okay, usually by the time that I'm eating, I'm hungry and also maybe a little bit tired. And I do just want that time to relax. And I don't put importance on cleaning the stuff up right away.
It's just not important to me. But to Erin it's important to her for the reasons that she mentioned. Now, this created a fairly large argument in our household at one point in time. And it was a perfect example of expectations and how those expectations turn into... you're not doing something and it's disrespectful in some way.
And it's making me very angry about this thing. So, first of all, I'll backtrack a little bit. I have always said, hey, Erin if you need to use the cutting board before I get around to cleaning it, just ask me to do it and I will do it. Because I know that it's not my cutting board, it's the family's cutting board and you may need to use it.
I'm not completely crazy about not doing it. I'm not stubborn. It's just a matter of if nobody else needs it, and I can relax, then I'm going to choose to do that.
So, can you think back to when we were having this discussion, and like, what was it in your mind that was..
[00:18:35] Erin: Yeah, and I do, I do think it was more of a discussion rather than a full big argument.
I was not angry for the record. But I was trying to understand. Because I was saying there are just some asks that I feel like in a relationship that I'm like, my ask is that the cutting board be rinsed off or cleaned, you know, just, it takes like a few seconds. So that it's not sitting out for like, for a long time. So it's ready for anybody else who needs to use it.
It was just one of those things to me that I was like, it's a small ask. I'm going to ask not a huge deal. So then when he said no, I was like, well, where do we go from here? You know, because. I don't know.
[00:19:29] Garrett: So the ask was, can you do it like me?
[00:19:32] Erin: Yeah. Right.
[00:19:33] Garrett: Can you do it like me? Because I feel like this is the right way to do it essentially.
[00:19:37] Erin: Well, my, I guess the side of it was we all live in a house together.
We have eight people, you know, six kids. If everybody's just leaving their stuff around, it's stuff everywhere all the time. So it's not like I get on everybody about everything. I for sure don't pick up all my stuff all the time. I am not, I'm not perfect, but it was something about this cutting board that I was like, I'm actually going to say something and have this, my ask. I don't ask a lot of things.
And so when, I did ask and got that like flat out no, and I'm like, well, okay, what do we do here?
[00:20:18] Garrett: Yeah. So it's interesting part of what you said was, well, if everyone just starts leaving all their stuff out, it's going to be chaos. And that's just clear anxiety, right? Yeah,
[00:20:29] Erin: it's a fear.
Yeah.
[00:20:30] Garrett: Complete anxiety. There's no reason.
[00:20:32] Erin: Yeah, like I won't have any control over all of this and what would I do? A lot of control.
[00:20:39] Garrett: But you mentioned a good point as well. Like you're saying that I had an ask. But your ask at that time, eventually we got to a point where it wasn't in a, what I would call an attachment, but your ask, you were kind of attached to an answer. At least in the beginning, like you wanted to hear yes, and when you heard no, it created something in you. At least from an energy or from an emotional perspective, Early on.
And I felt that.
[00:21:13] Erin: I, yeah, I expect, I expected a yes, because I was like, this is a simple ask. I don't ask a lot. I mean, I don't think. And so, yeah, I was caught off guard with a, with just a no.
[00:21:28] Garrett: But it, see, what is not being framed, I think, is that you weren't just caught off guard like, oh, wow, that was not what I was expecting.
It was like. Well, why wouldn't you do this for me?
[00:21:42] Erin: Yeah, I mean, it was, it was like, okay, well in a relationship, sometimes you have to, do things that you might not want to or I'll do things for you or you do things for me. It's the give and take of a relationship. And so I was like, yeah, I didn't know where to go with it.
[00:22:05] Garrett: But I also don't agree with that.
[00:22:08] Erin: Yeah, well,
[00:22:09] Garrett: right. I don't think that in a relationship you do have to have this give and take, like I'm going to do this for you. Because in that relationship, you're saying I'm going to do things for you and you're going to do things for me. It's becoming very transactional.
You know, it's like, well, she did this for me, so now I need to do this for her. And we don't have any way of following our intention, or what we actually want to do. We're just, again, doing things for other people because they've asked us to do them. Even though we might not want to do them ourselves.
But there's, it's tricky because we also can strive to be selfless in our relationships. And being selfless in our relationships is acting in the interest of other people and kind of saying, we don't need these certain things. I just think, going back to the relationship point, I don't think a relationship needs to be a, we do this for each other, even if we don't want to, because that's how a relationship is.
I think a very healthy relationship is one where we say, I want to be serving and helpful to you because I, because I love you. And I don't expect anything in return for that. It's just because I love and care about you. I have no expectations of what the outcome or return will be. And that's the place of a grounded, healthy, foundation in a relationship.
[00:23:46] Erin: Okay. So getting back to the cutting board, is it not okay to ask someone?
[00:23:54] Garrett: Right. It's, it's completely okay to ask for what you think you need or want. It's always okay. The attachment, again, comes from the expectation of what you might hear. So you can ask for whatever you want or feel like you need.
But the expectation of them saying something or you winning the argument or debate or whatever it might be, that's where the attachment comes in. So when we ask for things, we need to be very, careful about the outcome, the aftermath of it. And saying, did we expect a certain answer that we didn't get? And why? Why were we expecting that answer?
[00:24:38] Erin: Right. Right. And then, yeah, to be okay with it, no matter what, which, it's again, back to what we talked about. I think it was the last episode or the one before about mirrors. I expect things to be a certain way and if you're saying, no, I don't want to comply to that. It's back on me about why do I need this cutting board cleaned?
It's, it's not Garrett. Why is it that I need this cleaned so badly? Why do I really want this and really look inside of what is going on here? Where did that idea come from?
[00:25:25] Garrett: Exactly. Exactly. Because all of those things come from ideas that you learned in the past that you believe are proper, essentially. You learned those things. There's plenty of people that don't do dishes for days, right? They don't. And maybe we don't want to live like that ourselves, but that's perfectly okay.
And it's perfectly fine for them to live in that way. And some people do it all time. But for me, my stance was, I want to prepare my food and enjoy it and relax after I eat it. And that's what I feel good about.
I will clean the cutting board and the knife up. I'm not going to leave it out all night long. I will clean it up at a reasonable time, but it might not be on the same timeline that Erin has. And so that was the, that was the conflict and it created some emotional response to it. There was an attachment to it, but we were able to talk through it.
And I remember I've said this several times, and it may not be the most loving thing to say, but it's like, I tell Erin I'm not here to coddle your ego.
[00:26:40] Erin: Yes, he does.
[00:26:44] Garrett: And I probably say it in, in a way that is too direct a lot of times. But sometimes I feel like there's pressure, from not just Erin but from the outside world to make these people feel better about themselves by doing things for them that will make them feel better. And that's what we're talking about pleasure and attachment to pleasure. You need other people to do stuff for you so that you can feel okay about yourself.
[00:27:16] Erin: Yeah. And he does. He says that, it's never a great feeling. But every time he does, I do know that that's when I need to look in and say, okay. Where's this coming from? Why am I feeling this? What am I thinking? And where, where is the deeply rooted idea or expectation that this came from? So thanks for bringing that up.
[00:27:41] Garrett: Yeah, no, I think it was a good example of just how real life happens and how our attachments can be really small.
They can be very minor. But whenever we feel like something is disappointing us or frustrating us, that is a key to look at. Is there some kind of expectation? Is there some kind of attachment here? Because when we have these expectations, we are putting ourselves out of the present and into the future.
We're expecting something that is not here right now. But the present moment is the only moment that's real. And it's the only moment where everything is exactly perfect. It's in that present moment.
So when we have anxieties or expectations or think like we need certain pleasures, or need to avoid certain pains, we're always taking ourselves out of the now. And that is the perfect moment. We always have everything we need right in that moment.
[00:28:44] Erin: Right. The future is just imagined anyway. It's just thoughts. Yeah.
[00:28:48] Garrett: Just thoughts. It's our imagination. So the more that we can be in the now means the more that we will feel that joy and peace and satisfaction in our life of just being present.
And one of the keys is to look at our attachments, look at our expectations, and try to understand where they come from and eliminate them over time.
[00:29:13] Erin: I think that sounds like a good way to wrap this up.
[00:29:18] Garrett: Yeah. So thanks again for listening. Hope you enjoyed this last episode. We'll see you next week.
[00:29:24] Erin: Thank you.