So what did you expect?
That’s what you’ll get
When a friend complains about a problem, sometimes you can see it clearly followed behavior.
So much easier to see it in someone else!
We understand the physical laws of cause and effect — put your hand in a flame, get burned. The law of gravity suggests not jumping from a high building. Plant tomatoes, tomatoes come up.
In the same way, there is a mental law of cause and effect that works whichever way you set in motion by your thoughts and words.
As we consciously set a cause of clear intention for the experience we want to have, we can expect that effect to be produced.
When we say someone is “expecting,” we know she is expecting to give birth to a child. In the same way, we are expecting to give birth to our desires with our thought and word.
So, what DO you expect?” By thinking ahead to the result, the effect, we can apply the right cause, the right kind of thinking.
Expectancy increases creative power. We might think that “expect” means projecting into the future. But the word “expect” has the same root as spectacles or eyeglasses, meaning to see out of.
We need to put on EXPECTANCY spectacles, seeing a desire as already granted.
We can use imagination to SEE and FEEL it as real.
If we want a certain effect, if we can imagine what this would be like, look like, feel like, we are already seeing from the desired experience.
We don’t say “I’m going to be healthy.” That means we are always GOING to be healthy — in the future. No, we expect it to be so now. I expect health.
Images work more directly on the subconscious mind, where all the work really happens. The mind doesn’t know the difference from a real experience or a strongly imagined one.
An experiment was done wiring a group of skiers to EMG equipment to measure movement of their muscles.
As the skiers mentally rehearsed the downhill runs, the electrical impulses heading to their muscles were the same as those used to make turns and jumps while physically skiing. The brain sent the same instructions to the body, whether the skiers were thinking of a certain movement or physically doing it.
So, by getting the feeling first as real as possible, you bypass the middleman — what you think you need for a desired experience — and go right to the experience.
In a sense, then it is already fulfilled.
Expectancy increases belief and conviction.
It’s different to say, I would like to have greater prosperity, and saying I EXPECT greater prosperity!
Then it’s easier to add to the idea — I see prosperity coming to me in every form and every way. My finances increase daily.
The word confidence means with faith. Zig Ziglar, the master salesman said: “I’m so confident I’ll go after Moby Dick in a rowboat and take the tartar sauce with me!”
But faith is more than a positive attitude. Faith is a power, an energy that releases our creative power.
Faith is the vibration at work in the law of attraction- that a thought can attract things of like frequency.
A famous passage was written by W.H. Murray, who led the Scottish Himalayan Expedition:
“Until one is committed, there is hesitancy, the chance to draw back. But there is one truth… that the moment one definitely commits oneself, then Providence moves too.
A whole stream of events issues from the decision, all manner of unforeseen incidents & meetings & material assistance…”
Maybe you or I aren’t going to climb the Himalayas — not on my bucket list.
But we each have a seeming mountain we want to climb, to reach, to accomplish.
The principle is the same: Once we commit to it with faith, once we fully EXPECT to climb it, we are moved and guided by an invisible help and support.
Anyone who has ever tried to break a habit or addiction knows this. Nothing changes until there is a strong commitment, a turning point, a firm decision.
Part of our expectancy, our faith is knowing there is Divine Timing at work.
Several expectant fathers were in a hospital waiting room. A nurse came in and said to one, “Congratulations, you have a new son.”
Another man jumped up and cried, “Hey, I got here two hours before he did!”
We can’t judge our timing against what other people have, for it is coming to us in its perfect time.
As with the butterfly’s cocoon –
we can’t pull it open because the caterpillar is not IN the cocoon, it is being created FROM the cocoon.
Preparing for your good propels expectancy into action.
A town was experiencing a drought. Everyone decided to meet in the town square to pray for rain.
They all met, but only one person brought an umbrella.
We need to show the Universe that we’re serious, that we really mean it! Not just repeating affirmations, we are actively preparing for it in our lives.
Physical preparation is important, but it has even more power to manifest when coupled with mental preparation. As with the experiment with the skiers, coaches of all sports now train their athletes to prepare with mental rehearsal.
They concentrate as if they were physically competing, developing strategies for possible upsets, and learning to block out images of doubt. They became adept at changing the internal movie, quickly editing the scene to success.
Muhammed Ali was a master of mental rehearsal. Before a fight, Ali used many self-motivational techniques: affirmation, visualization, mental rehearsal, and that powerful confirmation of personal worth:
“I am the greatest!” Try it.
We can learn from these experts. If you just say you want greater health, you could be a root vegetable on the couch forever. Studies show that just suiting up increases the chance of follow through.
Sometimes preparation means clearing out the old — clothes, papers, books, furniture, to create a space, for the new to come in.
It also means clearing out old mental ideas and beliefs. Any beliefs in lack and limitation, in “the way things are” — all go on the trash pile. Turn every limiting word into a positive statement: I am always guided to new opportunities.
We need to expect that something does happen as a result of our thought.
We create a greater potential for results we want through expectancy: by imagining and feeling, by building deeper confidence, and preparing for our good.
We are always building a doorway in our consciousness, expecting our good to come in, at any moment.
