I've come to learn through my own experiences and from counseling others that there are a few ways we can ensure pain and suffering for ourselves.

To name a few are: resisting change, making comparisons, focusing on what we're lacking rather than on what we have, and ah yes...those funny things we conjure up in our minds called expectations.

My mother gave me this Serenity prayer many years ago. When I look back on that time, I am certain that I lived with a whole lot of expectations of not only myself, but of others and of life. I was full of pain.

Serenity prayer in English reads:

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
courage to change the things I can, And wisdom to know the difference.

In the last month or so, I have found myself repeating the wise words a friend of mine shared with me a couple of years ago...'people will rise to that which they are capable of'.

I remember when hearing these words, thinking to myself 'wow, if I could just keep reminding myself of this, I could save myself a lot of hurt and disappointment'. The truth is that for years I've known that human beings will disappoint. The answer to why is very simple. People disappoint one another because they are imperfect human beings with different upbringings, experiences, perspectives, needs, and desires.

It is true that we all have a mind, a body, and a heart, but that doesn't mean that these parts of us are identical to any one person on the planet. And so, what this leads to is a plethora of people living amongst one another and trying to live in harmony without much understanding as to why we say, do, and respond (or react) in the ways we do.

This is not to say that we can't have needs. It is important to distinguish between needs and expectations.

A need is a want or desire that you have identified to be something important for your self preservation. An expectation is defined as a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future or that someone will or should achieve something. Your need is based on a knowing truth you feel inside yourself, whereas an expectation is a belief based on imagination, not reality.

Needs are meant to be voiced and met. Expectations are illusions meant to be tamed.

When we have expectations of what another person is going to say or do, the result can be feeling hurt and disappointment. If we have expectations of what our life is going to be like and it turns out differently, the result can be much more painful as we experience feelings of sadness, despair, and hopelessness along with a lot of confusion.

In the years I've lived on earth thus far, there are a few things I've learned to embrace: change will happen, expect nothing, appreciate everything, and accept things just as they are.

After much trial and error, I have come to realize that every moment truly is a gift. Every experience I have is a combination of fortune and will. Certain things come my way effortlessly and well...other things, I have to will myself either with great or mild effort.

Rather than give my energy to focusing on how I wish something would have turned out differently or how I wish something were different in my current life, I make the conscious choice to give my energy to what is. If I'm not satisfied with my here and now, then I focus on being present to take the necessary actions required for change.

When we can live our life knowing and actually believing that we are in charge only to a certain extent and that the rest is and will unfold as it is supposed to, then we can stop placing expectations on others or having expectations of what we want from life.

The more you let go and become the observer of what people say and do or what happens in life, while dropping expectations, the more likely it is that things will naturally shift and come into sync. This way, living feels much like you are floating down a river and less like you are climbing over boulders that you yourself have placed on your path.