Will the real Lauren Short please stand up?

I have come to the realization lately that I have put way to many expectations on the people around me.  Expectations of my job and what I deserve, of friends and various other things that I won’t name. . These expectations have come to make me forget who I am and have caused me to go into a “depression”. I don’t think that we realize how much we put expectations out into the world and how much they can keep us from being who we really are.

A little more background, this past June I was promoted to the Marketing Department at my company as a coordinator supporting a couple of the brands that we own and operate aside from working with our corporate clients.  I was thrilled and excited to take on this role as I was still in school finishing up my Graduate Certificate in Marketing.  It was GREAT hands-on knowledge while I was getting my degree.   I expected to be in this role for a while and move up within the organization, I was even working with my supervisor to do so. Some things happened within the company over the last 4-5 months and in the middle of some major layoffs, my position was eliminated.  BUT they moved me back to a Sales Operations role.  I will say that I am VERY thankful for employment in a time where it is still tough to get a job still. But it’s hard to be going one way in your career and then be kind of thrown back to where you started. I feel like I am behind. So it’s frustrating and that is one pillar of what has cause my “depression”.  

Another is my expectations of a place to live.

Over the course of the last month or so I have been looking for a new place to live. One roommate is relocating out of state to LA and the other is moving in with another friend. While I am trying to maintain these relationships I found myself depressed and lost and not knowing where I was going to live. Not an uncommon feeling that I had about a year ago. I thought I would have been in this living situation for at least more than one year. But here I am again, moving. This will be 4^th move in 3 years of living in Seattle. I can’t say that I have gotten any better at moving. I only get more frustrated. But I can say that I found  one bedroom apartment by myself only a half a mile from where I live currently. So that was a HUGE relief and I think helped bring me out of my funk.  

Now, onto my relationships.

I have recently been working on the need for expectations in certain relationships in my life.  I am not sure where this came from over the course of the past few years. But I have been noticing that I have them and they are not healthy.  My therapist FINALLY said to me “The moment you let go of those expectations that you have of other people, is when you will truly be free and in the moment.”   She gets me EVERY time!  So now I am working on intention.  I am going to be intentional about my relationships with people. If someone is irreplaceable in my life, that is who I am choosing to be around and let them know that.  Since I have been doing that, I have found that it has been slightly easier to let go which is something that I still struggle with.

Hoping to work on this more throughout the next few months to dig myself out of this down in my life. I can only go up and I am feeling it.