The Unspoken Assumptions of Relationships

The Buddha's teaching on the First Noble Truth is that suffering, or dukkha in the Pali language, is an inherent part of life. This includes not just physical pain but also the suffering that arises from change, separation from what we love, and the inability to obtain what we desire. The Buddha's message exposes a basic blind spot within society, even 2500 years ago, by challenging the hidden belief that if we're unhappy or suffering somehow, something must be wrong. His message was that no, there isn't something wrong with us, and we can expect life to be filled with ups and downs. What a relief. We don't have to pretend that everything's always awesome and wonderful, and we don't have to feel bad about ourselves when it isn't. 

In many ways, you could say the same thing about relationships. Relationships might not be suffering exactly, but they can be inherently disappointing. Sometimes it's us who changes, and sometimes it's them. Either way, if we are attached to a particular form of relating and try to hold on, we inevitably suffer. Another way that relationships can be dissatisfying is when there is a mismatch in values between the two people. For example, if one person values honesty and open communication, but the other person values keeping the peace and avoiding confrontation, it might lead to conflicts in the relationship.

The most common way relationships can bring about dissatisfaction is that we have expectations that don't get met. We often have expectations of how we want our relationships to be, and when these expectations are not met, it can lead to suffering and dissatisfaction. For example, we might have expectations about how our colleagues should behave, contribute to the team, or what they should do in certain situations. We might also have expectations about their roles and responsibilities or how they should support and communicate with us. When our expectations are not met, it can lead to dissatisfaction and frustration.

Phase 1: The Enchantment

All relationships, whether they are romantic or professional, start the same way. In the beginning, things seem perfect, and the relationship will work out. During the initial enchantment phase of a relationship, people often feel highly connected and positive about the relationship. They may experience a high degree of openness and trust. Everything seems to be going smoothly, and people feel deeply connected and in sync. 

Phase 2: Unmet Expectations

But what do we know about enchantment? At some point, we wake up and experience disenchantment. Why does the spell where off in our relationships? It does so because it is of our expectations. We generate expectations about one another, are not explicit about our expectations and are inevitably disappointed. These expectations take shape below the level of our everyday awareness. We don't even realize we're doing it. 

In a relationship, unmet expectations can affect the potential for experiencing complete openness and trust. Imagine a puzzle with all the pieces fitting together perfectly, representing a relationship where these qualities are fully present. Whenever someone in the relationship has an unfulfilled expectation, it's like adding a piece that doesn't fit into the puzzle, disrupting the sense of connection and trust. 

Trust decreases as disappointments mount. Initially, though, it might not feel so bad. The relationship might not be as alive as it was during the enchantment phase. We may not be as eager to be open. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, as disappointments keep building up, the level of connection declines. With it, so does our openness. We might feel a sense of distance or disconnection. Perhaps we are less invested or motivated to communicate or connect with them. We might feel like the relationship is not as close or fulfilling as it once was. 

Phase 3: The Breakdown

As the disappointments continue to add up, our mind starts playing a very interesting game with us: we lose respect. Once we have lost respect for someone, the relationship moves into the decline phase. We might view them as unreliable, untrustworthy or incompetent. We may start to second-guess their intentions or ability to follow through on their commitments. We may even consider them unintelligent. We might then treat them with less consideration or kindness and be less inclined to show them care. We might also be more prone to criticize or blame them or become less patient or understanding. 

If you observe your thoughts and feelings when a relationship has entered a phase of decline or breakdown, you may notice that your perception of the other person becomes more negative and one-dimensional. You might categorize them in an unflattering way. We lose our ability to see the other person in a nuanced way and instead view them one-dimensionally. Rather than human beings with various qualities, they might be stupid, vindictive, manipulative, dishonest, or unfaithful. It takes conscious effort to remember that the person who has disappointed us is human and fallible. 

When disappointments in a relationship become severe enough, they can trigger our fight or flight response, activating the amygdala and causing a surge of adrenaline. We might react by lashing out, becoming aggressive (fight response), withdrawing or distancing ourselves from the situation (flight response) or feeling paralyzed and unable to take action (freeze response). 

Phase 4: The Repair

One issue with expectations is that we don't always communicate them clearly to others. Another, and maybe the more important, is that we may not even realize that we have certain expectations until we have been disappointed. Then when that happens, we don't tell the truth. We do no one a favor when we hold back, certainly not ourselves or our relationships. Whenever we hold back in a relationship, we can be sure that it will go into a form of decline.

Identifying past hurts or disappointments is important to address issues in our relationships. We can do this by identifying and articulating what we were assuming, hoping, and expecting. Once we understand our own expectations, we may realize that the breakdown in the relationship was not necessarily all the other person's fault but rather a lack of clarity on our part and that we never conveyed our expectations to the other person in the first place.

Just as suffering is inherent in life, so is dissatisfaction in our relationships. The Buddha believed that we suffer in life because of our attachment to impermanent things and experiences. Similarly, we experience dissatisfaction in our relationships because we expect others to act in certain ways. We assume that they have the same expectations we have. We might even believe they should be able to read our minds about the expectations we have for them. Relationships don't have to be disappointing. It would be nice if we could eliminate our tendency to generate expectations of the people in our lives, but we cannot. We all have preferences. We all desire others to behave in a certain way or have certain qualities or characteristics. If we hope to transform the disappointments in our relationships into understanding, it starts by clarifying what we were expecting in the first place. And then the obvious next step is to communicate it.

Summary:

• Suffering is an inherent part of life, including disappointments in relationships. 

• Disappointments occur because we are not explicit about what we assume, hope or expect, either with ourselves or them. 

• If we never pay attention or are explicit about what we expect in our relationships, we can be sure that they will decline.

Freeing Yourself from Your Mind

Unlike adults, children don’t get hung up on not knowing the answers. When, for example, they learn to walk, they do not get fixated on looking foolish for having fallen. Their lack of self-consciousness enables them us to keep picking themselves up whenever they fall. They do not let the crippling sense of their ineptitude keep them from continuing to try. They don’t think to themselves, “I hope they won’t see what a fraud I am at this thing called walking?” 

We adults are not so quick to take risks, especially in the areas of our lives where we feel stuck. This reticence is due in large part to changes in our brains as we become grow up. Slowly, as we gather information about the world around us, we develop mental models that prevent us from being surprised or caught off-guard. Most neuroscientists currently operate under the paradigm that an adult brain is a prediction-making machine.

We naturally compare a previous set of experiences to the circumstances we find ourselves in. People remind us of other people we know, and experiences remind us of earlier experiences we have had. This association is how our brain predicts. Our mental models allow the brain to take in as little information as it needs to make guesses about what will happen. These assumptions allow us to forecast and anticipate outcomes using as little brainpower as possible. 

Where these energy-efficient predictions tend to fail us, however, is when we confront circumstances that do not match our expectations, like when all of a sudden, someone we love unexpectedly dies. Such experiences send us into shock. Unfortunately, the mental models we acquire don’t take into account life. As the adage goes, “Humans plan, and God laughs.” When predictions, assumptions and expectations fail us, we inevitably refuse to accept reality; in fact, we resist it.

Avidya

In the language of Yoga, Sanskrit, this denial of reality is called avidya. Avidya often translates as ignorance, but a more accurate one is not understanding. When we are in avidya, we refuse to accept and, in fact, reject the facts when they do not accord with what we want, hope or expect. Avidya is like having a thick layer of gauze over our eyes. It blocks our capacity to acknowledge or even experience what is so. 

In the first of his Four Noble Truths, the Buddha famously pointed out that life can be dissatisfying. That might sound pessimistic, but I think you’d agree that it’s also reality. We’re not always happy. Rarely do we experience contentment or do things go according to plan. Even though we know this, we somehow refuse to admit it. 

We keep wishing the circumstances we find ourselves in would be some way other than what they are. Our refusal to accept reality is what causes us to be so frustrated with life. Whenever we take the facts on their terms, we’re not so bothered by it, but the more we resist something we don't want or like, the more it lingers. 

When we refuse to accept people in our lives as they are, we tend to experience more conflict. When we spend energy trying to fix circumstances that don’t need our fixing, they tend to get worse. When we refuse to acknowledge our own feelings because they don’t accord with an image we have of ourselves, those repressed feelings undermine our lives. 

If, on the other hand, we can learn to find acceptance, to, at the very least, acknowledge reality, we can work with it. We can make changes that accord with our higher nature. Without the resistance of nonacceptance, we see options and possibilities. With resistance, all we see are possible conflicts and insurmountable obstacles.

Limiting Beliefs

From the moment we come out of the womb, we are trained to resist reality, to wish for things to be other than the way they are. Pain and pleasure are our primary teachers. If a parent continually betrays our trust, the pain of that leaves us less inclined to be forgiving. If we felt loved and accepted at our church, synagogue, mosque or other religious institution, we are more apt to want to continue participating in our religion in our adult years   

Not only are we conditioned through pain and pleasure, but we also involuntarily absorbed and adopted beliefs and values about the world from our parents, caretakers, teachers and friends. At early stages of development, particularly before we had a chance to form our own ideas of the world and life, they showed us what life was and what its rules were, either through their example or through language. We learned do’s and don'ts, should’s and shouldn'ts, right's and wrong's, can's and can not's, always and never’s.

• I'll never meet someone who will love me for who I am.

• I want to, but I cannot trust myself.

• I won't be worthy of love until I've lost the weight. 

• I'll always be lost. I'll never know my purpose. 

• If I let someone in, they'll hurt me.

• I'll never figure out what I want or need.

• Who am I to be happy and successful?

• If I offer others my feedback, they won't like me.

• There's no time to wander, to explore, to meet new people, to learn, to plan fun activities, to travel.

Our parents and caretakers imparted these rules because they believed we needed to learn them to survive life. Instead of enlarging our lives, these beliefs and values tend to narrow them, especially when we take them on face value and don’t, in fact, question and explore their validity through our own life experience. When absorbed unquestioningly, they limit what’s possible in our lives. Rather than experiencing the myriad of ways to live, we avoid life altogether.  Our acquired ideas about the way the world is and isn't tend to imprison us in bubbles of predictability and monotony. We rarely take risks outside of the known.

Beginner’s Mind

Kids are not limited in the way we adults can be. They don’t filter reality through concepts and ideas. They experience it directly. When they’re sad, they cry. When they’re angry, they get mad. They don’t think to themselves, “I better not cry. If I do, they’ll think I’m soft.” Instead of wishing that reality was different than it is, they are more willing than we adults to explore it with inquisitiveness. This child-like quality of exploration is what the Zen tradition calls the Beginner’s Mind, which is curious, open for new learning and free of pre-conceived opinions, beliefs and judgments.

Nan-in, a Japanese master…received a university professor who came to inquire about Zen. 

Nan-in served tea. He poured his visitor's cup full, and then kept on pouring.

The professor watched the overflow until he no longer could restrain himself. "It is overfull. No more will go in!”"

Like this cup," Nan-in said, "you are full of your own opinions and speculations. How can I show you Zen unless you first empty your cup?” (1)

When we hold our beliefs as if they are authentic representations of reality, we do not experience life directly. Our conceptual models keep us at a distance from the unmediated experience of life. They are filters through which we judge whether the circumstances we confront as either good or bad, wanted or unwanted. They don't allow us to experience life’s immediacy. Keeping it at a distance prevents us from letting our challenges and obstacles grow and morph us. They are not errors but opportunities that compel our transformation. 

When we let go of the conceptual mind and step into Beginner’s Mind, we are free to use our senses to explore the obstacles we face in a very direct manner. Feelings, emotions, pictures, sense perceptions and memories begin to flow through us. We can pay attention to what the body wants to show us in precise and unambiguous ways. No longer relying on assumptions about right and wrong to guide us, but instead on what the body knows and communicates naturally, we begin to tap into a quality of mind that lies at the core of who and what we truly are. 

Applying Beginner’s Mind

We know we're not in Beginner's Mind when we're upset. That's a tell-tale sign that we are not accepting a situation as it is, that we're resisting something. We might be withholding our love or trust, rejecting someone else's feelings or our own. We might be anxiously anticipating something we believe will happen. We can ask ourselves the following three questions when we are anxious, sad, frustrated or angry:

1. For me not to be upset, how should I or others have behaved differently, or how should the circumstances be different?

   Note: The "should" we uncover in this question will reveal the hidden belief compelling us to resist reality.

2. How is this belief impacting me in this situation and throughout my life?

3. What would I have to feel and experience to be with the circumstances as they are rather than how I hoped they would be or how I think they ought to be?

Footnote
(1) Reps, Paul and Nyogen Senzaki. Zen Flesh, Zen Bones: A Collection of Zen and Pre-Zen Writings. Tuttle Publishing. Rutland, Vermont. 1985.