In short: When someone doesn't show up the way you hoped, the pain isn't really coming from them. It's coming from the expectation you placed on them.. and the only one holding that expectation is you. Drop it, and there's a lot less to suffer about. And before you grieve the relationship, check whether it's actually dead, or whether you're the one quietly walking away from it.
Watch the full satsang above.
Someone asked me this in a recent satsang: "Why do I feel so hurt when family or friends don't show up for me the way I expect them to?"
I'd say most of us know that feeling. Something hard happens, and you find out fairly quickly who steps forward, who's just sort of there, and who disappears.
Why does it hurt so much when they don't show up?
Here's the part that took me a long time to see. They're just getting on with their life. They're dealing with their own stuff. Even the ones who care, who say "oh yeah, that's really tough".. a lot of the time they go back to their lives, because they've got their own things to deal with. It doesn't make them bad people.
So me expecting everyone to go out of their way to help.. I would say that's not a reasonable expectation. That's me making something up that isn't real.
And that's the bit worth sitting with: the only one expecting something is me. It's from that expectation that I'm causing myself to suffer.
If you find that people consistently don't meet what you're hoping for, that same wiring shows up in other places too.. I go into it from another angle in Why Can't I Relax? (Even When There Is Finally Time).
Where do I put people who keep letting me down?
I've stopped trying to make everyone fit the same place in my life. Some people belong in the inner circle. Some belong in an outer circle. Some are acquaintances. That's not a punishment, and I don't have to make them wrong for it. It's just what the relationship actually is.
So I don't lower my expectation exactly.. I try to drop it. Let the relationship be whatever it wants to be. That doesn't mean I stop putting effort in. It means some people want a certain level of closeness, and that's fine. They're not a bad person. Sometimes people are just in a different phase.
What I've found is that I have more peace of mind that way, and strangely, the friendship tends to last longer when I'm not injecting my expectations into it.
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What about family?
We tend to expect more from family. But why? They're just another human. They didn't choose it, they were born into it the same as I was.
There are parts of my family I don't have anything to do with. I gave them decades of chances, and that's just how they consistently showed up. So no, I'm not having that in my life. And that's allowed. Just because someone is family doesn't mean I owe them anything, or that they owe me anything.
I'd put it like this: if they're not going to help me while I'm rising up, they certainly shouldn't be up there when I'm winning. There's no room for them there.
That said, I'm not telling you to go and cut everyone out. Sometimes it's as simple as muting some of the conversations.
Am I grieving the relationship, or the expectation?
This is the one I'd most want you to hear.
Don't grieve a relationship that's not dead yet.
Because a lot of the time, when I've had a not-so-great experience with a family member or a friend, my mind goes "right, that's it" and I'm the one cutting it off. Elbow, elbow, elbow. I'm the one killing the relationship. And then I grieve the loss.. but actually there's been no loss. Not all relationships need to be cut off, so you don't have to grieve them. Not all of them are dead.
Some might be. But perhaps what you're really grieving is the letting go of your expectation. You're grieving that it could have been a certain way, and it isn't. That's hard and it's sad. And it's also just coming to terms with what it actually is, rather than the fantasy of the relationship I'd built.
What do I do instead?
When we remove our expectations, the other person gets to show up the way they want to, if they want to.
And rather than chasing the ones who don't want to show up.. look at the people around you who do. Not the ones who say they will. The ones who actually do, right now. Spend time with them. Connect with them. Put love into those relationships.
Questions People Ask
Why does it hurt so much when friends or family don't show up for me?
Because of the expectation underneath it. When something hard happens, some people step forward, some are just there, and some disappear, and each of those is really them getting on with their own life. The hurt comes from having quietly expected something different. The only person holding that expectation is you, which is also why you're the one who can put it down.
Is it unreasonable to expect people to be there for me?
Expecting everyone to go out of their way isn't a reasonable expectation. It's usually something we've made up rather than something anyone agreed to. It's fine to want support, and it's fine to receive it when it's offered. The suffering starts when we decide in advance how someone should show up and then measure them against it.
Should I cut off family who don't support me?
Not necessarily. Some people have proved themselves over years and decades, and it's okay to decide they don't get time or space in your life. But most of the time you don't need to cut anyone off. Often it's as small as muting some of the conversations, or moving someone from your inner circle to an outer one without making them wrong for it.
Why do I feel like I'm grieving a friendship that hasn't ended?
Because frequently the loss hasn't happened. The mind decides "that's it" and starts pulling away, and then grieves something that isn't actually over. Dylan Ayaloo puts it as: don't grieve a relationship that's not dead yet. What's usually being grieved is the expectation, the version of the relationship you hoped for, rather than the person.
How do I stop being disappointed by people?
Drop the expectation and let the relationship be what it wants to be. That doesn't mean stopping caring or stopping putting effort in. It means placing people where they actually are rather than where you wish they were, and then turning your attention to the people who do show up rather than chasing the ones who don't.
Come and sit with us
This answer came from a live satsang, an open question and answer session Dylan Ayaloo holds every Friday at 6:30pm inside the free Elevate Community on Skool. You bring the question, we look at it together.. come and be in the room.
Big love, Dylan