Changing Unrealistic Expectations of Ourselves Through IFS Therapy
Many of us have a complicated relationship with expectations.
On one hand, it is necessary to hold expectations of ourselves to some degree in order to meet our longing for growth and the forward movement we crave in life.
On the other hand, the pressure we experience from expectations that others have placed on us along with internalized expectations from our own critical parts can paradoxically keep us spinning or stuck rather than moving toward what we want.
Although this experience is universal to being human, I have found it is amplified in those whose brains and bodies are inherently more sensitive to these external and internalized expectations because of neurodivergence, trauma, or ongoing minority stress.
The added complexity to this equation is the effect of external stressors on our capacity and bandwidth in any given day. We are impacted by systemic issues that often create obstacles rather than provide the supports we need, yet we rarely give ourselves the grace to honor what our bodies are trying to communicate when we push past our limits in service of meeting these expectations.
Despite the complications and complexity that are wrapped up in navigating the expectations that we hold of ourselves, I believe there are ways we can more gently approach these in a way that moves us out of this stuckness and into lives worth living.
The Roots of our Early Expectations
What was expected of us as children was constantly being communicated to us. Sometimes these expectations were explicit, such as when caregivers offered guidance to clarify what we should and shouldn’t be doing or corrected us gently with “teaching moments” after the fact. Other times, these expectations were implicitly sent through the spectrum of affirming, or more often, disapproving looks on their faces in response to our behaviors.
Ideally, these messages would be thoughtful and intentional, and in a perfect world, we would all have been born into families with attuned caregivers who were able to recognize our capacity and align their expectations of us within it. In such a scenario, expectations would be scaffolded over time, and we would learn that we could do hard things because we would be loved and supported no matter how “successful” we were at meeting these expectations in the moment.
Of course, we don’t live in a perfect world, and even the most attuned caregivers are apt to miss the mark because caregivers have their own parts too, which are often holding their own conflicting agendas. It isn’t uncommon for caregivers to feel polarized between a part that believes “I need to be warm and gentle when my child is struggling” and another part that might believe “I have to show tough love to prepare my child for the world.” In those moments of mismatch, our young parts can begin to internalize what it means to fall short of what is expected of us by piecing together the subtle and not-so-subtle cues, and this could lead to painful results.
Factoring in Trauma and Neurodivergence
This mismatch between our capacity and expectations is common for those who have experienced childhood trauma, where falling short of expectations would be directly tied to punishment. The protective system can start to rearrange inside from a very young age, ensuring we never make mistakes again - or if we do, parts inside make sure that we hide them.
These young parts are perfectionist, hyper-vigilant, and sometimes even perceived as manipulative, as they learned that the stakes are high when it comes to expectations and maintaining that internal pressure is essential for safety’s sake. Unfortunately, internalizing this pressure doesn’t resolve the shame that vulnerable parts carry and the belief that something must be really broken inside. In fact, by continuing to hold those unrealistic expectations as ones that are supposed to be achievable, those young protective parts often perpetuate a self-shaming loop that feels impossible to break.
Even for those who don’t experience abuse and neglect, there are misattunements between caregiver and child that can add up over time. As young children, we are wired for attachment, and some of us are born with sensitive wiring that increases the pain of rejection, as is the case with many neurodivergent humans who experience varying degrees of rejection sensitivity.
Again, a cycle is initiated where protective and vulnerable parts believe their strategies are necessary for survival because their activated nervous system reinforces the message that they’re in a life or death situation. This impact is amplified when neither the caregivers nor the children understand this sensitive wiring is linked to misunderstood neurodivergence, and thus the shame cycle continues, fueled by a young part that can only make sense of the failed expectations as the result of a flaw in who they are at their core rather than a need for support in how they move through the world.
The Water We Swim In
Even after we survive childhood and adolescence, we are bombarded with expectations from others, and it’s important to remember that these expectations come from beyond those who deliver the message that we have to be constantly achieving in order to be worthy to exist. Capitalism is the water we swim in, and when we forget that, it becomes easy to internalize our sense of failure as personal rather than systemic.
The effort to stay aware of this can feel like one more thing to track, and in our understandable exhaustion, it can sometimes feel so much easier for parts of us to check out by numbing, distracting, and dissociating from life. In essence, protective parts can start to respond to expectations by moving in the opposite direction, a response to vulnerable feelings of being defeated and hopeless at the seemingly impossible task to meet these rigid expectations of constant productivity.
These protective parts are also simply trying to help in the best ways they know how too, and they deserve our understanding like any other part that feels stuck in a seemingly unsolvable situation. Rather than trying to solve what can feel too big for any one person or part, we can instead shift to turning inward and focusing on building relationships with all of these parts trying to find our way within this confusing labyrinth of what expectations really mean for us.
Changing our Relationship to our Expectations
One of the gifts of IFS Therapy is it helps us change our relationship with our parts, whether they’re the ones trying to keep us safe with their protective strategies or holding the pain of our vulnerability. As we access curiosity that leads to new understandings, it gives us an opportunity to heal those parts of ourselves that have been impacted by these unrealistic and unhealthy expectations.
What can emerge is a shift in focus from rigid expectations to clearer intentions, offering greater flexibility around how we show up for ourselves and others. Because our capacity can ebb and flow based on external stressors and how resourced we are at any given moment, we can “hold lightly” what is expected and check in with ourselves to gain a more accurate picture of what is possible in any given moment.
We might then start showing up more fully for our own attuned expectations of ourselves, where our unique values and capacity can be held sacred as we honor our innate desire for safety, belonging, and dignity in our lives. And unlike the rigid ones we internalized in childhood and continue to receive as adults, this is an expectation that actually makes sense, regardless of who we are and who we hope to become.
Sabrina Bolin is a Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist and founder of Belong Within Therapy. As a multiracial (Vietnamese White), neurodivergent (AuDHD), queer (pansexual) cisgender woman, she helps highly sensitive, neurodivergent, and other marginalized and misunderstood humans relate to themselves and to the people in their lives with more compassion and greater understanding through a relational and embodied approach to IFS. Reach out today to learn more about how Sabrina can support you.