{"id":3126,"date":"2012-06-22T12:01:28","date_gmt":"2012-06-22T16:01:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/?p=3126"},"modified":"2012-04-25T20:56:44","modified_gmt":"2012-04-26T00:56:44","slug":"stop-expecting-the-worst","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2012\/06\/stop-expecting-the-worst.html","title":{"rendered":"Stop Expecting the Worst"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>We all do it at least sometimes\u2014going to a negative place while waiting for something you want to happen if you don\u2019t get good news immediately. You may be waiting for a call from a friend who you just reconnected with and worry that she decided you aren\u2019t worth the time. Then she calls and apologizes for the delay but her mom was sick. You feel relief and relax about it. But do you consider all the wasted stress you created by worrying she\u2019d never call? Probably not.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not terrible if you do this very occasionally, though it\u2019s better to completely break the habit. But some of us do it as a regular response to waiting for something you\u2019re anxious about. This was me back in my DoorMat days. When waiting to hear from someone who meant a lot to me or for news I was anxious about I\u2019d put myself through the wringer while waiting. What ifs were abundant\u2014always assuming the worst. And I\u2019d suffer from getting the worst, even though I hadn\u2019t gotten anything yet. Usually the result wasn\u2019t even close to the terrible things I imagined.<\/p>\n

If I went to the doctor and he was late in letting me know my test results, I\u2019d agonize about having an awful health issue. That often would create symptoms from the stress I caused my body, which fed into my fear. Then the nurse would call and say everything was fine and I\u2019d be so relieved. Yet I\u2019d already lived with the idea that I had a health problem, sometimes for days or more. So I suffered unnecessarily over and over.<\/p>\n

The worst was when I\u2019d meet a guy I liked and waited to hear from him. I often hear women going crazy waiting to see if he\u2019ll call, as I used to do. I\u2019d cry as if we were over, look for all the things about myself that could have turned him off and whine to friends constantly about how badly I felt. And then he\u2019d call a week later and asked me out for dinner. By then I\u2019d mourned our breakup that didn\u2019t happen. Yet we do this to ourselves without thinking.<\/p>\n

Self-love and strong faith allowed me to develop the patience to wait for the call or news without going to a \u201cwhat if?\u201d place. If I\u2019m waiting to hear if I got a book deal, I trust I have the right one at the right time and don\u2019t dwell on it. If I like a guy and hope to see him again, I trust that if it\u2019s meant to be I\u2019ll hear from him. If I might have a health problem, I trust that I\u2019ll be okay.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s unloving and unfaithful to suffer through consequences that your mind creates, which are of the worst cast scenarios that never happen. Yet we suffer like it\u2019s a done deal, which I now see as self-punishment in a way. I used to justify it by saying it made the relief of my fears not panning out more sweet when I\u2019d get the call or good news. But that was a copout! Doing that puts you on an unhealthy emotional seesaw of highs and lows.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s so much healthier to keep your faith and patience strong enough to just wait. Love yourself enough to do that! Then you can deal with something you don\u2019t like if it ends up really happening. But more often you won\u2019t have to deal with any negatives at all, which makes life so much lighter.
\n***************<\/p>\n

Take the 31 Days of Self-Love Challenge<\/strong><\/a>–a pledge to do something loving for yourself for the next 31 days–and get my book, How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways<\/a><\/strong> for free at http:\/\/howdoiloveme.com<\/a><\/strong>. Read my 31 Days of Self-Love Posts from 2012 HERE<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Please leave comments under my posts so we can stay connected.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We all do it at least sometimes\u2014going to a negative place while waiting for something you want to happen if you don\u2019t get good news immediately. You may be waiting for a call from a friend who you just reconnected with and worry that she decided you aren\u2019t worth the time. Then she calls and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,14,2,15],"tags":[386],"class_list":["post-3126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nice-people-can-finish-first","category-positive-mental-attitude","category-self-empowerment-confidence","category-self-love-acceptance","tag-expecting-the-worst"],"yoast_head":"\nStop Expecting the Worst - Lessons from a Recovering Doormat<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2012\/06\/stop-expecting-the-worst.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Stop Expecting the Worst - Lessons from a Recovering Doormat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"We all do it at least sometimes\u2014going to a negative place while waiting for something you want to happen if you don\u2019t get good news immediately. 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Then she calls and…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2012\/06\/stop-expecting-the-worst.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Lessons from a Recovering Doormat\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-06-22T16:01:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2012-04-26T00:56:44+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/files\/2012\/04\/dark-clouds-300x225.jpg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Daylle Deanna Schwartz\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Stop Expecting the Worst - Lessons from a Recovering Doormat","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/2012\/06\/stop-expecting-the-worst.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Stop Expecting the Worst - Lessons from a Recovering Doormat","og_description":"We all do it at least sometimes\u2014going to a negative place while waiting for something you want to happen if you don\u2019t get good news immediately. 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Let Me Count the Ways, a She's appeared on hundreds of TV and radio shows, including Oprah, Howard Stern, and Good Morning America and has been quoted in dozens of publications, including the New York Times, Chicago Sun-Times, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, Marie Claire, and Men\u00b9s Health. After being a consummate People Pleaser who felt unworthy of getting her own needs met for many years, Daylle found a path of self-love that enabled her to build her self-esteem and reinvent herself into a dual career. She learned to get taken seriously without being overtly assertive when she became one of the first women to start an independent record label (on a dare!) and learned to play ball nicely and successfully in an industry dominated by men. To help independent musicians empower themselves, Daylle writes music business books for Billboard\/Random House, including the very popular Start & Run Your Own Record Labe and I Don't Need a Record Deal! Daylle's books have been translated into over 10 languages and are popular around the world. She speaks for colleges, organizations and corporations. Through her company, Project Self-Empowerment, Daylle creates programs and materials to help people empower themselves. One goal is to raise the money to self-publish her book, How Do I Love Me? Let Me Count the Ways and give it away for free in colleges and through organizations, to give thanks for all her blessings. Daylle uses her writing and speaking to help others find the kind of contentment and empowerment that she has.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/author\/dschwartz"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3126"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3128,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3126\/revisions\/3128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/lessonsfromarecoveringdoormat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}