A few weeks ago, I had the honor of teaching an advanced course in divorce mediation with Michelle Exline Minovi at the Center for Understanding in Conflict (CUC). We gathered at the bucolic Highlights Foundation Retreat Center in the mountains, a few hours outside of New York City. The 16-hour training, taught over 2 days, was intense, fun, and tightly packed. I was tasked with teaching internal family systems in a short, interactive lesson.
All 20 of us stood shoulder-to-shoulder in a circle.
“We are all born into a web of expectations,” I said, opening, quoting one of my professors, Richard R. Niebuhr, from graduate school. “What matters in life is what you do with those expectations.” Then I continued, “What were the expectations on you when you were growing up – from your family, from your peers, from your school, from the elders in your community? Did you fulfill them? Did you rebel against them? Let’s each name one thing that was expected of us.”
I held a ball of red string and started. “I was expected to be a doctor,” I said, and threw the ball to one of the learners across from me, while holding on to one end of the string. “I was expected to be kind,” she said, holding on to her part and throwing the ball to another. “I was expected to be a dropout,” he said. “I was expected to be responsible,” another said. We went around like this until we had created an actual web between us. At one point, we ran out of string, so we came closer and tightened the web. We ended up with a big red web between us. (I wish I’d taken a photo of it, but I couldn’t because I had to hold onto the string!)
Honestly, I wasn’t sure how this exercise was going to work – we depended on each other to catch the ball, and to not drop the string. At the same time, it gave us each a chance to reflect on what we were expected to do or be, and how we shaped our lives around those expectations. For those few moments, we totally worked together, and yet we each shared something deeply personal. It was individual and collective.
Of course, we were only verbalizing one thing in the group – but afterwards, I thought of many more expectations that were placed on me. Some I embraced 100%, some I didn’t fulfill. (After all, I didn’t become a doctor!). I’m sure this was true for each of us.
And so I ask, what was expected of you as a child? How have those expectations shaped your life? Have you fulfilled them? Rebelled against them? How have you shaped your life? And, if you have kids, what do you expect of your children? How have they responded to those expectations? How have they shaped their lives?