Gloria to God:
Dear God, I know better than to expect things, and I certainly feel how expecting is control. I have an especially hard time when someone offers to do something, and they don't come through. In some cases, I don't even hear from the person again. And if they do come through, it's so much later that something has gone out of it for me. Sometimes I ask someone a question, in email, let's say, and even if I hear from them again, the question is ignored. I'm not talking about a little question. I'm talking about something relatively important.
When these things happen, first I'm puzzled, then I feel that I'm dense, then I feel hurt, and then I'm angry. And I am aware that anger proves my wanting to control.
And then I start to ask myself what I've done wrong. I think I must come on too strong. I'm too eager to hear back. I'm too intense.
I realize I expect something I should not expect, even if they did offer it to me and even if their offer was totally from their side and a surprise to me. Better I don't want so much from others or expect their words to mean so much.
Another part of this question is that I used to think I was sort of laid back, but now I sense how tense I am. I feel like I run on urgent most of the time. I feel clenched. No wonder I have high blood pressure.
Will you please help me with this?
God:
You take words from others literally.
Sometimes people say things they mean at the moment. Their hearts are good. And then they feel more involved than they want to be. Or they may be in the practice of saying things easily, and that they don't follow through has nothing at all to do with you. It's their habit.
In any case, it has nothing to do with you. Remember neutrality, dear Gloria?
Expect nothing even if it's offered.
Expect nothing even if it's promised.
Expecting is a kind of demand.
It is the calling up of an i.o.u.
It is a form of control.
You yourself don't like to be controlled.
Not at all.
This control of yours is in the form of energy.
You do expect a lot from the world.
And you do expect a lot from yourself.
I am the only One you do not expect enough from.
More and more remember that I will take care of things. You may not know how. You don't need to know how. Just know that all is taken care of. What is necessary for you, you will have. What you don't need, you won't. Do you really need these favors from others? Do you really need to hear from these people again? Is your sense of self-worth dependent on them? Are you more if they come through? Are you less if they don't?
Here is another aspect of your expectation from others. You build them up too much in the first place. You paint them in technicolor when they are not.
They are only human, Gloria.
Gloria:
What You just said makes me realize I do know utterly reliable people, and my heart doesn't ache when I think of them. Do I only ache for what teases me? Did I have come-on's and put-off's so much in my childhood that that's what I'm used to and what I somehow attract?
God:
Perhaps. You also have the tendency to blame everything on yourself. You would not have the emotions you do when someone disappoints you if you did not feel you were responsible. It is true, when you feel let down, it is you who feels let down, and you are responsible for your feelings, but what other people do or don't do is not your doing. When people come through, it doesn't mean you have done or been something wonderful any more than when someone doesn't come through, that it means you have been bad.
Let go. Let go. Let go — the cure for almost everything, perhaps everything. I will help you let go. Hand Me your hurt feelings and situations and people, and you will have let go. What do you need your unhappy emotions for? What do they serve? Do you need them? Hand them over to Me. Just like a coat you take off, hand them to Me. Give Me your emotional responses, dear Gloria. Whatever keeps you from being in pure love, hand over to Me. This will untense you and take away all manifestations of pressure from you.
* * *
Jon to Heavenletters:
God's answer yesterday, 8-24, to Annette about control is definitely one that belongs in The 50 Best of God, 2000.
Kerry to Nancy L.:
WOW! You go girl! I think you are a genius also and pray for YOUR kind of organizational abilities…Lacking those, for the time being, I had an idea that maybe Heaven-readers could sponser a prisoner…Especially if they do not have the resources to set up the whole thing…If we had a central co-ordinater (Like You, Nancy)…(Prison co-ordiator of the WORLD)…And, Heaven readers could send you the love gifts to sponser specific prisoners…Just an idea. This is very exciting! Love to you and you too, Gloria!