Christine Hassler
Appearances
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
Or you get the goal, you have the result, but you don't have the feelings you thought you would have from it. Like you get this great job and then you're like, wait, where's the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow? Where's the happiness? Or life just totally throws you an unexpected curveball. You lose a job, you get sick, someone dies, you know, those kind of unexpected curveballs. So...
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
What I noticed about expectation hangovers is that they are similar to hangovers from alcohol in the sense that your head is hurting, maybe not physically, but all the thoughts and thinking and obsessing that happens when we have an expectation hangover. We just get really in our head. We lack motivation. There's a sense of regret. We're spinning and confusion.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
And it's just a feeling we want to get over. And people really just want to get out of disappointment. And we'll do anything to basically not feel it. And what I noticed is that most people use coping mechanisms that involve depression and numbing. Anything from drugs and alcohol to overworking, really super being busy, looking for the next best thing.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
And in kind of the personal growth community, there's something called a spiritual bypass where people just try to jump to the silver lining or meditate their way out of it and don't really feel what's happening.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
And I'm really passionate about helping people leverage disappointment because when we talk about disappointment and change, those things are the catalysts that create the most personal growth inside of us. Most people have their biggest leaps when it comes to growth, when something kind of surprising or bad happens. That's usually what motivates us to do the work that really changes our life.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
And I've noticed that the most suffering people have is when their expectations don't meet their reality. But there's a real healing opportunity inside of that.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
It's absolutely both. You know, we have the double whammy of expectations, all the societal things and checklists that we buy into in terms of our belief system. And then this incredible pressure we put on ourselves. I noticed that people, especially really intelligent, successful people, they motivate themselves by being hard on themselves and placing massive expectations.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
And the tricky kind of sneaky thing about that is it works. You know, like I used to motivate myself by being very hard on myself and I kind of didn't even realize it, you know, and I'm not talking about being hard on yourself, like you're a loser, you suck. Like it's not, it doesn't have to be that severe.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
Subtle, like you could have done that better or your friend's more successful or why did you say that? You know, just these subtle things that are this critical voice inside of us and it's effective. You know, we get things done that way, but we have these massive expectations and standards that, A, we may not live up to.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
And B, once we do live up to them, then we consistently keep raising the bar. And so when is enough enough? Like, when are we there? When do we finally accept ourselves as enough? And that's the problem we run into when we live a life driven by expectations versus values and vision and really accepting and acknowledging ourselves for who we are and the unique impact we're here to make.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
Yes. So both complacency and overdoing come from a place of overlap of self-love and insecurity and trying to stop or take for something and not fearing enough in some way. You know, we put the high driving standards on ourselves because on some level, we don't feel like we are enough and we have something to prove.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
And on the opposite end of the coin, like when we get complacent and like we stop doing, then again, that's coming from a feeling of like not not feeling enough or worthy enough of pursuing our own dreams. So at the root of this really is our relationship with ourself and how we perceive the world and how we perceive ourselves in that world.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
So what it comes down to in terms of that middle point is really investigating, you know, how do we define success? What's our definition of success? Is it externally based? Or do we have a definition that's more intrinsic?
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
And the biggest thing from expectation hangover is that I've learned is that it reorientates people, myself included, from an outside-in perspective to an inside-out perspective. We start to realize that coming from Our own values, our own what I call superpowers rather than expectation is not only a more balanced way to live, but it just feels a whole heck of a lot better.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
So it's more of a reorientation and a pivot in terms of how we perceive our life and how we take action than it is trying to balance between the two. I love that. You know, we're so destination obsessed in our world and getting there.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
And it's like, actually, what we truly, you know, enjoy the most if we allow ourselves and stop putting so much pressure on ourselves is the process and what we learn about ourselves and the qualities that come out of us while we do things. And, you know, we think we're after form, but what we're really after is essence. We're chasing feeling more than we are outcome.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
But because we kind of don't know that and because our society and even our educational system is so goal-based, we lose connection with that. How do you want to feel? Let's not worry about the form. You know, the universe, God, whatever your spiritual belief system, it will take care of that.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
But if you really focus on the feeling of what you want to experience in life and get an energetic alignment with that feeling, then the form takes care of itself. I mean, people ask me all the time, like, how I've built my career.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
And it's truly been, you know, the work I've done on myself and being really clear about my values and what I want to feel and looking at the things that have gotten in my way, limiting beliefs that don't work, ways I've tried to compensate. You know, in the book, I talk a lot about compensatory strategies. And my biggest one was, as I mentioned, overachieving.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
And the reason why that developed is because I was teased and bullied a lot as a kid because I had this disbelief that I was unlikable in some way. Something was wrong with me. So my life was about proving myself. And that was great. You know, I was a straight-A student, went to a great college, moved out to Hollywood because if you're insecure, you move out to Hollywood.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
And I had this really successful career at a young age, was making all this money. And like, it was like, when does the happy feeling come in? When does the confident feeling come in? And I had a, in a year, I had a lot of very severe things happen where I ended up on my knees kind of just going like, what? do I do?
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
And had what I call a spiritual awakening that wasn't like super, it wasn't like this like angel coming down, anything like that. It was just this internal realization of, wow, like all the things I'm looking for on the outside, could they possibly be inside of me? That was when I, you know, had the pivot. So I think it's just like we get so sort of hypnotized by the way we've been conditioned
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
And to me, the process of awakening is really about looking at our programming, because the great thing about our brain is it's totally malleable and we have the potential to change it. And to do that, we have to change our thoughts and we have to change our perception. And I love one of the definitions of a miracle is a change in perception.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
So even if you're in an expectation hangover right now, are you willing to bring a miracle mind to it by just changing how you look at it?
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
Yeah, absolutely. You're going to be disappointed because you are human. We all are human. And the thing about the human experience is we learn through contrast. That is totally how we learn. And I think that people try to avoid sort of the dark, the disappointment. And I'm all about leveraging it and milking it.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
I remember when I was going through my divorce, one of my coaches said to me, Christine, milk this for all it's worth. Don't just try to get over it. Like really go in because there's gold here. And that was really true and was so much of the work in terms of what became Expectation Hangover because it wasn't just about healing from the disappointment of the divorce.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
It was everything that that triggered inside of me. And that was one of the biggest growth opportunities of my life. And so the first thing, and to answer your question, is to move into acceptance of it. Rather than resisting it, rather than judging it, rather than trying to control it, rather than trying to change it, accept what is. I love a quote from Byron Katie.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
I might be paraphrasing a bit, but it goes basically something like, when you argue with reality, you only lose 100% of the time. So acceptance is not about, oh, I love it. And I have to, you know, have this positive attitude about it. I'm not about that. But just going into, all right, this isn't ideal, but I'm going to stop fighting. I'm going to accept it.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
And then after acceptance, you move into really letting yourself heal and feel on the emotional level. And I'm sort of kind of taking you on a little tour of the treatment plan in the book because this is the order that I go in. And what I've realized in my own life and working with thousands of people at this point is people don't like to feel. I like to feel good.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
We like to avoid the feelings of shame, of anger, of hurt. And it's important to feel that emotion is energy in motion. So when we suppress emotion, it's like trying to keep a beach ball underwater.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
You know, you can keep it down for a while, but eventually it pops up and it might pop up in the forms of irritability or health concern or like not being able to access your intuition or whatever it may be like that. Suppressed emotion is not good for us. mentally or physically.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
And so, you know, I teach in the book how to release emotion rather than recycle it because most of us don't learn, know how to process our feelings. We tend to judge it, analyze it, want them to go away.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
And there's ways to release emotion where you find a place inside of you that's having the emotion and you also find a place where you have compassion and you just allow yourself to feel without any judgment. There's actually a process in the book called the temper tantrum technique where I'm sure you've seen a child have a temper tantrum. And the thing is, Children know how to feel.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
So if a kid gets upset, like you'll see they get upset, they start to cry, and they may be yelling, screaming, kicking, and then they kind of start to whimper, and they kind of go instead. Woof, woof, woof. You know, and then they start to slow down and then they may rock a little bit and they start to soothe themselves and then they want ice cream and then they're fine.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
They know how to ride the wave of emotions. And as young people and our parents, you know, did the best they could, but our emotions were kind of interrupted. We were told, shake it off. Big boys don't cry. Or we were like soothed with food or something like that. And then, you know, later in life, we try to do our emotions by eating. So we found these kind of ways to suppress.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
And as adults, we have to look at, all right, how do I really release my emotion? And so, you know, I basically teach you how to have an adult version of a temper tantrum so that you get the emotion up and out. And there's also other techniques, writing techniques and things like that. But the key is let yourself feel without judgment. And this isn't about identifying with your feelings.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
This isn't about sitting around and being a victim. Victim thinking gets us nowhere. When we're like, why did this happen to me? And my life is so hard. It's not about feeling sorry for ourself. Sympathy and empathy are very different. Sympathy has pity on it. Empathy and compassion has love and forgiveness and understanding on it.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
So compassion, if we look at the word, I'm all into the meanings of words. So passion actually means suffering and co means with. So it's really being with suffering. It's the difference. And we can do this with other people too. It's like how we, you know, in my work with people, when I work with them on the emotional level, if they're experiencing an emotion, I don't console them.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
I don't try to fix them. I don't go in and offer them advice. I just hold this loving, compassionate space for them to feel with no judgment. And learning how to do that for ourselves is is key to really overcoming disappointment.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
Yeah. So one I briefly mentioned, which is the victim. I'm not going to get through that like and identifying with it. And it even can be subtle, but it's sort of like allowing the emotional level to get to that place of just kind of feeling sorry for yourself and losing hope and losing faith because that's really paralyzing. And the other one in terms of the other extreme, too, is being strong.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
Like, I'm not going to feel I'm fine. I'm going to push my way through that. And what that does is it perpetuate what we talked about a little bit earlier in terms of that inner critic. Like when we don't allow ourself to feel we're denying ourselves the truth of our experience. And again, like in some way, that's rewarded. Like how many times have we heard, oh, you're so strong.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
And being strong is overrated. I'm a big fan of Brene Brown's work on vulnerability. You know, vulnerability is not weakness. It's authenticity. It's being real. It's like, this is really what's happening to me. And this is what, you know, I'm willing to learn from it. So that doesn't work.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
And then distractions, like distracting ourselves from it in the ways I mentioned earlier in terms of I'm going to overwork or I'm going to watch too much TV. I'm just going to numb it out. I'm going to drink more, eat more, whatever it may be.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
And then another thing is, too, the kind of like spiritual bypass and pep talk thing, you know, trying to get to whatever I'm learning and I'm growing and it's all fine. And it's sort of like being strong with sort of like this positive attitude. And again, that gets rewarded as well. And the key to all this is just not allowing ourselves the authenticity of our experience and the truth to feel.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
Oh, I'm equally as excited. Thanks for having me.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
And, you know, when I do retreat, I take people to beautiful destinations and help them overcome their disappointment. Because I'm like, well, if I can take them to like Costa Rica, maybe. But if you're willing to... to deal with some things in a beautiful environment. And the biggest thing I see is just people, you know, are scared. They're just scared to feel.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
And if we don't feel, and the emotional levels is the first part of the treatment plan. Next, we have mental, behavioral, spiritually. But, you know, the emotional one is where I see the most resistance. And here's the thing. If we don't feel the anger, the shame, the guilt, whatever it is, we don't get to the other side of that. We don't feel all the juicy stuff.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
We don't feel the love, the joy, the creativity, the connection. You know, especially for women who Underneath our anger is our fire and our passion and our zest. So many women suppress anger and they end up irritable and they end up kind of emasculating men and they end up just snippy. That's not like who we are as women. We're warm and compassionate and loving and creative.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
But when we suppress this anger because we've been told that we aren't allowed to be angry and we don't really have healthy outlets for anger, we're missing out on tapping into our passion and our fire.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
Well, you can go to christinehasler.com and you can get the book on Amazon or lots of ways to connect. I love connecting with people. So please reach out.
The Action Catalyst
REMASTERED: Expectation Hangover, with Christine Hassler (Mindset, Self-Improvement, Personal Development, Growth)
Yeah, we may love the phrase, but we don't like having them. I came up with it after having so many of my own. And basically, it's when it's disappointment, but how I break it down, it's when one of three things happen. Either the desired outcome or plan or result that you work so hard for doesn't happen. Things don't turn out the way you planned.