Weekend. Relaxation?

It doesn’t seem quite so simple. After all, many people carry so much tension that a weekend doesn’t even suffice to let it go.

The pressure to live up to expectations, one’s own, those of one’s family, friends, co-workers. And then they don’t stop at the weekend. Even free time has not been free for many people for a long time. No, not only because they also work at weekends, but also because new expectations lurk there.

What would happen if we took them off one day? Like an old winter coat that has become too heavy for us, even if it still warms well. A coat that no longer suits our style. Yes, even if it was once expensive and carries many memories with it. Why not take it off, hang it up carefully and let it hang there for a while? And maybe, also a little relieved, find another piece of clothing that functionally answers our own needs? And perhaps one day we would look at the old winter coat and see how shabby it looks and when we take it off the hanger to say goodbye to it for good, we would realise how incredibly heavy in fact it was and can hardly believe how long we have been walking around with it. Letting go would then not only be quite easy, it would be a real relief.

Expectations are an interesting matter in themselves, aren’t they?

They are not goals that have been set strategically or consciously in any way. They are often nourished by inner beliefs that are fed by should-phrases without much reflection. These are sentences that we often carry around with us in the form of “I should…” as long-standing narratives, without really consciously considering whether what we “should” there is what we really want or could do.

Quite a few of these sentences come from very early years when we were assembling the world for ourselves, times that still felt and presented themselves to us differently. Just as if we were wearing that old winter coat in a tropical climate because it’s winter in Europe.

A spring weekend seems like the perfect time to take off that coat and do some spring cleaning to thoroughly air out old narratives, beliefs and, above all, all the expectations, and to truly dance through the weekend in a relaxed and easy-going way.

May I have this dance?