What Doesn't Brown Off

The grass is usually crisp under my feet, golden and dry from weeks of relentless heat. Garden plants look tired, stressed, their leaves curling at the edges. I've been expecting it, that familiar shift from lush to parched that marks mid-summer. The browning off. The hardening.

This year is different. The grass is still green, soft underfoot. The trees haven't developed that dusty, spent look. Everything remains tender, almost vulnerable in its continued softness. It's beautiful. But it's also unsettling. I catch myself walking across the grass waiting to feel the crunch that isn't there. The hardening I anticipated never came.

When Expectations Become Armour

After trauma, we become experts at pattern recognition, at prediction, at preparing for what comes next based on what came before. If every summer brings scorching heat and parched earth, the body learns to expect that. The body prepares itself: this is when things get hard, this is when it burns. These expectations become armour. We toughen up in advance. We never fully settle into what is truly here in front of us.

When our expectations don't materialise, when conditions stay gentler than predicted, the body doesn't relax. It doesn't think, "Oh wonderful, things are easier than I thought." Instead, it waits. Surely the hardness is just delayed. Surely the other shoe will drop. Surely this unexpected softness is temporary.

The body can't settle into what actually is because it's still braced for what it expects should be.

The Cost of Constant Bracing

This constant preparation for expected difficulty is exhausting. We hold ourselves ready for conditions that may never arrive. We can't enjoy the green grass because we're waiting for it to brown. We can't relax into the gentle circumstances because we're certain they'll turn harsh. We miss what's actually here, the unexpected ease, the surprising softness, because we're focused on what ‘should’ be here.

When we can't trust good conditions, when we can't let ease just be ease, we're telling ourselves that softness is suspect, unreliable, not to be trusted. That our expectation of difficulty is more real than the actual reality of unexpected gentleness.

Three Practices for Recognising Your Expectations

Practice One: The Reality Check Touch

Several times today, touch something consciously, a plant or a surface. Before you touch it, notice: what do you expect it to feel like? Hard or soft? Rough or smooth?

What does it really feel like?

When there's a gap between expectation and reality, pause. Acknowledge to yourself: "I expected (this). I'm experiencing (that)." This brings the truth of your current reality into your awareness. Notice how often you're operating from prediction rather than presence.

Practice Two: Tracking the Brace

Pay attention to your body when you anticipate something difficult. Where do you physically brace? Shoulders rising? Jaw clenching? Stomach tightening? Breath shallow?

Now notice what actually happens. Does the difficulty arrive? If it doesn't, does your body relax, or stay braced, waiting?

You might like to keep a simple log for three days:

• What I expected to be hard: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

• What actually happened: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

• My body stayed braced: Yes / No

• What sensations did I feel in my body: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

• Where did I feel the sensation/s: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

This will help you to see the gap between expectations and reality, and how your body responds.

Practice Three: Touching Unexpected Softness

Find something green this week, grass, a leaf, a plant. Before touching it, notice what you expect. Dry? Brittle? Stressed? Soft? Moist?

Touch it. Feel its actual texture. If it's softer than expected, stay with that surprise. Acknowledge to yourself: "I expected hardness and I'm touching softness."

Reflection: Comprehending Your Expectations

1.   What are you currently expecting to be hard but isn’t? Be specific. What difficulty are you bracing for?
2.   Where did you learn this expectation? When in your past did softness give way to harshness? Your expectations are based on which real experiences.
3.   What does your body do while waiting for expected difficulty? How do you hold yourself? Where do you carry the tension? What does constant bracing cost you?
4.   What would it mean to trust current conditions, even if they're different from what you expected? Not forever. Just for today or even for the next hour.
5.   Can you remember a time when your expectation of difficulty was not true? When things stayed easier than anticipated? Could you rest into it, or did you stay braced anyway?

Letting Reality Be What It Is

Your body learned to predict the worst to stay safe. That made sense. That was survival. But now, that same protective mechanism keeps you from experiencing what's actually present when it's different from what you expected.

Reality will be what it is, regardless of your expectations. The question is: can you be present for what actually is, or will you miss it by staying braced for what you're certain is coming?

This week, practice noticing when your expectations don't match reality. We don’t want to judge your expectations because they were created to protect you and were absolutely relevant at some stage in your life. We want to create a small gap, a moment of awareness, where you can ask: ‘Is this what I expect, or is this what actually is’?

Sometimes they're the same. Often they're not. And in that gap between expectation and reality, there's room to experience something you might have missed entirely: the unexpected softness of green grass in mid-summer, still tender when you were certain it would be hard.

May you be well, may you be happy and may you have inner peace.