Letting Go of Expectations

When we put pressure on other people in order to get what we want, they automatically resist, because we are trying to pressure them.  The harder we push, the harder they resist.  Even though, out of fear, they may actually concede to our demands, there is not an inner acceptance and, later on, we will lose what we have gained.  This resistance is in all of us.  We can be aware of it as it operates unconsciously, and we evade that awareness by making excuses and plausible explanations.

…One way around it is to take the view that our responsibility is to make an effort, but not try to determine the result.  Another way is to surrender the feelings we have about what we want from the other person, and let go of the pressures we are putting on them in the form of expectation and desire.  They, then have the psychic space to become agreeable or even to initiate the desired result on their own, the result we had wished for in the first place.

Letting Go: The Pathway of Surrender, Ch. 18, pg. 274