How what we anticipate begins to shape what we experience
Expectation lives in the body.
Not just as a thought, but as a subtle readiness — a leaning forward, a quiet tightening, a sense of preparing for what has not yet happened. In this way, expectation can become a form of internalised future.
Thomas Hanna taught that much of what we experience as chronic tension is not simply structural, but learned — patterns repeated over time, until they become automatic.
Expectation can be one of these patterns: bracing often, preparing for disappointment, and even bracing without realising. Even positive expectation can carry effort — a hoping, a holding, a subtle attempt to guide what has not yet unfolded.
When Expectation Becomes Embodied
In the field often referred to as the biology of belief, popularised by Bruce Lipton, we see how our expectations and beliefs can influence the body’s internal environment.
What we repeatedly anticipate, the body may begin to organise around. If we expect decline, the body may prepare for it. If we expect resilience, something different may begin to emerge. This is not about blame. It is about awareness.
A Gentle Shift
Rather than trying to control expectation, we can begin by noticing it. Where does the body subtly brace for what might come? Where is there a quiet holding in anticipation? Alongside that noticing, we can introduce something else- a different possibility. Not forced positivity, but a soft openness.
A Somatic Inquiry
Where in my body do I carry the expectation of strain or decline?
What might it feel like to relate to my body with a sense of possibility instead?
Can I soften the need to anticipate, and allow something more present to emerge?
Expectation lives in tension. Belief shapes experience. But presence — quiet, aware presence — offers something else entirely. A space where the body is no longer braced against life,
but gently open to it.
By Lala Menen
About the Author
Lala Menen is a movement and somatic practitioner, a yoga teacher, researcher and author offering gentle, restorative practices that help the body release tension, calm the nervous system, and restore ease of movement.
Her work is an exploration of how the body holds, adapts, and eventually lets go.
Blending somatic practice with quiet contemplative awareness, she offers a gentle approach to restoring ease in the modern body—one that listens rather than forces and allows change to emerge naturally.
Author of The Soma Awakens Understanding SMA and how to undo tense holding patterns in the body to reduce common aches and pains.
Purchase The Soma Awakens: https://amzn.eu/d/00omSl03
Author of Release — A practical guide to easing tension and restoring ease in the modern body (Coming Soon)