That is a simple yet powerful sentence, Adelina. I think the 1st step away from toxic relationships is radical self-compassion for your amygdala & hippocampus. After that, your scars will also want recognition & respect. It's like I'm parenting my own brain. I teach them that the future is a joke that our culture has concocted & there are many cultures who don't believe in a future self or expectations as the Hopis do. Let go of your future where you think happiness lies & satiety overtakes hunger. It's like chasing your apparition when you can have a Thanksgiving now as you wrote.
Perfectionists have many origin stories. Yours seem to have come from a disappearing breed of gentlemen fathers. I don't know if I can ever let go of perfectionism which leads to expectation which leads to disappointment most of the time. Like proposals on a bluff overlooking the Pacific and being caught in a landslide before you could utter I do. Attitude is 49 1/2% and perspiration 49 1/2% for a peaceful life. But I and the majority of 1st world nations make expectations & consumption our priority in life.
Sorry for the long comment. I have garrulous digits. Here is a truncated version of the Heart Sutra that has kept my foot moving 1 foot in the present & the other toward the future I've never experienced. I think Buddha & Jesus were the masters of no expectations. Jesus was also a master of avoiding unnecessary pain, but that didn't spare him from his destiny. He took his lumps with radical universal self-compassion, probably cuz Mary taught him love & agape. Jesus should have stayed in the present like his momma pleaded to no avail.
Thought-provoking read. Thank you. My experience has taught me that lowering expectations requires radical forgiveness and a radically honest desire to stay in the eye of your storm because there is no exit as Buddha & Jesus might preach, only our voices causing the weather phenomenon.
https://plumvillage.org/about/thich-nhat-hanh/letters/thich-nhat-hanh-new-heart-sutra-translation/
“Listen Sariputra <Buddha's best student>
this Body itself is Emptiness
& Emptiness itself is this Body.
This Body is not other than Emptiness
and Emptiness is not other than this Body.
The same is true of Feelings,
Perceptions, Mental Formations,
& Consciousness.
“Listen Sariputra,
all phenomena bear the mark of Emptiness;
their true nature is the nature of
no Birth no Death,
no Being no Non-being,
no Defilement no Purity,
no Increasing no Decreasing.
“That is why in Emptiness,
Body, Feelings, Perceptions,
Mental Formations & Consciousness
are not separate self entities.
The 18 Realms of Phenomena
which are the 6 Sense Organs,
the 6 Sense Objects,
& the 6 Consciousnesses
are also not separate self entities.
The 12 Links of Interdependent Arising
& their Extinction
are also not separate self entities.
Ill-being, the Causes of Ill-being,
the End of Ill-being, the Path,
insight & attainment,
are also not separate self entities.
Whoever can see this
no longer needs anything to attain.
..
“All Buddhas in the past, present & future
by practicing
the Insight that Brings Us to the Other Shore
are all capable of attaining
Authentic & Perfect Enlightenment.
Therefore let us proclaim
a mantra to praise
the Insight that Brings Us to the Other Shore.
Gate, Gate, Paragate, Parasamgate, Bodhi Svaha!