Dealing With Disappointment
This week’s post is about how we manage those times when things don’t go to plan and we’re left with the dismay of disappointment…
“Disappointment To A Noble Soul Is What Cold Water Is To Burning Metal; It Strengthens, Tempers, Intensifies, But Never Destroys It.”
Eliza Tabor
Well… the big burly figure of disappointment paid me a visit last week!
We had a nice weekend planned that had been in the making for months, had already been re-scheduled once, and we were all so looking forward to it!
The excitement was building as it drew closer… then, on Thursday night, ‘E’ started to feel a little unwell and developed a cough… Friday morning he tested positive for Covid!
And BAM, everything would have to be cancelled… again!
Dealing with the emotions
Poor ‘E’ felt guilty for being the reason our weekend was cancelled… so this was the first emotion I needed to navigate!
This wasn’t his fault, and I had to make sure that he knew that, and understood that he wasn’t the cause of my disappointment - it was the universe reminding me I do not have control and need to be more malleable with life’s plans!!
I reassured ‘E’ that he hadn’t intentionally contracted Covid, this was just the annual merriments of starting a new school year… and not even the first term but the first week - he’d only been at school for four days!! The autumnal illnesses were descending early on us this year! And he couldn’t have avoided it. It was just bad timing.
I then tried to help him cultivate some self-compassion, by understanding why he was feeling the way he was, recognising and reaching into it, and then talking to himself like he would a friend…
Because it doesn’t get us anywhere if we’re hard on ourselves and talk to ourselves in a hurtful, bullying way. We’re just left feeling useless… degraded… ashamed. But, if we can show ourselves understanding and kindness… support and encouragement, it allows us to see the situation differently, to find ways around it and to move on more positively.
Next please…
So, next on the list was my emotion: disappointment…
"Disappointment stems from sadness, and we feel disappointment when something does not line up with our hopes and expectations of our reality” Dr. Ernesto Lira de la Rosa
Oh my goodness I was so disappointed.
Something I had been looking forward to for so long! And something I felt we all needed right now…
But it wasn’t going to happen!
And I had to accept that! Because getting increasingly wound up and frustrated would only worsen my feelings and the situation… hmm, well, my ‘post-situation-rationality’ can see it like this, still it didn’t quite go down like that at the time…
“The emotional brain responds to an event more quickly than the thinking brain”
Daniel Goleman
It took me a while to accept the weekend was cancelled… the negative feelings stayed with me until Sunday morning; I think I spent most of Saturday walking around like a sulky teenager who’d been grounded!
The difference between knowing and doing… I am the first to admit that even if I know what is ‘best’, it doesn’t always mean I do what is best!
Why was I feeling so strongly?
We need to get more comfortable with self-exploration to recognise what’s truly going on for us, because the more we understand ourselves, the better it is for our wellbeing.
There is a great analogy called The Emotion Iceberg, where the emotion we initially identify can sometimes be just the tip of the iceberg… and if you dig a little deeper there can be a whole world of other emotions swimming below.
It’s really interesting where some of our emotions originate from. I find it absolutely fascinating what is going on inside us without us even being aware… like an inbuilt computer system connecting a whole multiverse of different feelings, memories, experiences… yet we only get to glimpse the ‘end-product’… unless we are willing to take a deeper look inside.
So, for me, it went beyond the apparent, top-level disappointment about cancelled plans… As a family I feel we needed something to look forward to, to get away from the house, jobs, responsibilities, day-to-day stuff, and have some fun, spend some quality time with family.
I realised I wasn’t just feeling disappointed, this was taking centre stage, but there was a whole troupe of backing dancers involved if I paid a little more attention.
As well as disappointment I could identify: frustration… anger… sadness… discontentment… guilt …
All those ‘lovely’, burdensome emotions!
But was it going to help to sit here amongst these difficult, heavy feelings? No.
It’s OK to feel them…
It’s natural and human to feel all our feelings.
And It’s really important to recognise how we’re feeling and identify our emotions because we can easily glance over what we’re experiencing, or think we know where it’s coming from, but physically naming our feelings encourages us to stop and take stock - actually see it, and feel it! And then we can start to move past them… because often, things run deeper than their surface-level appearance!
For me, writing and journaling help! It helps me to pinpoint my feelings, to let them out but also assess them at a much deeper, more subconscious level.
Read more about my experience of expressing emotions through the pen here:
And going through this practice helped me to recognise that I needed to see my Covid predicament differently - I needed to find some positives within the situation to counterbalance the negatives… thinking… thinking… thinking…
OK, how about… by cancelling the weekend I know I was doing the ‘right thing’ and not putting other people at risk! This sits well with me… and poof a little of the heaviness disperses…
And…
If we did go ahead with it but all felt ill then we wouldn’t have enjoyed it or been able to make the most of it, so would it have been worth it? No!
Would it be better to re-schedule when we are all feeling well and will get to really appreciate it and enjoy ourselves? Yes!
So, did I instantly become bright and sunny and OK with the world again? No, not quite! But it was a step in the right direction and put me on the right path to climbing down from my teenage tantrum!
And I needed to give myself some of the advice I was giving ‘E’, to be gentle with myself and imagine how I would speak to a friend if they were experiencing this. I would listen and validate their feelings and sympathise with their situation.
The thing is that even if we can’t instantly acknowledge, accept and overcome our feelings or a situation, it’s a practice… the more we are aware, the more easily we can recognise it and the better we get at moving forward quicker and more positively.
And in the meantime, remember that self-compassion, even if you don’t get things right, or don’t act the right way, remember to give yourself some understanding, acceptance and loving-kindness 💞
Take care & much love,
Julie x
Feel free to get in touch, I’d love to hear from you 💗
I love this so much. ❤️
Yes! It’s so important to be able to identify and name we are feeling. It’s a skill we learn. And you’re so right, it’s a practice too!