Dealing With Disappointment
It’s almost never comfortable to sit with the feeling of disappointment, but the cost of pushing it aside is immense. Whether we lash out, get reactive, vindictive, or vengeful, collapse, give up, or shame ourselves… none of these compensating behaviors are healthy for us. And none of them support us in actually metabolizing and moving on from our disappointment. There is huge potential in the act of learning to process our disappointment—let’s explore together!
First, what is disappointment, and why do we feel it?
Disappointment is the feeling that emerges when there is a difference between what we want, expect, or hope for, and what is happening. It’s our way of processing the gap between our mind and heart’s forecasted reality, and our actual lived reality.
For most of us, the temptation when disappointment arises is to either…
a) make what we wanted/expected/hoped for wrong, or
b) make what happened (or somebody else) wrong
These default reactions are a most unconscious, instantaneous attempt to reconcile the gap between our wishes and reality. Unfortunately, neither is supportive of our wellbeing: making our own desires wrong (a) leads to resistance against ourselves, and making what happened/another wrong (b) leads to resistant against life as it is.
So what can we do instead?
Instead of making yourself wrong, try this:
Start by acknowledging to yourself: “What I wanted didn’t happen here.” Remind yourself that what you wanted wasn’t bad just because things didn’t result the way you wanted. Your wishes or hopes or longings or expectations were bad or wrong, even if they were not fulfilled.
Next, repeat to yourself: “It’s okay to want [need/want/hope/expectation], and I’m so sad it wasn’t possible in this situation.” This two-part phrase invites both self-acceptance and a practice of mourning: it’s how we come into acceptance of what is, and rejoin the flow of life instead of pushing against it.
Beware of the mind’s tendency to generalize a moment of disappointment to a lifelong sentence of unmet needs—“This is always going to happen to me. Things are never going to work out the way I want. I’ll never get what I want.” These thoughts are understandable, but almost never accurate. Use the two-part phrase above to cue your brain to contextualize the experience of disappointment as a passing feeling (not an indicator of your forevermore destiny!) and to move toward acceptance through mourning.
Instead of making what happened (or somebody else) wrong, try this instead:
Check in with the observations of the situation you’re navigating. What would a video camera capture? What has taken place?
For example:
“I was told I didn’t get the job.”
“We didn’t make it to our destination on time and couldn’t get in."
Then, slow it down and notice how you feel. The place most of us go is the stories our mind has created to grapple with what has happened.
For example:
“They shouldn’t have done that.”
“They made the wrong decision.”
Most of our disappointment stories lead us into a negative thought track that blocks us from truly processing and accepting what has happened. Our feelings, on the other hand, lead us toward honoring the impact of what has happened, and slowly finding our way into acceptance.
So, start by noticing the observations—what’s happened—and how you feel about it. In particular, clue in to any feelings of sadness. Often sadness is sitting right below our disappointment. When we can open ourselves to feel it, we move through a natural grieving process that frees us to let go of our losses (no matter how big or small) and move forward.
Remember: the faster we allow ourselves to mourn when we’re disappointed, the more easily we regain access to feelings of confidence, empowerment, and openness.
Let me know how it goes!