Tag: disappointments

Dealing with a Big Disappointment: How to Soften the Blow and Move On
“New beginnings are often disguised as painful endings.” ~Lao Tzu

In the middle of a storm, it is difficult to see any way out. But on the other side, we usually can recognize a silver lining—something we gained from the experience that enhanced our lives in some way.

When my husband unexpectedly died and left me a single mother to three young children, I could not conceptualize anything good coming out of it.

Yet, years later, I am here to tell you that the gutting, heart-wrenching experience taught me invaluable lessons that have helped me to not just survive but actually thrive, finding more happiness when I never thought I would again. Although I wish that experience never happened, I also would never trade the person I am today. Life is funny in that way.

There have been many setbacks and impending feelings of disappointment. Losing loved ones, the end of relationships, professional rejections and mishaps, parenting flops, general life blunders. All of it.

Each time I survive a setback, I learn something new and I get better. I become wiser when I seek to understand the lesson and reflect on the experience. I realize that these moments of disappointment have a lot to offer me in personal growth.

However, in order to get to this place, you must take care of your disappointment. It helps to study human nature and the common responses during these emotions, so you can recognize the pitfalls and be proactive about responding to your disappointment in a nurturing, positive way.

Most recently, when a relationship ended, I knew immediately that I had to make sure my disappointment didn’t turn into something bigger and darker. I learned from previous experiences what not to do.

Disappointment—what happens when your expectations are not aligned with reality—can be emotionally and physically painful. But when it turns into devastation, it becomes destructive and crushing, potentially putting you in danger.

Disappointment is a little hole you can jump over or fill in with some effort. Devastation is a deep trench that is difficult to escape and will require monumental effort. The trick is to take care of it before it becomes insurmountable.

After my husband passed away, it felt like my wings had been clipped. In a second, I lost my best friend, partner, colleague, and source of unfaltering support. I suddenly found myself having to stand on my own two feet with nobody to root me on, and I felt unconfident and unworthy.

It took me a while to consider dating. When I did meet someone, I had high hopes for that first relationship. I wanted so badly to experience the security of a stable relationship with a committed partner, the kind I had with my husband. I overlooked the fact that not everyone shared those expectations.

Unfortunately, this person wasn’t the right one. It was disappointing to feel like I’d wasted my time on someone with whom the stars did not align. I was not prepared to deal with the letdown.

I felt wronged by the universe for being in a predicament that I thought shouldn’t have happened in the first place. If only my husband hadn’t passed away, I wouldn’t be in this ridiculous, embarrassing situation of trying to re-enter the dating field as a single mother in the early years of her middle age.

I spiraled into self-pity, wondering why me and why not other people. It was triggering to see others in relationships and wonder why they didn’t have to suffer the way I felt our family had. It can feel isolating and lonely when nobody in your social circles is in the same boat.

That’s the thing about disappointment. We take it so personally. In reality, everyone has their own share of it; we just aren’t privy to seeing all of the ways it manifests in other people’s lives. We have tunnel vision with the realities we spin in our minds.

That relationship riddled me with self-doubt, which felt embarrassing because I knew I had already experienced more serious loss than that. Still, I wanted to dissect all of the details and ruminate over what happened, what could have happened, and what might have happened.

I let it linger too long instead of severing ties when I should have. I let the experience reinforce negative thoughts, like the ones where I told myself that I would never find anyone, that I wasn’t good enough, or that I didn’t deserve another chapter.

This was a classic case of me not taking care of my disappointment. I let my expectations go wild and I took the disappointment as a crushing blow to my ego. I internalized the pain and let it grow, feeding it irrational thoughts and reactions to perpetuate the negative emotions.

There is a better approach.

Disappointment is inevitable and natural, but there are ways we can soften the blow to help ourselves heal and move through the feelings instead of getting stuck in them. When we learn to not hold on so tight and let go, seek joy, and imagine the road ahead, we help ourselves dilute the disappointment until it no longer hurts us.

Letting Go

First and foremost, learn to accept what you can control and what you can not. This is paramount to taking care of your disappointment. Holding on to a reality that does not exist only makes your wounds fester.

I keep a journal, and it serves as an outlet for me to dump my thoughts into. I can go back to previous entries, and it is usually then that I make connections and realize that the grass was not always greener. I did this recently with a breakup, and I read, in my own words, about the red flags that I didn’t heed, which helped give me perspective as I processed what happened.

When we feel disappointed, our levels of neurotransmitters (serotonin, dopamine) go down. We experience emotional and sometimes physical pain as a result. The first night after my most recent breakup, my chest felt heavy, making it difficult to breathe as I struggled to fall asleep that night.

Even though I knew on an intellectual level that it was absolutely for the best, I couldn’t get over the feeling that I had done something wrong and, even worse, that I had wasted my time again. I find myself defaulting to toxic habits: lashing out, looking for ways to hold on, giving the situation too much benefit of the doubt, and trying to rescue something that was not there anymore. In a disappointed state, we tend to fall into irrational thinking and unsavory reactions in an effort to make the pain stop.

We have to learn to wrap our minds around the impermanence of disappointment—it won’t hurt this bad forever—and let it go, instead of desperately digging in our heels. At this stage, there’s nothing more important than acknowledging how you feel, but then moving on and adjusting your expectations.

Find Varied Sources of Joy

The old adage “don’t put all of your eggs in one basket” applies here. The person that got away, the job you lost, or whatever happened to cause your disappointment was not the only source of your joy. Or at least it shouldn’t have been. You are a person with many interests, and you are going to find your dopamine and serotonin elsewhere.

If you don’t have any hobbies, now is the time to explore and perhaps learn something new. This will help redirect your attention away from the disappointment and also make you feel good. It’s always a good idea to fill your happiness bucket, and now is the perfect time.

Some questions to consider:
- What did you used to do in the past that made you happy?
- What have you always wanted to do?
- What can you do now that you couldn’t do before?
For me, I decided I wanted to finish some projects I had kept on the backburner when I was busy in a relationship, and I decided to learn pickleball to meet new people and go back to pilates, which I had stopped pre-pandemic and never resumed.

Conceptualize the Road Ahead

Disappointment is not the end of your road. You are not stuck in a dead end. You simply encountered a bump in the road and there is a way out.

First, figure out what you want in your life in terms of priorities and values. I spend a lot of time doing this, but when I encounter disappointment, I still find myself swerving off the path and bombarding myself with negative thoughts. I have to consciously separate the disappointment from my identity, and keep reminding myself that I am not what I lost.

I remind myself of the goals I have, ones that still exist even in the face of loss. Sometimes we need to adjust these goals and find other plans or even go in new directions, but you are still a person with aspirations, hopes, and dreams that belong to you. Disappointment doesn’t get to take that away from you.

It helps me to create lists of the small action steps I need to take to achieve these goals. I call them “bite-size” actions. Teeny, tiny steps.

For example, I made a “glow” list after my most recent breakup, with all of the things I wanted to do to enhance and better my life. It included tasks as small as getting my nails done and as big as setting up an investment account. Check items off your list and build your grit and perseverance as you prove to yourself how strong you are.

Also, embrace an abundance mindset. There are more fish in the ocean. There will be job opportunities you can’t even conceptualize right now. Trust they are out there and be open to these possibilities. Seek them out.

When I get a writing rejection, I try to reframe it as a learning opportunity, trusting that there will be more opportunities to submit my work and I will get better with practice. You don’t get one shot and you’re done. There are an infinite amount of opportunities still waiting for you to explore.

Bottom line: Disappointment is an opportunity to grow your emotional resilience. It’s a chance to get stronger and intentional about your life, evolving into a better version of who you were yesterday.

One way to approach your disappointment is to remember seven-year-old you. How would you talk to that child? What advice would you tell seven-year-old you?

Treating yourself with compassion and patience, while firmly steering yourself back into a positive direction, will help you overcome the many forms of disappointment you will inevitably encounter.

I’m human, so disappointment still stings even with all of the work I have done. But utilizing these tools have helped me navigate through negative feelings, enabling me to heal more quickly and move on toward new sources of joy.

I like this quote by Peter Marshall. He said, “When we long for life without difficulties, remind us that oaks grow strong in contrary winds and diamonds are made under pressure.”

Never forget that you are a diamond, nothing less.
July 31, 2022
Learn to Accept Instead of Expect

September 18, 2016
How to Free Yourself from the Pain of High Expectations

“Suffering is traumatic and awful and we get angry and we shake our fists at the heavens and we vent and rage and weep. But in the process we discover a new tomorrow, one we never would have imagined otherwise.” ~Rob Bell

During my pregnancy, I was the poster child for prenatal health. From taking my supplements and participating in birthing and breastfeeding classes to doing downward dogs up until three days before my birth, postpartum depression never crossed my mind.

I am married and financially and professionally successful.

I hungered to be a mom.

I have a robust community of friends.

I do not fit the stereotype of who is at risk for postpartum depression.

And yet, less than six weeks after giving birth to my daughter, I found myself sobbing and shaking on my bedroom floor in the middle of the night—incapable of getting up, incapable of taking care of myself or of my daughter.

To understand how I found myself in this position, it’s important to understand what happened leading up to my birth.

From the moment I found out I was pregnant, I began designing the vision for how I wanted to bring my child into the world.

This was going to be my greatest creative act.

I would labor at home as long as possible so that I could take baths and walk in my meditation garden.

When I finally arrived at the hospital, I had an iTunes playlist (think Yanni, Jack Johnson, and Snatam Kaur) that was to play while my husband rubbed lavender and frankincense essential oils over my body.

I did not want any pain medication. After all, my husband and I trained in hypnobirthing so that he could help me manage my pain.

I created a lengthy document listing my desires as well as what I most definitely did not want. I posted it in multiple spots in my hospital room and provided a copy to my obstetrician and each nurse who attended to me.

As you have probably guessed, my birth did not go according to plan.

From the moment I was told that I needed to be induced because my daughter was in fetal distress, I watched myself move from protagonist to bit player in my birth story.

Cervical ripening. Pitocin. Ruptured membranes. Epidural. Each of these medical interventions I abhorred the thought of I found myself submitting to as my labor stalled and my daughter’s breathing become more erratic.

Twenty-seven hours after my induction, I gave birth. Only, I did not feel bliss or even gratitude. I was emotionally exhausted, disappointed, and anxious about what would come next.

Within a day of my beautiful and healthy daughter entering the world, my cat of thirteen years exited it. As I grieved his passing, I found it difficult to bond with my daughter, particularly as she struggled to latch and my attempts at breastfeeding became futile.

My fragile emotional health ultimately compromised my physical health. After a lengthy upper respiratory infection and weeks of postpartum insomnia, I began to feel like a dark, unfamiliar force had taken over my body. And I had no will to do anything about it.

Fortunately, my mother and husband rallied to my rescue. They ensured I received the multiple forms of treatment needed to get back to me while my daughter was provided the nurturing that I could not give her at that time.

By five months postpartum, I felt whole again. I felt connected to my daughter. Fortunately, she felt connected to me.

I felt excited about my own and my family’s future.

Postpartum depression forced me to question everything I thought I believed about what makes me happy, what I want my life and work to look like, and what makes me feel worthy to receive love and happiness.

I am grateful for these lessons, even though the process to them was painful.

While I now know that I was unconsciously equating my success and self-worth with my birth experience, strangling one’s self with an unrealistic benchmark for success is most definitely not just a woman’s issue.

I do not want to allow myself to become prisoner to my expectations ever again.

And I do not want you to become a prisoner to yours.

Most of us struggle with how to create an ambitious and achievable vision for what we want for ourselves without getting our identities wrapped up in achieving them.

Whether we strive to scale a business, negotiate a salary increase, payoff debt, buy a house, or take a family vacation, the key to having aspirations that fuel us, that make us feel good, is shifting our expectations about the outcome.

First, we want to create goals for how we want to feel as we pursue what we are seeking to achieve.

Prior to postpartum depression, I had never realized that in both my personal and professional life my goal setting always revolved around achieving something I could check off a list. And unfortunately, whether or not I checked off that thing on my list, was in large part not in my control.

As a result, my feelings often operated by default rather than by design, and they were directly connected to my outward achievement.

If we want to set ourselves to do well and feel good, we have an opportunity to set expectations for how we want to feel going through the process of achieving our vision.

Had I done this during my pregnancy, I would have been lauding myself along the way for feeling healthy, creative, present, and so forth rather than pinning all of my success on the ultimate destination, the childbirth.

We know from neuroscience that our beliefs shape our thoughts, and our thoughts give rise to our feelings. We have an opportunity to decide we are ready to feel a particular way—i.e., grateful, inspired, or accomplished—and align our beliefs and thoughts accordingly.

Of course when we are triggered from something unexpected, upsetting, or downright devastating we are entitled to whatever emotional response is evoked. In these moments, we can observe our emotions moving through us without becoming them, or getting stuck in them, until we are back on the path we want to be on.

When we put our awareness on believing that the feelings we desire can and will happen, it empowers us to have moment-to-moment thoughts (even if there are some occasional interruptions) that support the realization of the feelings we are striving for.

This, ultimately, gives us a more solid base for realizing our expectations.

Second, we want to find a way to measure success that goes beyond yes and no.

To me, a successful childbirth was delivering my child without what I deemed were “unnatural” forms of medical intervention. I now realize how silly this goal was, given that it did not even address my daughter’s health.

Yet if I were to time travel back or at some point have another child, I likely would still strive to minimize many of the medications and procedures I experienced.

The key is the word “minimize.”

I would focus on minimizing medical interventions that were not needed for the emotional, physical, and spiritual health of my child and me.

That is very different, yes?

How can you create goals that allow success to be lived in the gray, very important space, between black and white?

Third, we must surrender in the wake of surprises and setbacks.

When we surrender, we make peace with what is, and we use our newfound awareness to expand our conscious capacity for how to move forward with grace and ease.

Note: This is not giving up.

When we have an expectation that clearly cannot be met, we may grieve the shedding or the reframing of the expectation, but we do not adopt embarrassment, shame, or guilt about what has happened.

We give ourselves space to awaken to the lesson, and then we incorporate it in how we move forward.

To recap, if we want to consistently preserve our self-worth and ensure our identity does not become enmeshed in our results, we begin by shaping expectations that set us up to be successful in multiple and holistic ways.

Then, we pause and pivot when expectations are challenged or outright dashed. We forgive ourselves for whatever role we played in the situation. And no matter what, we remember we are the protagonists in the story we choose to create about our lives.

Prisoner image via Shutterstock

August 19, 2015
5 Tips to Create a Loving Relationship, With Fewer Disappointments

“Love does not obey our expectations; it obeys our intentions.” ~Lloyd Strom

Have you ever felt less about a relationship when it didn’t exactly pan out like a fairy tale? I sure did.

I had it stuck in my mind that a great relationship should be picture perfect.

When reality would give me a sobering slap showing it was far from perfect, I would walk away from a relationship that refused to meet my standards.

I thought that a relationship is like a flower in a pot, ever blooming by itself. No hard work whatsoever. But the “flower” also has a tremendous thirst for nourishment and requires time and dedication to ensure it grows and blossoms.

Stubbornly, I believed that when I met my one and only, my life would change for the better. Just like in a romantic movie, I was expecting the credits to roll up the much anticipated “Happy Ending” sign.

Real relationships have nothing in common with a fairy tale.

I had to learn that in order to find genuine happiness (in any relationship) I needed to let go of that silly, romantic movie-like metaphor. When I let go of what a relationship should be like, I started enjoying relationships as they were by looking beyond the flaws and releasing false expectations.

5 Tips to Create a Loving Relationship

1. Find wholeness instead of expecting someone else to complete you.

Give yourself and your partner the greatest gift by becoming whole so that you won’t look for a relationship to complete you, or lose yourself and dissolve into another person completely.

It was challenging to break free from the notion that in order to be whole, I had to find my other half. I also struggled to find a connection with myself outside the walls of relationships. But I was convinced that it was crucial to be able to find comfort in my own company.

We all want to be happy, and happiness comes from within. Solitude allows us to clear our mind and unwind. It gives us to chance to reflect on what we want to experience to create fulfillment in life.

Put some time aside. Nurture yourself with the love and attention you deserve. The more you fill yourself with love, the more love you’ll be ready to give. Be kind to yourself. Find your peace and comfort in solitude.

All great love stories start with loving ourselves first. When we nourish our internal light, then we are ready to share it with the rest of the world.

2. Focus on yourself instead of trying to change someone else.

I was determined to change my partner and teach him something that just didn’t appeal to him. I’ve only recently realized that it’s fruitless to try to change someone else, and better to focus on yourself, acting as an example of what’s possible.

For instance, two-and-a-half years ago I started eating healthy and exercising daily. I became a vegetarian and was excited about the way I felt and the weight I dropped in a matter of a couple of months. Of course I wanted my significant other to feel what I felt. I wanted him to feel good.

I was forcing him to attain my new healthy habits. It turned into an obsession to see dramatic changes in him in a heartbeat. The result? He became furious and resentful.

When I quit nagging about what he should do, I gave him space to breathe and be himself. And eventually, when he was ready to change, my significant other turned his eating habits around. He followed my example because he felt compelled, not forced.

3. Learn to see the extraordinary within the ordinary.

We often do just about anything to avoid the ordinary, don’t we? For years I couldn’t see the magic in sharing the day-to-day life with the person I love.

I was comically obsessed with avoiding ordinary, so I wished that each moment would take my breath away, or that my partner would do something that would. I wanted each moment to be epic and filled with glory.

I had my expectations way up high and forgot how to appreciate all the “little” things—things that might seem ordinary, like going for a walk in the park hand-in-hand.

I’ve learned how to see the beauty in each moment shared with my loved one knowing that ordinary is extraordinary when you see things through the heart.

4. Let go of conditions and expectations.

Have you ever placed conditions on your love? I did.

When we expect people to give us love in a precise way we yearn for it, we put our contentment in someone else’s hands and suffocate our relationships with impossibly high standards.

If you’re not happy with something, share your feelings, but consider that love won’t always look exactly as you expected it would. Letting go of heavy expectations gives our relationships room to breathe and allows us to appreciate everything that’s going right instead of focusing on what we think is wrong.

5. Listen to understand.

Arguments are awful, aren’t they? They leave us with that bitter aftertaste. Arguments have also made me think less of myself, and the relationship.

I failed to realize back then that the more we communicate and listen, the fewer challenges we face.

State your point patiently and listen to what your partner has to say without interrupting them. Construct the bridge of understanding through the chasm of the argument.

We all want to be heard and understood.

The biggest problem with communication occurs when we don’t listen to understand; we listen to reply or to fight back.

I still struggle with the whole “not acting upon emotion” thing; however, I understand that emotions are temporary, but the situations created by them may resonate for much longer period of time.

—

When we allow our relationships to be imperfect and accept that we all have imperfections too, that’s when tiny yet noticeable changes occur. We all deserve nourishing relationships that are filled with love, respect, and warmth. Share your light and let yourself be loved in return.

Happy couple image via Shutterstock

October 5, 2014