Archive | August 6, 2013

A Bittersweet Pill?

Aug6
Recently my sensibilities towards life were hit with a big disappointment, a ‘broken heart’ if you will. 
Today I understand I once again put far too many of my eggs into just one basket for there ever to be a healthy outcome.
 It seems I sometimes get ahead of myself. Which is a complete bust when I am trying to be mindful of living in the moment.
In trying to analyze why I seem to set myself up I realized very quickly that was fruitless energy. To place blame on something or someone I have found over and over is an extreme wasted amount of emotional energy.
Instead I make the choice to move forward and find ways to change my way of thinking about not only this disappointment, but in how I let myself create expectations of things I have no control over.  That would be as my mother used to say, “most prudent.”
 
    So like a good daughter it seemed prudent then to begin studying disappointment. 
 From the basics:
Disappointment is the feeling of dissatisfaction that follows the failure of expectations or hopes to manifest. Similar to regret, it differs in that a person feeling regret focuses primarily on the personal choices that contributed to a poor outcome, while a person feeling disappointment focuses on the outcome itself. It is a source of physiological stress. The study of disappointment—its causes, impact, and the degree to which individual decisions are motivated by a desire to avoid it—is a focus in the field of decision analysis, as disappointment is one of two primary emotions involved in decision-making.
 
So now I am thinking I am on to something. 
Regret vs disappointment, yes. 

 Season changes, summer being mid swing and Fall soon around the corner should have me focusing my attentions on what positives have changed in my life, and what the these previous months have taught me. Looking for the things (regrets?) that helped manifest the poor outcome which brought about this sense of disappointment.  Like anyone else I have suffered setbacks, experienced rejections, and had my hopes and dreams dashed.

That’s life, yes?

Typically I have a capacity for bouncing back from difficult experiences, and often find I am inspired by them.
But this time my knee jerk reaction was to feel a simple lack of resilience to courageously soldier on. So I started to mentally beat myself up for it. To look at only the poor outcome and not look beyond it for something more.
 
One of things that helped create the disappointment is unrealistic expectations about who I can be, what I can have,  and what I can achieve. My goals I imposed upon myself were ones with great struggles attached. When I failed to be able to create the outcome or goal I was expecting and desiring I was quick to think there is something wrong with me. When maybe it could be that I just took on too much and put too much expectations also on things I have no say in. I made a particular choice, or set of choices, and just maybe it was not be the best time in my life for such choices.  
Now I am seeing that with my knee jerk reaction to when I didn’t get to where I thought I should be, I hit bottom in disappointment.

My disappointment may also be an extension of the trust I put in what I thought to know to be true. When the truth as I knew it failed to meet my high standards of proof I began feeling a disconnect in every cell of my body and began feeling somewhat hopeless.

But, here’s the cool part I realized, at least I think it is cool: This is my emotional intelligence at work; my disappointments can be additional spiritual practices. I can turn this around and learn through grace, diligence and creativity to change the way I way I move forward from a great disappointment and live out the choices I made.

So how?  How would I begin to do this was my next question.

Maybe….

• I ask myself what is it I am disappointed about?  I name my disappointments and then let them go, making a commitment to not keep replaying them over and over in my mind.  And I will also to forgive myself for being disappointed.  I will try to keep in mind that disappointment is a natural response to difficulty. The trick for me is to not let it govern my mindset.

• Counting my blessings and knowing in my heart that I have more than enough. Seeing my wealth not in outward possessions but in of the spiritual intangibles of love, faith, hope, and dreams. 

………and the really tough one I struggle with, despite being convicted in knowing this is an imperative mindset:

  •  To not allow my ideas about what should or could happen to determine my happiness or sadness 

I shall try to remain mindful that to stay in the present.

I am a perpetual student of life, and would be interested to know what you do when hit with disappointments.

How do you assimilate disappointments?


ttaylor2013©