Have You Felt Disappointment?

Have you ever allowed yourself to feel disappointed? I mean really FEEL it?

Have you ever gotten stuck in disappointment?

Have you read all the self-help books; used all the powerful “I AM” affirmations; taken all the workshops, classes and webinars until you were confused and/or worn out; and the whole while continue to put a smile on your face, pushing forward towards that line of satisfaction?

No doubt life and it’s ever shifting and changing surfaces can be both daunting and exhilarating simultaneously. Now couple those shifting, changing surfaces with unexpressed emotions and you'll no doubt have a plenitude of feelings.

Although feelings and emotions may be two sides of the same coin and highly interconnected, the two are very different. See article link for more in depth information on their differences.

As someone who has not only worked with a lot of people over the years on the topic of disappointment, but someone who has learned how to manage my own feelings of disappointment, the two challenges that seem to be consistent are the following:

1. Getting stuck in the story of disappointment. Perpetual victimization of why things never work out. Feeling all efforts (which generally are not all efforts, but seem like they are) result in dissatisfaction.

2. Not fully acknowledging the feeling of disappointment, and blowing it off that it’s not a big deal. Smiling on the outside as if everything is ok or going to be ok, while the interior walls of the physical body suffer and scream for help and attention, usually resulting in some form of physical dis-ease.

Why are we so afraid to feel our feelings? They always seem to come out on some level or another, and usually more harshly than we’d like to admit.

We’ve been taught expressions such as: “suck it up buttercup”, “stop being a Debbie Downer”, “ain’t nobody got time for that”, “what are you a girl? There’s no crying”, “crying is for babies”, “real men don’t cry”, etc.

We’ve been taught to put a smile on our face, pull our shoulders back, hold our head up high and forge forward without much regard for our feelings.

Is there any wonder we are seeing these displays of explosive emotions in grand form on the world stage?

What if we actually taught people about feelings and emotions, and created a safe space for them to process them? For within them there is useful wisdom if processed healthily.

What if we were allowed to feel disappointed over not achieving our goal, and allowed an opportunity to gain wisdom and growth through the process, rather than repeating the same unhealthy pattern every time we experienced disappointment?

Why do we still live in a state of discomfort when it comes to feeling our emotions?

The abbreviated answer is the thought patterns and beliefs we hold within our unconscious mind go unaddressed, and we continue to operate from our limiting beliefs.

Your emotions and feelings play a powerful role in how you experience and interact with the world. They are the driving force behind the behaviors you exude, which are both helpful and harmful.

I can share from my own experience I had around the disappointment of money. Although in all earnestness I was not aware it was around money per say as much as I harbored shame and guilt around it.

As much as I applied effort everyday in my life towards achieving my financial goals, those underlying feelings of shame and guilt were the unsuspecting sabotages that lead to disappointment. Disappointment which outwardly displayed itself as frustration.

Rather than allow myself the time and understanding to process the feeling of disappointment, and tracing it back to the emotions of shame and guilt, I’d plow forward towards the next financial goal and when not met all the same feelings and emotions surfaced again.

Note: they will always surface again and again until we choose to do something different. Until we choose to seek out the root cause (limiting belief). Until we choose to release the charge behind the emotion, the situation and outcome will remain the same.

What a vicious loop, right?

Before all despair is lost, know there is hope. In order to get there, one needs to be willing to do something different.

Albert Einstein defined insanity as doing something over and over again and expecting a different result.

Where I see struggles for individuals, and certainly I include myself in this statement, is thinking you are doing something different when in fact you’re not.

Continuing with the example I shared around my disappointment with money, I attempted to change my tactics around achieving my goals which proved to be futile because I was continuing to operate from the same limiting beliefs I held around money. The expression “you can’t see the forest through the trees” would be an excellent depiction of how my mindset was operating at the time.

Constantly seeking new ways of doing things through the same set of blurred vision I adopted so long ago, and honestly had no idea I was even doing it.

The more adamant or frustrated I got in my determination, the more I found myself withdrawing from others.

The more I resisted ‘advice’, ‘help’, or even shared ‘examples’ when offered, the more I slipped into despair. And once again the vicious loop began again.

Stubbornness, as I liked to think of it rather as ‘strength’, is not necessarily a virtue. It’s a means of isolation and stuck-ness that can lead to disappointment, which puts us back in loop mode.

I heard Esther Hicks speak once and she described a scene, which I will share, that seems applicable to disappointment. She talked about taking a boat down to the river, pointing the boat in the direction of the upward current, getting into it and paddling like mad all day, and then at the end of the day getting out and feeling exhausted but satisfied for such a hard day’s work…………….not even realizing you haven’t even moved from the spot you put into. This is what Einstein describes as insanity.

This example is very applicable for taking the same action, setting the same goals, and going after them with the same unchanged mindset. Unless or until one is willing to look at their own limiting, distorted beliefs (which we all have), things will always remain the same.

Whatever tactics, measures, plans set into motion with the same limiting beliefs, the outcome will remain the same--unchanged.

What if you were allowed to feel your emotions?

What if you were allowed to really tap into them, and follow the trail to the deeper root emotion that houses the limiting belief that holds you back from achieving whatever it is you want to achieve?

What if you knew you didn’t have to go it alone, you could have a safe space to process it, and you could truly clear the emotional charge it holds over your life, would you be willing to do it?

What I’ve learned is people will most often say either “no” or “yeah but” because of a couple of reasons.

1. They’ve always felt they had to do it on their own so they’ve forgotten how to trust themselves or others.

2. They’ve never allowed themselves to go that far and therefore are afraid of what it will feel like. (Fear of the unknown can be a challenge.)

3. They think they know the root cause based on their conscious mind, and yet have not tapped into the unconscious mind for any form of verification.

4. Their ego (inner critic) convinces them it’s pointless---they are who they are and nothing more.

5. They aren’t aware of their limiting beliefs, and think ‘this is just how my life is’.

Maybe you’re someone who sees, hears, and even speaks of expressions, affirmations, and law of attraction quotes daily, and still struggle with disappointment, would you like to move beyond that and see those things turn into tangible evidence?

Will this be the time where you decide to say, "yes" to you?

Reach out and get in touch with me, I’d love to have a conversation with you and see what we could create together for your success.