Today I want to talk to you about dealing with disappointment. I honestly can’t even say that word without feeling a heaviness in my chest. Right now I just want you to take a moment, take a deep breath, and then say the word disappointment.
For me, disappointment comes up as a sharp pain in my chest, and I want you to think about where it shows up for you in your body. It’s important for us to notice if we are feeling disappointed and how we feel it in our bodies. Disappointment can blend in with sadness, frustration, and anger, as well as many other feelings. This also means that its good to differentiate because I think that so many times when we are disappointed, we end up reacting in anger. We get mad if someone let us down, if we feel left out, or if something is not going to work out the way we wanted it to.
I had a couple of disappointments this week and I think it’s so good to just pause and experience that feeling. In my past life, when I was a big stress addict and I would jump from one thing to the next, I wouldn’t have handled disappointment well. I wouldn’t have paused to experience the feeling and think about what had happened and why I was disappointed. I would have just fast forwarded to the next thing and it would have been lurking there, in my chest, hiding there, and waiting to pop out at a bad time. It would have been draining the positive energy of any happy moment or good experiences that I was having.
I really want you to think about dealing with disappointment so that it doesn’t have these negative effects that go on forever.
The first step is when you feel disappointed, is to just experience it. If someone tells you something thats disappointing, don’t blow up at them. Just sit there for a moment and pause so that you can actually choose how you want to handle it and won’t go into autopilot reaction.
As you pause and experience it, just take a moment to feel the sadness, anger, frustration, and other feelings that come up with it. Disappointment can bring up some really extreme feelings in us and it’s important to address them.
Once you do that, shoot yourself some kindness and give a hug to yourself. Just feel the disappointment and let it leave your body. Then you’re going to have a clearer mind on what your next step is.
Do you try to solve the problem? Do you have a talk with the person about how disappointed you are? Sometimes we need to let others know how we feel, but because we’ve paused and experienced the feeling, we’re not going to be shooting off negative energy or anger towards them. We’ll be able to say, “What’s going on here?”
If you’re disappointed in yourself, experiencing and dealing with the feeling will prevent you won’t be taking it out on other people when they might not even know what is going on.
Those are the couple of steps for dealing with disappointment and if I can help you with this at all or if you need help with what to do next, please let me know.
Thanks for joining me and I hope that this helps you when something disappointing comes up! Disappointment isn’t avoidable but it’ll feel better when you handle it this way.
P.S. Want help dealing with a reason disappointment? Book your complimentary Clarity Call here.
