Navigating Disappointment

How can we effectively move through disappointment? What to do with this experience? This talk explores a framework I find extraordinarily helpful for understanding the roots of disappointment, shifting the energy compassionately and effectively.

Transcript

I invite you into a little intuitive talk about disappointment and weathering disappointment.

This topic was suggested or requested by a friend and a client.

Perhaps to begin,

Let's ask the question,

What is disappointment?

Perhaps we can explore this a bit and then go into what does it look like to navigate disappointment.

If we look at disappointment from a linguistic standpoint,

Beginning with English,

Perhaps the opposite of disappointment is appointment.

We use this in a few different contexts.

One can be appointed to,

Say,

A position of leadership.

One can have an appointment,

Such as a meeting.

So one can have an appointment or one can be appointed.

One is on the level of possession.

One is on the level of identity or identification.

Disappointment is similar.

One can be disappointed,

As we express it in English,

Or one can have or feel disappointment.

Now,

Let's look at Spanish,

Because the word used in not all but many contexts in Spanish is decepción,

Which,

If we translated it directly,

Would be deception,

To be deceived.

There's no direct translation that I've heard in Spanish-speaking countries for disappointment.

Oftentimes people use this word decepción,

Deception.

And I find that pretty interesting in this context of weathering disappointment.

In what ways,

Perhaps,

Is disappointment deception,

Or a sense of having been deceived?

Right?

And so if we break that down a little bit,

What is required for disappointment to exist or to arise or to be felt?

Yeah.

Well,

Typically,

There is some form of expectation,

Anticipation,

Projecting out into the future,

And then being met with a present that doesn't align with the anticipated or the expected circumstance,

Outcome,

What have you.

In a sense,

It is a form of self-deception,

Being anticipation,

Being expectation,

Which projects one's energy into the future.

And when that quote-unquote future is present,

And it doesn't align with the perception that we've carried about that potential circumstance,

Then the deception,

Remember,

Decepción,

Enters.

The disappointment enters.

When we have appointed the future,

When we've set an appointment with the future,

And that future doesn't come,

Or it comes in a way that we didn't anticipate,

Then enters disappointment,

Potentially,

Among other things,

But that's one of the common experiences.

When the future becomes now and doesn't align with the anticipation or the expectation that we placed upon it,

That we appointed to the future,

Thus the disappointment of our expectation and anticipation results in,

I feel disappointed,

Or more commonly spoken in English,

I am disappointed.

That's one of the curious things about the modern English language.

Oftentimes we phrase things as a statement of identity or identification.

I am disappointed.

So let's take one step out of the identification with disappointment and look at it through the lens of,

I feel disappointed,

Or I feel disappointment.

Like we said,

In order for that feeling to arise,

There was inevitably an appointment placed upon the future,

An expectation,

An anticipation projected into the future.

So we take a step back from,

I feel disappointed or disappointment,

Which is,

I anticipated,

I expected something different.

And perhaps there's an example that comes to mind presently or recently in your life or throughout your life that you can kind of follow along in this river of inquiry.

From that standpoint of,

I anticipated or I expected something different here,

That's an acknowledgement,

That's a statement of truth.

Where to go from here?

Perhaps the question becomes,

Why did I choose consciously or subconsciously this expectation,

This anticipation of the future?

The expectation speaks to a wish,

A desire,

A need,

Perhaps.

So perhaps the next layer is,

There is something that I want,

Desire,

Need.

And when that want,

That desire,

That need is acknowledged,

It's simple to see that we attempt to procure our desires and our needs through the anticipating or expecting a particular outcome or circumstance in the future.

There's nothing wrong with this.

When I acknowledge thirst in my body,

I anticipate that through the act of drinking water,

My thirst will be quenched and I will feel hydrated.

That's a very reasonable expectation that can be applied to food and eating,

Can be applied to breath and breathing.

The architecture of this is sound.

However,

The materials that we use to construct that architecture perhaps could use some refining.

First,

To recap,

There is the experience of disappointment.

There is the anticipation,

Expectation held about the future,

Which gives rise to the disappointment.

And then there's the hope,

Desire,

Or need that is being expressed through that anticipation or expectation.

Now,

It's perfectly reasonable to have hopes,

Desires,

And needs.

It's perfectly reasonable to anticipate or expect those hopes,

Desires,

And needs to be filled through some form of action or through some circumstance.

And it's perfectly valid to feel some kind of way,

Whether that's disappointment or something else,

When that hope,

Desire,

Or expectation is not fulfilled through the anticipated outcome or circumstance.

All of this is very reasonable.

So what to do?

This is where one of the key components of NLP,

Neurolinguistic programming,

And ancestral healing family constellations comes to play.

And that is that every pattern,

Belief,

Hope,

Desire,

Need has at its root a positive intention.

Say that there was a desire,

And the fulfillment of that desire was anticipated or appointed to this future moment.

And when that future moment came,

The circumstances did not fulfill that desire,

And so there was disappointment.

The question becomes,

If the desire were to have been fulfilled,

What would that allow me to do,

Have,

Or be?

So if that desire was successfully accomplished or fulfilled or received,

What would that allow me to do,

Have,

Or be?

Sometimes the answer is right there,

The positive intention.

Perhaps it's,

Oh,

Then I would have felt safe.

Then I'd feel connection.

Then I would belong.

Then I would have the love that I long for.

Sometimes there are a few layers before we get down to that core root,

That core positive intention.

So as you track your own content within this inquiry,

Ask yourself,

If I were to successfully accomplish or fulfill that hope,

Desire,

Or need,

What would that allow me to do,

Have,

Or be?

Whatever it is that you land on,

Perhaps you ask a second follow-up question,

Which is,

And having gained or accomplished that,

Then what would that do for me that's even more important?

Say,

For example,

I am anticipating that by eating this fruit I will feel nourished,

Energized,

That I will enjoy a pleasant taste.

And I bite into the mango,

And oof,

It's starting to ferment.

And it leaves me with this oof disappointment.

I anticipated something,

And that anticipation,

That expectation was not met.

And perhaps I felt a sense of disappointment,

Or experienced the feeling of disappointment.

I can ask myself,

If I were to have that desire fulfilled for an energizing,

Nourishing,

Tasty fruit,

What would that allow me to do,

Have,

Or be?

Well,

Perhaps it's to quench hunger,

To feel full or nourished,

Like I mentioned.

Perhaps it's to have a pleasurable taste.

Okay,

Then you can ask,

Well,

If I were to have that nourishment,

That pleasant taste,

What would that do for me that's even more important?

Perhaps the experience of a pleasant taste,

A sweet taste,

Brings me into the body,

Connects me more with my aliveness and my humanness.

Perhaps the nourishment does the same and provides me a sense of ease,

Satiation,

Contentment.

There's peace there,

A sense of abundance or being fully filled,

Fulfilled.

As we follow this inquiry and you land upon a positive intention,

The way to rework this disappointment,

Or to navigate this effectively,

Is to say,

What are some other ways that I can accomplish this?

What are some other ways I can fulfill this positive intention?

In the example of the mango,

It's pretty obvious,

I eat something else.

Sometimes,

If the example is an interpersonal dynamic,

Such as in a relationship,

If I receive this form of interaction from this person,

I will feel more myself,

Or connected,

Or like I belong in this family.

Sometimes,

Finding new ways to accomplish this is a little bit more of a subtle art,

It's a little more tricky sometimes.

But this is the core inquiry that we're touching upon here.

So,

To recap,

The disappointment is based on an anticipation or expectation.

The expectation is based upon a hope,

Desire,

Need being expressed.

The hope,

Desire,

Need is based upon a positive intention that you hold for yourself.

The rework,

Or the navigating,

Or the stepping out of the cycle of disappointment,

Is in the reframing of that positive intention,

Which is,

How can I accomplish this in a different way?

This is particularly important when the disappointment is recurring.

When this is a cyclical experience,

Perhaps daily,

Weekly,

Monthly,

Yearly,

Throughout life,

Before having gone through any sort of inquiry process around it,

Typically that means of attempting to fulfill the positive intention is rooted in old experiences,

Is rooted in old patterns,

Conditioning,

Trauma responses that were very valid at one point in our life,

But have since expired because they're causing turbulence.

And so,

By finding a new way to fulfill that positive intention,

Effectively what we're doing is updating the software,

Updating our means of attempting to procure that positive intention,

Which is on your side.

That's for you,

And it is important,

I feel,

To honor that positive intention.

We're just shifting the means by which we attempt to accomplish it.

This lays the foundation for family constellations,

For many NLP processes,

Which is to say that every behavior has,

At its root,

A positive intention.

By clarifying that positive intention,

There are creative ways to accomplish that in a new way.

That's the basic architecture that I find vitally and fundamentally important for any sort of healing work,

Any sort of growth or evolution.

This has helped me on a personal level immensely,

And I hope that it helps you as well.

Much love.