“And the day came
When the risk to remain
Closed tightly in a bud
Became more painful
Than the risk it took
To Blossom.”
–Anais Nin
There are 2 distinct pathways that lead to disappointment. The first is when we have unreasonable expectations of others—forgetting (or not knowing) that we can speak up and inquire: “These are my expectations. Is it reasonable to expect that of you?” When we fail to do that, and become disappointed because our expectations were not met, we author our own disappointment. Having unreasonable expectations of others will guarantee disappointment. For the purpose of this article, let’s call this “unreasonable” disappointment.
The other kind of disappointment—honest disappointment—comes from hoping, wanting, or attempting something new. Honest disappointment travels with failure—to attempt but not succeed, to hope but not to gain, to want deeply and yet remain unfulfilled. This is categorically different than the disappointment that comes from having unreasonable unspoken expectations of others.
Honest disappointment can be difficult to allow and feel for many adults. It is a hybrid emotion—sad plus mad—sad because what was wanted didn’t happen, and mad because it was a highly wanted outcome. To be able to hold space for the disappointment that comes with failure, and to be willing to comfort ourselves while giving permission to feel those uncomfortable feelings at the core of disappointment—this is the challenge of disappointment. The disappointment that comes with taking risks is an emotional accomplishment.
One gift of honest disappointment has to do with the relationship between hope and disappointment. We typically do not feel disappointed if we had no hope of achieving a goal or outcome. As children, many of us decided it was too painful to be hopeful. We forbade ourselves from yearning, from speaking and seeking what we wanted. With little experience of things turning out well for us, as children we abandoned hope. We may have told ourselves “It is stupid to hope—we will just be disappointed”. As hope is extinguished in childhood, the unintended causality is the ability to allow, feel, and release disappointment.
Disappointment is the evidence of hope. Whether or not we get what we want, being hopeful is good for us—for our nervous system to regulate, for our spirits to soar, and for our communities to work towards beneficial change. The benefits of hopefulness for mental health are well researched. A review of hopefulness literature looked at 20 studies on hopefulness in young people. The researchers identified 5 ways hopefulness helps (see The Connection Between Hope and Mental Health):
- “It is associated with improved coping
- Improved wellbeing is also associated with hope
- Depression and negative life events are less intense for those who are hopeful.
- Having hope is a protective factor against suicide and negative self-deprecatory thinking
- A hopeful person is more likely to engage in health behaviors”
Another gift of disappointment is the opportunity to learn from failures. Failure is our very best teacher. When we are too afraid to attempt something new, or to take a risk, we can’t learn from our failures. If we were the targets of criticism and hostility for the mistakes we made as children (the necessary mistakes required to learn and grow) we become risk aversive as adults.
A hostile or critical parent offloads toxic shame into their child anytime there is a failed expectation of perfection. When this happens chronically, children abandon hope. They will avoid risk taking. Without attempting new things and risking failure –AKA necessary learning curve—the child searches only for protection, for the emotionally safe but sterile waters of hopelessness and learned helplessness.
This internalized toxic shame—induced by inhumane parental expectation of perfection – is like buried ordinance inside of us, ready to detonate at the merest hint of failure. We don’t grow out of this toxic shame. This is what keeps us, as adults, from attempting the new. If we had that kind of childhood, when we experience failure as an adult, we don’t feel disappointment, we feel toxic shame. That feeling is so dysregulating that we learn to avoid it by never taking risks. *Toxic shame turns on the inner critic, who mercilessly attacks us with an internal litany of our imagined failures.
The restoration of hope is the restoring of an essential human right. The right to try, to desire something completely different, to attempt and yes, at times to fail. The right to feel honest disappointment. Without hope we are a rudderless vessel, unable to move forward in satisfying ways or to imagine for ourselves something completely different. If we can’t feel disappointment, we can’t feel hopeful. The centrality of hope in the human heart cannot be underestimated.
PRACTICE
Shifting from inner hopelessness to hopefulness is a process. It begins with questioning risk aversion, or the negative scenarios generated when we want to try something new. It may include experiencing toxic shame, so be ready to use a strategy such as EFT tapping (see the video here) if it comes up.
You will need pen and paper. It looks like this:
- Write down a goal or a desire that you wish to accomplish on top of page
- Imagine and write the first few steps you might want to take
- Pay attention to the feelings/thoughts/voices inside.
- On another piece of paper, write down the statements you hear internally. Are they encouraging or hopeful? If that inner voice speaks negatively about you and/or your desire to take a risk, this is your inner critic.
- Begin to questions yourself, like ‘why can’t I try? I want things to change, so I have the right to make those changes, regardless of my fear’. Write down a few reasons why you want to try.
- Understand that, especially at the beginning of this process, the inner critic attacks may be fierce. If this happens, try EFT tapping (see this website) to release some of the emotional intensity.
- Create a short affirmation, i.e. “It is my human right to hope and to change” or something like that. Repeat this affirmation out loud often, even using it to drown out the negative voices within.
- Use the affirmation anytime the inner critic rises up inside you as a response to your embrace of risk. Remember that you have the right change course, to try something new, and to risk failure in any attempt at change. There is no shame in failure: it is part of the human experience.
- Practice self-compassion anytime you feel disappointment, sadness, or frustration. Learning to comfort yourself as begin to re-experience hope/disappointment is the pathway to allowing honest disappointment. See https://selfcompassion.org/category/exercises/#guided-meditations for short meditations that engender self-compassion.
* Toxic shame needs intervention. Anytime you feel overwhelmed by shame, despair, or hopelessness, an intervention such as EFT tapping (see this website for a video tutorial) can help to release that shame.