on feeling disappointment

People do not need to be saved from feeling disappointment.

However, we often defend against our own fears of feeling disappointment by becoming overly concerned about not disappointing others.

If we were not taught how to sit with our disappointment, or we were taught other people’s feelings were our responsibility, of course we are going to try to save people from feeling disappointed now as adults.

For many of us, feeling disappointment can be tremendously difficult. Unlike some of the other emotions, it feels like there’s not much we can do with these feelings, so it makes sense that we would do anything to try not to feel it.

We do this by punishing ourselves with narratives like: if we just didn’t expect anything from others, we wouldn’t be disappointed… as if feeling disappointment was our fault rather than just a part of being human.

We do this by convincing ourselves that the reason we feel disappointed is because we depended on others, and next time we won’t make this mistake… as if depending on others is a failing.

And we often defend against our own fears of disappointment by becoming overly concerned about not disappointing others.

The thing is, trying to avoid letting anyone feel disappointed in you is literally attempting to control what you cannot control.

And it’s sometimes a disguise for a fear that you are, at your core, disappointing. Which could be connected with how disappointed you felt as a child when your needs weren’t considered. When you were a kid, no one guided you in how to sit with your disappointment. It felt intolerable. So you pushed it down and instead focused on never being disappointing.

What we really needed as a child, however, was for someone to be with us during our disappointment. To teach us it’s ok. That this feeling, like other feelings, deserves respect and attention.

Disappointment is a valid human emotion. And you are allowed to feel it.

Unhooking ourselves from this fantasy that we could never disappoint others requires us to get comfortable sitting with our own sense of disappointment. There is nothing you need to do or fix.

As you give yourself this space, you give other people space to feel whatever it is they feel. Because people do not need to be protected from their own emotions.

Notice moments where you may try to prevent someone from feeling disappointed by telling them that it’s better to just not expect anything, or to get over it, or by trying to fix or alleviate it in some way.

See if in those moments you can instead let them be disappointed.

Let them feel.

Be there with them just like you would want someone to be there with you.

XO