Category: disappointment

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A New Context for Disappointments

How good are you at dealing with disappointments? Does it make a difference about the size of the disappointment, or do they all effect you the same way?

It’s a topic that’s on my mind at the moment because I’m experiencing a significant disappointment. There isn’t anything I can do about it practically speaking, and of course, that’s also part of the problem. If there were things I could do, then at least I could take some action, even if it didn’t entirely fix everything.

Maybe you’re experiencing some disappointments of your own. They may be the temporary versions or perhaps, ones that repeat themselves over and over.

I decided I needed to have a chat with Lia (an ethereal feminine voice of god who loves and cares for me and who is always willing to talk with me about anything).

I brought up my issue and asked for some guidance.

Lia responded by saying, “Your attitude about your disappointment is completely under your control. You can be disappointed and feel your feelings BUT then exercise great care with your next choice. You can allow this disappointment to manifest into intense feelings of it being ‘unfair’, but you need to realize this is a subjective judgement based on limited information.”

One thing I immediately realize is that Lia will never allow me to consider myself a ‘victim’ in any circumstance, since I am in complete control over the attitudes I choose in my life.

The next thing I realize is that Lia is challenging me and offering me something valuable to consider…that I am taking the ‘short view’ (limited information) and I would be wise to reconsider this.

I’m not sure how though and she already knows this.

Lia continues, “Whenever you choose to view life solely from the short view, you miss the full story. Everything is not revealed in one single moment (or event). It takes time to become aware of the fullness of life.”

Admittedly, I’m still a little confused. I get the essence of what she’s saying but need more.

As always, she understands and adds to her explanation with a magnificent illustration.

“Imagine there is a string of dominos set up in a line, so that once the first domino is tipped over, it creates a chain reaction…a sequence of falling dominos.”

It’s a great picture for me because I’ve done this hundreds of times in my life.

I can feel Lia smiling at me as she continues, “This is your life, a constant sequence of events, which may appear unrelated, but which are intimated connected. If you judge the whole solely by the first domino, you ignore the end result of the chain reaction. Try to remember, everything is connected.”

And although I get what she’s saying, I still wonder how I can release my disappointments and shift my attitude.

“The shift I’m suggesting is for you to develop an awareness, to pay attention, and to carefully observe your life. When you encounter a disappointment, feel it fully, then make a wise choice based on knowing the disappointment is a part of something much larger in your life. It is connected to the events that preceded it and the events that follows it. Watch carefully for how marvelously everything is organized and how everything serves you (in the long run). Cultivate a level of trust in the process so that you can sit back and watch how, what you at first thought was a disappointment, turns out to be a significant part of something much larger and wonderful.”

I recognize this is going to take practice, but I already sense the incredible value it will bring me. Now I think I’m ready to put my disappointments in a new context.

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Sadness to the Source of Love

This morning I gave myself permission to feel disappointed. I didn’t fight it or try to tell myself I shouldn’t feel this way.

I am human and I want to feel loved. Part of this, for me, is that when I give love out, I hope for it in return.

I don’t give love with an expectation or at least I try not to. I don’t want there to be any strings attached. I try to let love overflow through me, as naturally I am able.

But once it is given out, I recognize there is some part of me that waits to see if any of it will come back to me and I admit, this part of me is sad when it doesn’t.

Do you ever feel this way?

The permission I give myself allows me to lean into the sadness, recognizing I cannot outrun it. By leaning in I hope to discover something, perhaps something worthwhile enough that I can keep it with me for the rest of my life.

I sense there is value beyond the sadness, a hidden treasure for me to find which is even more powerful than the love I’d hoped would be returned.

Even with this open permission it’s hard to see through my disappointment, as if it shrouds everything in a dense mist.

I ask to see through the mist and some of it clears away, but not enough.

I wonder, what else can I do?

A question forms…what are my intentions? Once I’ve accepted and embraced my sadness over the love I did not receive, what am I hoping to experience?

A mysterious answer comes to me in the form of two questions. They echo over and over. Do you feel emptied by this act of overflowing love? And do you feel a need to be refilled?

My quick response is ‘yes’ to both.

I sit back and realize; I have attached strings. Thick, strong, tight strings.

A dawning happens. My disappointment and sadness are present to help guide me to seeing more clearly this inescapable truth about myself.

I am looking outside of myself for love.

I know that I am not alone in this. I see it everywhere I look. It is as if we were taught that we are not enough and need others love to be whole.

Hold still for a moment and see if there is any truth in this for you.

My admission seems earthshaking to me…’I am not enough, therefore, I must be filled by others’. This of course makes me reliant on others, as much as a baby is reliant on its caregivers for its every need.

The analogy is not lost on me, and I wonder how far I have actually grown.

Another question forms…can I find within me an inexhaustible wellspring of love that will forever feed me?

This idea overtakes me and offers to shatter my dependence on others to be filled from their love. This idea guides me to the truth I seek, that I am a part of the divine; whole, complete, and holy. That I am never emptied of love because the divine lives within me. That I am connected to the divine, the infinitely deep, inexhaustible source of love.

I am incredibly joyful to have given myself permission to feel my feelings and to follow them from disappointment and sadness to discovering the truth that I am a part of the source of love.