How do you deal with the stress of disappointment? Or do you deal with it all?

How do you deal with the stress of disappointment? It can feel overwhelming. And learning how to deal with it, the stress around the disappointment, not just the disappointment itself, but the stress we feel can be really powerful. This is Rick Wilkes from thrivingnow.com and I'm Kathy Bertoli from the Intimacy Dojo.

And thrivingnow.com and I'm someone who has a very little capacity for disappointment. Disappointment tends to be a big deal for my system. And part of it is that I'm a very passionate person. I set my intentions very strongly and I'm very sensitive and you may be too. And one of the things that I needed for my own well being is a way to look at disappointment and feel it in a way that didn't cascade into a bunch of stories. Do you know what I mean by that?

I do. I think most of us, our families, didn't know how to teach us how to handle disappointment. I learned not to ask because my mother would get so upset if I was disappointed that I just learned that it was bad in general. And I think that we sometimes go back to, okay, I was four and I was convinced I was gonna get a pony for Christmas and I didn't, and I threw a fit and Christmas was ruined. So we kind of treat disappointment like this red hot poker that we need to stay away from. The truth is we feel it all the time and we're disappointed about different things because we get. Humans develop expectations. We have this plan and that serves us so well. That's why we have skyscrapers and electricity and all kinds of good things. Yeah, they're great. And sometimes plans get broken, right?

And when a plan gets broken, I believe that there's an intelligence in us that says, let go. And part of that is if you imagine that you're trying to get something, trying to get something and you're really engaged with it, but it is not going to happen. That there would be a biochemical and emotional and energetic signal that says to your body, hey, don't keep after that that way. And like Kathy said, that's a really natural thing that happens to all of us. But the stories that we weave afterwards, like, I don't deserve it. I wasn't a good boy. I was on Santa's naughty list. Whatever story cascades out of that, to me is a way for us to make sense of a feeling that most people don't know how to deal with. To me now, when that let the letdown, it literally is a letting down, shutting down kind of feeling. What I seek to do is to do some tapping for it and land on neutral. Like if you were trying to reach the apple in the tree but could not reach it no matter what you threw at it, no matter how long a stick you try to get, that apple's not going to come down. And you kind of imagine saying, okay, yeah, not coming my way from that tree, that apple. And you imagine just grounding yourself in a place of neutral peace. It's okay. I'm okay. Can we do some tapping on that?

Yeah. I'd love to look at, too, what you're talking about. We want it from that tree. We might suddenly, if we do some tapping, realize that we're in an orchard. Not that tree, but that tree. And there's a grocery store right there. There's a farmer's sometimes. And I've done this many times myself, I get attached to getting it from that one person or that experience. Yeah. And the pain is often. Not about now, but all the old pains that we had before. So if you can take a nice, slow, deep breath, feel your feet on the floor, wiggle your toes. And even though we say this all the time and you might be tired of hearing it, we encourage you to do it again and again. It anchors it. It gives you a pattern for your body to flow through and a way to get back in your body really quickly. Notice your butt in the chair. You're supported. The universe loves you, has you, is holding you right now.

Gravity's working.

Gravity is working. Karate chop. Even though I feel the stress of this disappointment.

Even though I feel the stress of this disappointment.

And it really hurts.

And it really hurts.

I wanted that so badly.

I wanted that so badly.

If I got that, I'd be okay.

If I got it, I'd be okay.

I know that I'll be loved if I got that thing.

I know I'd be loved if I got that thing.

Whatever it was.

Whatever it was.

And you know what? It might not be about that thing.

What if it's not about that thing?

Maybe it's about feeling loved.

Maybe it's about feeling loved and winning.

What if I can love myself?

What if I can love myself and.

Let myself win by being there for me?

And let myself win by being there.

For me on top of that. I didn't get it that way.

I did not get it that way.

I really wanted to get it that way.

I really wanted to get it that way.

Side of the eye, from that specific.

Tree, from that specific tree under the.

Eye, that specific apple.

That specific apple under the nose.

I Don't even know if that apple has worms.

I don't even know if that apple has worms.

And what if the universe is guiding me to a different tree?

The universe is guiding me to a different tree. Collarbone or something else.

I choose to be present with myself.

I choose to be present with myself.

I choose to be present with this emotion.

I choose to be present with this emotion.

Top of the head. And love myself through.

And love myself through.

So I can find better solutions.

So I can find even better solutions.

Nice deep breath. I think so much of disappointment is about stories we tell ourselves.

It is the pain and suffering of disappointment.

Yeah. Yeah, it is. It does hurt. But often we're bringing in every disappointment we've ever felt rather than, oh, you can't go to the movies tonight. I was really looking forward to going to the movies with you tonight.

Yep.

Okay, we're not going to the movies. My life is not over.

It's not. And I'll tell you, I think disappointments have a way of concretizing in our system, like rock in a rain barrel. That's one of the theories. And what I did is I wrote down 12 disappointments that really felt like they had some emotional charge. And I went through each of them as a tapping story and helped address that feeling in my body of where the disappointment was my capacity. The things that feel disappointing to me now are very different. Almost everything that didn't work out the way that I had fantasize that it might used to be felt in my body as ouch, a disappointment. And now, even though I still say my capacity for disappointment is not where I'd like it to be, it's one of the beauties of doing emotional work for ourselves is that we do build greater resiliency. And that shows up where it's like, oh, okay, so that's not happening. What might be a yes for us tonight or what might be a yes for me? You see how that, oh, that's not happening. There's even a little uplift where you're able to redirect energy rather than be shut down. You know, your body starts to trust that it can signal you says, hey, what about finding some other yeses instead of whoosh? You're gonna, you know, you're so disappointed in your job. You're so disappointed in the project. You're so disappointed in whatever. You don't have to be shut down to quite that level.

Yeah. I also like to look at what is the story I tell myself about it. If, say, using the example of going to the movie. Oh, if my friend went to the movie with me, I feel loved and accepted and part of the community. Oh wow. You know what? If we went to the movie and I have that fear and that soothed it momentarily, that fear is going to come up again. So if you can notice what you're trying to solve by having this experience and then tap on the pain underneath of it, that lets you go to the movie with fun and without any agenda, because agendas can pull a lot of joy out of it. Well, you didn't buy me popcorn. I was expecting you to buy my popcorn. I would have felt love then versus oh my God, you bought me popcorn. Or, you know, we're having a great time. So if you can get down to the story behind it, what you're trying to solve by the experience, then, because often something that means so much to us is about a story. So if you have comments below, we'd love to hear like, what do you tell yourself once you're disappointed and how do you soothe yourself?

And this is the kind of thing that having someone else coaching you and helping you parse through this, a lot of these are in our blind spot disappointments. I would say of all the things that were in my blind spot, those stories, those were things that talking about it with someone who's gifted at finding the underlying emotional need makes such a huge difference. And it makes the tapping more effective too. So if you, if you like some help, supportrivingnow.com give us some background on what you're looking at and we'll give you some suggestions.

Have a great day.