We have all been disappointed.
WHEN WE “MISAPPOINT” PEOPLE
When we appoint a person, place, or situation to do something for us and it doesn’t come through as we hoped, we are confronted with our disappointment by “misappointment.”
Misappointment describes how we appoint someone (or a situation or even God) to fulfill on expectations that he/she does not have a pattern of fulfilling. The appointment is not sound. He or she may not be interested, disciplined, or even designed to fulfill the expectations, yet, because of desperation, we appoint (“misappoint”) him/her in hopes that the role, responsibility, or desires are met.
THE FEELINGS OF DISAPPOINTMENT
“Misappointments” of course lead to disappointment. Disappointment presents a mix of feelings such as lost hope, dropped enthusiasm, naivety, embarrassment, anger, sadness, and powerlessness. Feelings that most people want to avoid. Yet, disappointment when felt and processed can be INCREDIBLY HELPFUL. One can gain valuable insights on where how to regain power, break free from ruts or relationships that lead no where, and rapidly mature.
Unfortunately, the discomfort of disappointment is exacerbated by the initial “high” before the disappointment. Afraid of “falling” hard from the high, many people stop hoping with vulnerable enthusiasm. Although this seems to prevent the acute pain of disappointment, it actually creates a “felt fog” or “cloud” of perpetual disappointment. People can be influenced by this cloud even though they present themselves as optimistic and actively pursuing things. Of course, just blindly hoping again is not the answer. “Being positive” could simply be a way of denying disappointment, ignoring true desires, and attempting to avoid feelings of powerlessness.
Genuine processing of our disappointments is the only way to access authentic clarity, self awareness, and fulfillment. Feeling through disappointments is an essential step in the rise of fresh (as well as more accurate) enthusiasm and the cultivation of personal power. So, I invite you to know, feel, and process your disappointments.
REASONS FOR DISAPPOINTMENT
Since much of my work focuses on relationships, we are going to look at possible reasons disappointments occur in relationships, although you could apply much of this process to seasons, situations, jobs, spiritual experiences, etc.
With understanding you will be able to better assess the causes of your disappointments and then shift into more empowering perspectives and patterns. The goal is to experience rewarding relationships, letting go of the coping, pretending, and cycling. So let’s take a look:
Reasons for disappointment in relationship
- TRYING TO MICROWAVE THE BENEFITS OF RELATIONSHIP. It takes a lot of time, energy, patience, risk, and emotional maturity to cultivate rewarding relationships. If you try to rush and skip important foundations of relationship, you will be disappointed. The longevity and depth of the relationship will suffer – absolutely without a doubt. Plus, although it may appear that those traits are present from the beginning, these traits are designed to be tested and secured over time. It is common to want to fast forward the relationship because one’s own feeling states are nearly unbearable and the other person feels like your answer. It is also common for one to demand a relationship meet personal needs like self esteem, respect, care, etc. Therefore, people urgently “borrow” these emotional needs from others without developing them internally. This borrowing pattern gets expensive, ineffectual, and therefore disappointing.
- SPIRITUAL, SELF-HELP, OR THERAPEUTIC BYPASSING. . Bypassing is an attempt to skip over or around reality. These are often sneaky denial mechanisms, because they come in the form of claims of change or meaningful sacrifice or healing processes. By using statements such as “God is teaching me something,” “I am here to love this person into healing,” “This is helping me become the bigger person,” etc, etc, you will keep yourself in disappointing cycles. Convincing yourself that there is a grandiose reason you are stuck, suffering, or that the relationship is problematic does NOT solve the problems and leads up to greater disappointment when the bypassing bubble finally crashes.
- UNDEVELOPED PERSONAL POTENTIAL. This can lead us to clinging to unrealized potential in the other person. If you are missing the development or experience of something in your own life, then its likely you will prematurely “borrow” it from another. For instance, many women are looking for the financial stability in a man, yet have not personally cultivated financial maturity. This leads to 2 problems: 1. She doesn’t know how to evaluate whether or not he actually has the patterns of wealth because she does not have them herself and 2. She so desperately wants someone to quickly fill the “void” of financial stability that she will create an overlay. An overlay is where she will overlay her desired trait onto the man whether or not that man has that trait (similar to rose colored glasses). She will see the potential and not the patterns. This leads to easily “misappointing” the individual. Underlying feelings of powerlessness in yourself will lead to cling to a perceived power in the other person (whether or not they actually demonstrate that power/pattern). If this is a pattern, one must stop overlooking the ability to cultivate these traits or experiences for yourself.
- UNCONSCIOUS CONTRACTS. Most people enter into relationships with expectations. This is appropriate and helpful is assessing the value of that relationship in your life. Problems arise if you don’t communicate (even to yourself) what these expectations are – the expectations are hidden in the unconscious. They are not expressed and surely not agreed upon. For example, let’s say a guy unconsciously expects his wife to improve his self image and community influence. He wants to appear like a “nice guy” so he doesn’t directly ask her to take better care of her looks, learn hosting etiquette, etc. He simply actually tells her that she is just great the way she is. She unknowingly reflects back to him his casual attitude and attire. He starts to notice bitter or resentful feelings toward his wife and he can’t quite understand why. He just feels uncared for and like he got the bad end of the deal. The fine print on his contract is so fine – he cannot even read it. These feelings are indicating a need to look underneath to discover the unconscious contracts and renegotiate with clarity.
- INSECURITY LEADING TO ISOLATING INTENSITY. Once a person finds someone that he or she admires and hopes to get needs, opportunities, or resources through, it is common for the person to attempt to fulfill ALL his/her needs through this person. He/she no longer pursues or even perceives other relationship opportunities. Marriage is a common place for this to occur. We expect one person to be our friend, our business partner, our lover, our healer, our coach, our spiritual source, our network, our financial advisor. Not only is this approach disappointing, it is also costs us. Expecting one person to meet all your needs is isolating. This approach festers enmeshment. The relationship which may be fulfilling in a number of ways becomes disappointing because it cannot fulfill everything. Interestingly, one can further reinforce this unhelpful approach by layering some spiritual or self help bypassing on the insecurity, convincing themselves that the intensity is due to loyalty, deep commitment, and honor for the relationship. Again, a cloudy perpetual disappointment is inevitable, no matter how much one may to deny the disappointment or reframe the experience or idealize the other. One person was never designed to meet all of our emotional and social needs.
UNDERLYING POWERLESSNESS
Underneath disappointment, especially in relationships, there is often a profound feeling of powerlessness. In the various reasons for disappointment listed above, the theme underlying each one was powerlessness. If you could hear it, the unconscious drive would sound something like this, “I feel powerless to achieve this need, experience, opportunity, etc on my own. Therefore, I am going to rely on this other person to create that for me – whether or not it is in his/her patterns, whether or not he/she agreed to it, whether or not I would best be served by personally cultivating this or looking for other people. This will be so much better this way. This person will make this happen for me.”
GETTING UNDERNEATH YOUR DISAPPOINTMENT
We want to get underneath the drive that leads to disappointment and instead become effective in personal power and relationships.
So how can you break the powerless trace?
- Dig underneath the trace with questions.
- Break through the trace with authentic answers.
- Leave the trace behind with new patterns for true fulfillment.
Here are some questions to help you start digging into past disappointments:
What did I hope this relationship or experience would help me avoid?
How did I convince myself to stay in this relationship so long?
What did this experience seem to offer that I perceived was difficult to access on my own?
Did I consider my commitment to this relationship noble or loyal? If so, why might I have seen it as such?
What potential in this person/experience could I see so clearly, yet still to this day is not activated?
By investing in this relationship I was hoping to receive ______________________, ______________________, and __________________________. On a scale of 1 to 10 how clearly and repetitively did you repeat these expectations? What were the guidelines in place to hold them accountable to these expectations?
What other options did you seriously pursue to fulfill these needs and desires?
Break through the trace:
Currently, I am in a relationship and I hope this relationship will give me ________________________, _________________, and _______________________.
(some ideas are $, comfort, support, respect, unconditional love, acknowledgment, advancement, security)
Choose one of the things you are hoping to get in this relationship and ask yourself:
This person may offer me this in exchange for ________________________.
I want this specifically from this person because ____________________________.’n’nn’n”’n n’n’
Based on patterns of this person (you can ask others about this as well to help you grasp the real patterns here), the likely hood of experiencing this is __________________________(percentage),
If I accept the reality of how likely I am to receive this from this person, I feel _________________________.
Leave trace:
Is there someone else who offers this more consistently? Who do I know of who actually embodies this? What perspectives and patterns does he/she demonstrate?
When do I (if ever) have this experience of myself?
What would be so bad about cultivating this for myself?
Recognize one of the few times this emotional needs may have been felt. Feel the feeling and expand that feeling in your body til you notice some resistance. What is your resistance to expanding the fulfillment of this feeling?