Moving Past Disappointment
Disappointment is a drag. It literally means that you didn’t get your way. The kicker is, we need disappointment in order to grow, become better and basically, become a good person. People who have never been disappointed before are well, jerks. So, if we need disappointment in order to be better, how can disappointment also be a total waste of time? Let’s learn how to make disappointing events work FOR us, make us better and happier.
In this episode we will learn:
~Why we need disappointment to become better people
~Why, at the same time, disappointment is a total waste of time
~How to stay open, and get past the crappy feels of disappointment and move onto the good stuff
~Om Shanti ~ A Meditation for Peace
Love the show? Please review and rate Stress Therapy here: https://lovethepodcast.com/StressTherapy
Quotes:
“We need disappointment to build resilience. When you can get through something difficult, your brain remembers and rewards you.” -Cheri Augustine Flake, LCSW
“Disappointed? Consider yourself lucky. No one wants to be around someone who has never been disappointed.” -Cheri Augustine Flake, LCSW
Books, ideas, people, websites mentioned in this episode:
Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself By Michael Singer https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1963638.The_Untethered_Soul
The Host for this podcast:
Cheri Augustine Flake, LCSW
The Stress Therapist and Author
Twitter: @stresstherapy
Instagram: @thestresstherapist
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/cheriaugustineflake
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cheri-augustine-flake-719b044
Website: https://thestresstherapist.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/thestresstherapist
Stay in touch with Cheri and sign up for The Stress Therapist’s Newsletter:
https://thestresstherapist.com/contact/
Join Cheri Flake on her next retreat!
https://thestresstherapist.com/retreats/
https://thestresstherapist.com/beach-retreats/
Want Cheri Flake to be your therapist? If you live in Georgia go to this link:
https://thestresstherapist.com/contact/
to schedule a free 15 minute consultation
Follow Cheri Flake on GoodReads:
Cheri Augustine Flake (Author of Honey Do to Honey DONE!)
Buy Cheri’s book: Honey Do To Honey DONE! A Simple System For A Productive And Happy Household With Absolutely No More Nagging! https://www.amazon.com/Honey-DONE-Productive-Household-Absolutely/dp/0997950919/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_bdcrb_top?ie=UTF8
A word from your host, Cheri Flake, LCSW:
Feeling good after our Stress Therapy session? Awesome. Check out the show notes to connect with me, The Stress Therapist on social media and you can always go to iLoveTherapy.com to find out about meditation retreats and yoga retreats and other offerings that I have there. Do you live in Georgia? Are you ready to be one of my clients? Go to my website to find out how you can sign up for a free consultation with me. But at the very least, go to my website and jump on my mailer so, you don’t stress or miss one thing!
Time Stamps/Chapters:
00:00 Introduction to disappointment and how we’re going to get through this together
00:43 Trailer
01:15 why disappointment is both necessary and a complete waste of time
06:41 Why we need disappointment in our lives and how it can work wonders in your life
02:52 Resiliency and disappointment
06:04 Disappointment is a coping skill
06:55 Why disappointment is a huge waste of time
08:52 Disappointment is the beginning of your story, not the end
10:43 Make a decision to not be disappointed, to move on, to see what’s next
13:13 The unexpected benefits of disappointing events
15:04 Introduction to Om Shanti Meditation
18:13 Binaural Beats (alpha)
25:51 Om Shanti guided Meditation Out
28:53 Mediation Retreat info on Jekyll Island New Year’s weekend
30:11 Closing remarks about being open vs. closed when you are disappointed
32:35: Outro
Transcript notes:
Cheri Flake: Hey, beautiful people. Disappointment blows. No one likes to feel disappointed, right? But we kind of need it in order to learn from our mistakes and get better at things and just be amazing. So today we’re going to talk about how to leave behind all the crappy feels of disappointment. But hang on to all those benefits. Season Four stress therapy, one on one. So relax, settle in, because your stress therapy session is about to begin right now. Hey, beautiful people. It’s time for some stress therapy, a podcast about how to meditate and get better at stress for people living in the real world. Finally, a place to park my 25 plus years of experience of working as a psychotherapist in the mental health field. And now, your host, me, the stress therapist, Sherry Flake. Hey, beautiful people. Okay, so today we’re going to be talking about disappointment and disappointment blows. I think we can all agree disappointment is a huge drag, but it’s very tricky. As a therapist, I have seen disappointment work wonders in people’s lives. Like, you can actually utilize it to make your life better at the same time acknowledging that it’s a total waste of time and that you don’t need it at all. I know it sounds crazy. It’s totally out there. It’s both things. It’s wonderful and horrible. And I’m going to show you just how to get all of the benefits and leave behind all the crappy feels. Okay? Ready? So this is why it’s tricky. We need disappointment in our lives in order to learn, in order to grow, in order to make changes in our business and personal lives, in order to get rid of crappy boyfriends and maybe get a little pickier about who we’re going to hang out with. It’s important that we have it because it’s kind of an emotional guidance system, much like many emotions are, right? And it gives us an idea of steering us. Are we in alignment with our purpose? Because when we’re in alignment with our true purpose, we feel good, and when we’re not, it feels bad. Now, that may simplify it a little bit too much for you, but I’m going to break it down. The reason why we need disappointment is because of resilience, okay? We do need it in order to do all of those beautiful things the way I can prove to you the bottom line, which is that we really do need disappointment to be good people, is right here. No one wants to be around someone who’s never been disappointed, okay? So that’s why, as hard as it is and as much as it breaks your heart into, I totally get it. Because I’m a mom too, we have.To allow our kids to experience disappointment. It is horrible to watch. It’s awful. I mean, I don’t even know. The other day, my boy asked me for shoes that were $145. I’m like, dude, I don’t even have shoes that are $145. What are you thinking? Absolutely not. And he was crushed. I mean, this kid sincerely thought that that was an option. I mean, that right there is my fault altogether and a whole other issue. But he was crushed, and, I mean, it was about something so material, so dumb, it was about a thing. It wasn’t even about, like, when I watch him get bummed when he loses a tennis match or when someone at school has disappointed him. Someone tricked him the other day into doing their math homework. It was their math homework and not his. I don’t know how that went down. That seems very confusing to me and very suspicious, but it was about shoes, you know what I’m saying? And he was so disappointed. He was completely crushed, and it was so hard for me to watch that. And, like, I mean, come on, as an outsider looking in, you’re like, please, kid. I mean, come on, please. So he’s disappointed. Big whoop, you know what I mean? But it’s important that he sits through that, that he experiences what it’s like to be disappointed. It really doesn’t matter what the subject matter is and that he’s able to get through it because it builds resiliency. It gives him confidence that he can get through any time, that he’s really, really, really upset or emoting in a way that is difficult. Right? And when we get through that on our own, we are better. We are better. We learn that we can get through hard times. I’m definitely making quote marks right now, okay? Because this is a first world, like, on top elitist problem, okay? And believe me, I recognize that. But that’s why it’s such a good example, because to my boy at the time, it was major. He was super sad, and now he’s got to come up with a plan on how he’s going to afford them and how he’s going to earn money in order to contribute to these shoes that he really wants that I think are a complete waste of money. But anyway, he’s doing problem solving. He’s planning. He’s learning all of these life skills just to get these dumb shoes, right? And he wouldn’t be doing any of those things if I went and bought them for him. And a lot of times I would see individuals who talk about their kids struggling in high school and that they need medications to get through high school and get through the stress and anxiety of high school. And I get it. There’s a lot of stress and anxiety in high school, but part of it is learning how to get through it on your own, learning those skills, those coping skills, and facing absolutely horrific awful like, high school is rough. It’s hard. I mean, you’re trying to figure out who you are, what you’re going to wear, who you’re going to be, who you’re going to hang out with, what you want to do. There’s a thousand things going on, and your brain is not fully developed to handle all of these types of decisions, and it’s overwhelming, and there’s a lot of emoting going on. But if you can get your kids and yourself to get through a tough time, your brain remembers it and rewards you. I mean, you have those skills forever now, and you know how to get through something tough on your own, and that is an amazing feeling. Okay, now let’s talk about the flip side, disappointment. It’s a huge waste of time. Yes, it is. It’s a huge waste of time. What is disappointment anyway? It’s feeling bad about something that didn’t go the way that we wanted it to or didn’t go down the way that we thought it should. Right. And that we are certain that we know what’s best for ourselves and for all the parties involved. A long time ago, I was working with this guy who owned a bouncy house, and I was doing a lot of work with moms, and I was like, oh, my goodness, this is a match made in heaven. We could have a great partnership. The kids can jump around on your bouncy house, and I can work with the moms. And so we worked on all this marketing, all of this planning, all this everything, and it turned out it wasn’t going to work out. And I hung up the phone that day. After so much work on disappointment, after so much work, I maybe disappointment is a waste of time. After living that truth, I was able to hang up the phone that day and be like, well, if that gig isn’t going to work out, I cannot imagine what’s in store for me, because I thought that was going to be amazing. So what’s around the corner must be spectacular. And I was right. Right after that, I decided to give up being the stress therapist for moms and going right back to being just the stress therapist. I missed seeing men. I missed seeing young women. I missed seeing all of the people that don’t qualify as stressed out moms. And as soon as I made that decision, my phone started ringing. And that’s when success knocked on my door. The moment that I decided that disappointment was a waste of time and that I decided to live it and feel it and not spend any time feeling down about it, but instead to wait and see while all these doors were closing, what windows were going to open. And I was right. And we have tons of these stories. I mean, if you talk to anyone who’s had any success, they usually start their stories with some disappointment, some kind of despair, where they thought it was the end of their story, but it was actually the beginning. We don’t know what’s good for all the people involved. I don’t know what’s good for this mom who could have come to one of those talks or to one of the kids who would have been at the Bouncy house place. I have no idea what’s good for this partner I was going to be working with. I mean, we think we know and understand this huge matrix puzzle of what’s going on and how the universe is working and the bonuses. You don’t have to even contemplate that you can let it all go. Allow the universe to work in its mysterious ways. Put your positive energy out there and what you want and let it move around for you. And sometimes it’s going to present itself in the form of a disappointment. And it’s your job to decide whether or not you’re going to get stuck there or you’re going to let it be the beginning of your story. If you’re going to force it, you know, if you’re going to force this thing, you know you’re forcing it. It’s an uphill battle. When people talk about great success, they don’t talk about uphill battle after uphill battle after uphill battle. I mean, they might talk about working really hard or this happened and then we had to do this and this happened and we had to do that, but things start to really come together. And then I met this person. She knew that person and she knew how to do this skill. And then we decided we would be a good partnership or whatever. You know, things start to sort of roll along and flow. And when you are in alignment with your true purpose, it feels good. It’s not miserable, okay? I mean, it might have its ups and downs, but it’s not a road of misery and rejection, okay? After that, I mean, I had wild success. After that after that, everything opened up for me. All I did was make the decision to be the stress therapist once again, who I always was in the first place. My phone started ringing. It was absolutely amazing. I mean, I was literally pulling the wrapping off of the back of my car that said, you are Rockstar mom.com. And my phone was ringing. It was a very profound moment. And we all have stories like this when we were really disappointed and it turned out to be the best thing ever. I mean, I remember when I had this job a while back, it was probably about 16 or 17 years ago, and I got a fax. Remember faxes? I got a fax and it said we’re closed on Monday. Well, it was Friday. Okay. And I was the only one. It was Friday afternoon. I’m pulling this backs out of the machine and it’s from the owner, and it says, we’re closed on Monday forever, okay? I’m like, Holy smokes, this is terrifying. I’m trying to shove it back into the machine, you know, trying to not be the one with the message, right? I’m thinking, oh my gosh, how am I going to do this? How am I going to do that. I have no job. This is going to be awful. I can’t even imagine it. And that following Tuesday, I had one psychotherapy group that I put together and we met that following Tuesday night for the first time. And those were the first couple of dollars that I put into my very own business of my very own private practice. And I did it. I don’t know if that I’m making quote marks. Disappointing thing hadn’t happened right then. If I would open my own business, then, I mean, I really needed a kick in the butt. I needed the universe to press on my back and push me into it. Right. And so sometimes rather than being disappointed, be a good listener, keep your eyes open. Look around you. What is it that you truly want? Is the thing that’s disappointing you? Is it a setback? Is it absolute misery? I mean, really unpack it and see if you can just sit in the gray area not knowing and wait and see what windows open. What would your life be like if you threw out disappointment? If you decided, I’m just not going to feel that I’m going to make a new plan. I’m going to come up with a new idea. I’m going to have my moment of disappointment and then fill it all up with love and move on, right? Maybe you need to honor the disappointment in order to move on. I mean, I’ve said this hundreds of times before, my husband getting cancer and he would agree with this. I know he’s the one who got cancer, not me. Was one of the best things that’s ever happened to us as a couple, as a family. And certainly for him, after he got through that health scare, he opened his own law firm. It’s thriving. He is so happy. He’s always wanted to do that, right. He realized the preciousness and the shortness of life and just went for it. Right. How can you make disappointment work for you? How can you bring it in as like, this is my lesson. I have a choice here. I can feel bad about this or not feel bad about this. You have a choice. You often have a choice and I want you to take it. Take charge of your disappointment. Decide what it’s going to be for you because you are amazing. You have gotten through so much. You are a star. You could tell me a million times you’ve been disappointed or someone else has disappointed you or something in your life has been disappointing or you never had this one thing that other people had. And I will be able to show you and you would also be able to tell me exactly where that made your life better because that’s the karmic path that you walk when you decide what disappointment is going to mean to you. Right.
And I’m not saying it’s perfect every time and I’m not saying that it’s easy, but I’m saying you could try it. You could look back on your life where disappointment has served you and just decide to have a new attitude about it. And it’s easier if you meditate regularly. So let’s put one of those little checks next to that box. Let’s meditate together right now.
Find a comfortable sitting position. Maybe you want to be in your beautiful meditation space. Make yourself comfortable so you can set up without thinking about parts of your body getting tired or stiff or beginning to hurt. Just make yourself very, very comfortable. But sitting up, take a long, slow, deep breath in your nose and let it all go. Another long, slow, deep breath in your nose. Release this breath out of your mouth and one more long, slow, deep breath in your nose and let it all go. And relax into your beautiful body.
Allow your bones to settle, your head.
To settle, your face and neck and chin to settle. Allow your shoulders to settle and your spine to settle in. Relax your belly and your limbs and hands and feet and legs and bottom. Just sit comfortably and just give yourself the beautiful promise that you will sit here for the duration room of the meditation, that you will find some peace. Om shanti. Om shanti. This is the mantra we will use today. When we use mantra, we repeat silently the mantra in our minds over and over again with all of our attention on the mantra. And because our brains were created to think and move about in the future and past, you simply keep coming back to the mantra. When you space out, think about something else. When you remember, you just gently come back time and time again. Om shanti om shanti, om shanti I’ll watch the time you sit with this peaceful mantra. Enjoy binaural beats and I’ll be right back. Allow the mantra to fall away from your awareness. Come back into your beautiful body, into this time, into this moment, into this room. And before you open your eyes, before you jump up and begin your day, simply allow yourself these last few moments of peace. Whatever vibration comes from Om Shanti is resonating through your body, evoking a holy meaning. And so just take a moment here to feel it. See if you can feel it in your hands. See if you can feel the blood coursing through your veins, in your hands. See if you can feel your belly. What does it feel like for your heart center to reside in this beautiful vibration, knowing this is the end of the meditation? Just notice any anticipatory thoughts or movements, any resistance to sitting just these couple minutes longer and allow yourself this gift of truly being inside of Om Shanti. Take a long, slow, deep breath in your nose, really, really big, and hold it. Release this breath out of your mouth as you open your beautiful eyes.
I really hope this was helpful for you and that you understand that you.
Have a lot of power here on.
How you can be and what you can do when you are faced with something crushing, something that just is super disappointing. I would love to hear your stories. Reach out to me. You should know that my retreat in October because of the Hurricane Ian in South Florida was rescheduled, and it’s going to be over the New Year’s weekend. So this is so exciting. We’re going to have a new mindset for the new year. We’re going to be meditating and doing yoga on the beautiful beaches of Jekyll Island off the coast of Georgia, and it’s going to be December 29 through January 1. Go to my website. I love therapy.com. And click on retreats and come, come and join me. I would love, love to see you, especially you, Whitney. I mean, I’m dying for you to get there, girl. You need to come out to shout out to a fellow meditation teacher who lives in California and, oh, my gosh, I just love her to pieces. And Whitney, I’m expecting you either at that January retreat for the new year, or I have another one at the end of January. I think it’s January 19 through January 23 where we’re going to be in the beautiful Georgia mountains, and we are going to be immersed in meditation, tons of meditation, tons of yoga, beautiful people, an amazing journey with the best food you have ever tasted. So come with me. I can’t wait. And just a couple of last words. I’m disappointment. Okay. You need to be open. You need to be open and taking back your power regarding being disappointed, you are not going to believe what comes to you when you allow yourself to be open rather than closed. When you’re closed, you are feeling down. You’re feeling sad. You’re feeling like something is lost and there’s nowhere to go. When you’re feeling open and you’re okay with a gray area, it’s amazing what is available to you. All of a sudden, opportunities present themselves because your eyes are open, because you’re open to it, because you are sticky in that you are attracting this, like attract like right? Like you are attracting this energy that things are okay, and it highlights what you truly want in your life. And then you’re able to see those things when they’re in front of you. You can’t see them when you’re closed. And if you want to simplify disappointment or even your life in general. And Michael Singer is a great person to read. He wrote a book called Untethered Soul that is just amazing, and it describes this completely. But the basic message is you are either open or closed. Open or closed. You know, if you simplify it, sometimes it’s easier than to get all into the ins and outs of it. And as I’ve said thousand times before, just because it’s simple. Doesn’t mean it’s easy, but doesn’t mean that it doesn’t work right. You’re either open or closed. Practice this today. Practice the way that you stand, sit, what your face is doing when you’re listening to someone or talking to someone, what your reactions are, your automatic responses. When people tell you something, do you automatically respond, but that’s a bad idea, that’s no good, or, I don’t know, I can maybe think that over. Being able to sit in a gray area and being open brings more opportunity to you than you can imagine. Especially if you’ve been spending a lot of time closed off. And I get it. Disappointment is real. It’s a total drag, and it can get you closed up real quick. But you can open yourself up. You can do this. You are amazing. Okay, you can do this. Open up. You’re killing it. I’m here with you. I’m having a blast. Reach out to me. Can’t wait to hear from you. Until next time, have a lovely, lovely day. How y’all feeling after that stress therapy session? Good? Awesome. Check out the show notes to connect with me, the Stress Therapist, on social media, at the Stress Therapist on Instagram, and at Stresstherapy on Twitter. You can always go to ilovethrapy.com to find out about meditation and yoga retreats and other offerings that I have there. If you live in Georgia and you’re ready to be one of my clients, go to my website to find out how you can sign up for a free face to face consultation with me. At the very least, jump on my mailers so you don’t stress or miss one thing. Until next time, have a lovely, lovely day. Bye.
