Speaker 1: We assume that our effort guarantees a reward, and we
Speaker 1: assume that being good means that we will get good things.
Speaker 1: We assume that life owes us something based on the
Speaker 1: work or the effort that we've put in. And the
Speaker 1: truth is, sometimes you will do every single thing right
Speaker 1: and it still won't work out. I'm Rady Wukiah and
Speaker 1: on my podcast A Really Good Cry, we embrace the
Speaker 1: messy and the beautiful, providing a space for raw, unfielded
Speaker 1: conversations that celebrate vulnerability and allow you to tune in
Speaker 1: to learn, connect and find comfort together. Hey everyone, and
Speaker 1: welcome back to this week's episode of A Really Good Cry.
Speaker 1: I hope that your week has been good. To be honest,
Speaker 1: I've been really struggling with feeling so tired lately, and
Speaker 1: I don't know whether it's the weather or it's just
Speaker 1: my body just struggling to really move into this season.
Speaker 1: But I have heard that people get sick the most
Speaker 1: during seasonal transitions, so right now we're kind of going
Speaker 1: from autumn to winter, and I've been hearing what so
Speaker 1: many people getting coughs and calls, So I've really been
Speaker 1: trying to support my body and follow what Kieran the
Speaker 1: Incredible Gut Expects said in my recent podcast about improving
Speaker 1: your gut health. So I've been taking my jester of
Speaker 1: probiotics and my digestive bit is before my meals, and honestly,
Speaker 1: so far, so good. Touch would I have been feeling
Speaker 1: pretty good. So this is your reminder to make sure
Speaker 1: that you are doing all the things that you need
Speaker 1: to stay healthy and well this season. So this week
Speaker 1: I actually did a panel and one of the questions
Speaker 1: I got asked was how do you deal with disappointment?
Speaker 1: And I was thinking about the question even after the
Speaker 1: panel about my relationship with disappointment and how much has
Speaker 1: actually changed over the years. I used to be someone
Speaker 1: that got disappointed a lot. Either I would feel like
Speaker 1: someone wasn't doing as much as I was, that they
Speaker 1: weren't reciprocating in the way that I wanted them to,
Speaker 1: or rejection would feel really personal, or that something didn't
Speaker 1: quite happen the way that I had envisioned it the
Speaker 1: way that I'd planned it out to be, so I'd
Speaker 1: be disappointed. Disappointed. Disappointment that's a place that I lived
Speaker 1: in for a really long time, and it began to
Speaker 1: change how I actually interacted with people in the world,
Speaker 1: and one day I just realized, like, I don't want
Speaker 1: to do this anymore. I don't want to be a
Speaker 1: fit thing moaning myrtal over here. That's not me, or
Speaker 1: at least that's not who I want to be. I
Speaker 1: don't want to feel like the victim. I don't want
Speaker 1: to look at the world pessimistically. I don't want to
Speaker 1: see people and expect them to disappoint me. I don't
Speaker 1: want to see the world through the eyes of constant
Speaker 1: sadness or frustration. And let's be real, it is such
Speaker 1: a common feeling. You order a pizza and it doesn't
Speaker 1: have enough cheese and you're like, oh, I'm so disappointed.
Speaker 1: You put trust in a partner or a friend and
Speaker 1: they don't follow through. You're disappointed. You watch Gilmore Girls
Speaker 1: again forgetting how it ended, and expect Rory and just
Speaker 1: to get back together, but they didn't. Really disappointed. Actually,
Speaker 1: that part of my life was really sad. I was
Speaker 1: thinking about it for like a whole week. Why did
Speaker 1: they not get back together? Why did I think that
Speaker 1: they should have? And I created a whole reality in
Speaker 1: my mind where that happened, But it actually didn't, and
Speaker 1: I was extremely disappointed after that, and I had to
Speaker 1: say to myself with some serious tough love, babes, it
Speaker 1: is a you thing. And yes, people do do stuff,
Speaker 1: People do things that you don't want them to, people
Speaker 1: do do things that are sometimes very horrible. And yes,
Speaker 1: things happen that you didn't expect or want, things don't
Speaker 1: go to plan, and your life maybe in complete shambles.
Speaker 1: But choosing to feel disappointment was a choice, not a given.
Speaker 1: It's not something that was given to you. It's something
Speaker 1: that you are choosing to feel from the things that
Speaker 1: are given to you. And so here is a question
Speaker 1: to ask yourself, what if disappointment isn't something that happens
Speaker 1: to you, but it's something that you're creating. And I
Speaker 1: know that sometimes that can be really difficult to digest
Speaker 1: because there are a lot of things that feel unfair
Speaker 1: in this world. There are so many things that happen
Speaker 1: to us, even if we feel like we're good people.
Speaker 1: And so it's really not about diminishing or making something
Speaker 1: that's happened to you feel small or insignificant. It's not
Speaker 1: that at all. But it's helping you to realize you
Speaker 1: have a choice to carry that with you day in
Speaker 1: day out, week after week. And so it's less about
Speaker 1: what they've done, being right or wrong. It's more about
Speaker 1: do you want to carry this? Do you want to
Speaker 1: take on this weight and this responsibility? Do you want
Speaker 1: to take on this constant sadness, this constant frustration through
Speaker 1: your life, and do you want to see the world
Speaker 1: in that way? And sometimes this ends up being really difficult,
Speaker 1: Like I feel like this world of self help and
Speaker 1: growth and trying to be better people, it feels like,
Speaker 1: why is everything something I have to fix? Why can't
Speaker 1: it be their fault? And yes, it is a lot
Speaker 1: of responsibility, and it is difficult when the fingers pointed
Speaker 1: constantly back to you when you're thinking, actually, I didn't
Speaker 1: make myself upset. They did. But if you are trying
Speaker 1: to live in a victim mindset, you're listening to the
Speaker 1: wrong podcast. Because here we have to own things and
Speaker 1: we make our lives better and we do the work required.
Speaker 1: And that is the hard part about trying to be better,
Speaker 1: that you can't keep blaming other people for the way
Speaker 1: that you feel, the way that you live through life,
Speaker 1: the way that you see the world, the way that
Speaker 1: you see your circumstances. So first things first is you
Speaker 1: have to take ownership not of the entire situation, but
Speaker 1: of how it's making you feel. And often it's not
Speaker 1: the situations we're in or life that's the problem. It's
Speaker 1: the expectations that we are putting on them. Every single
Speaker 1: time I've struggled to deal with the hand that I've
Speaker 1: been out or felt like something was unfair, it wasn't
Speaker 1: because life was actually unfair. It was because my expectations
Speaker 1: were clashing with reality. I had created this picture in
Speaker 1: my mind of how things should be a job, a relationship,
Speaker 1: an opportunity, or even how a version of myself should look,
Speaker 1: and when life didn't match that picture, it led to
Speaker 1: this feeling of disappointment. And so it wasn't even that
Speaker 1: life was necessarily painful, even though sometimes it is. But
Speaker 1: it was more that my attachment to how I thought
Speaker 1: life should be wasn't happening. And that's what disappointment is.
Speaker 1: It is this gap between your expectation and your reality.
Speaker 1: It's this mismatch between this idea that you've created and
Speaker 1: what's happening in real time or real life. And so
Speaker 1: the wider that gap is the harder the fall ends
Speaker 1: up being. The more you create this vision of how
Speaker 1: this relationship should be, how this person should be treating you.
Speaker 1: The more you've created that before it's actually happened, the
Speaker 1: harder you're going to fall, and the worse it's going
Speaker 1: to feel when it doesn't. And I think we just
Speaker 1: taught to romanticize everything. We romanticize every single thing. We
Speaker 1: romanticize a walk in the park, which actually can be
Speaker 1: really nice, but we also romanticize things that haven't happened yet,
Speaker 1: including relationships, including friendships, including success, including timelines, including outcomes.
Speaker 1: We assume that our effort guarantees a reward, and we
Speaker 1: assume that being good means that we will get good things.
Speaker 1: We assume that life owes us something based on the
Speaker 1: work or the effort that we've put in. And the
Speaker 1: truth is, sometimes you will do every single thing right
Speaker 1: and it still won't work out. And if your peace
Speaker 1: only exists when things go your way, you will always
Speaker 1: be at war with reality. And so a big part
Speaker 1: of dealing with disappointment is actually being more present in
Speaker 1: the moment and seeing what life is actually giving you
Speaker 1: rather than what you are constantly wanting for yourself. And
Speaker 1: that can be really difficult because, of course we have
Speaker 1: aspirations for what we want in life, and that is
Speaker 1: so okay. Of course we should have them, but we
Speaker 1: also need to be in touch with reality at the
Speaker 1: same time so that we don't constantly live in disappointment.
Speaker 1: There's this thin line and this balance that we have
Speaker 1: to strike between having aspirations and having this desire to
Speaker 1: have something happen, but also realizing that we are committing
Speaker 1: to the process, not just the result. We're committing to
Speaker 1: what we're going to receive from the process and from
Speaker 1: the progress that we're making while we're trying to make
Speaker 1: this result happen. But if the result doesn't happen, we
Speaker 1: also have to be aware of what we've gained through
Speaker 1: that journey, what we've gained through that process. And the
Speaker 1: problem is if we're constantly attached to a specific result,
Speaker 1: we're actually never going to enjoy life because the result
Speaker 1: ends up being such a small part of our life.
Speaker 1: The end product is usually a fleeting experience or a
Speaker 1: excitement that we get. It's not usually the longest part
Speaker 1: of life. The longest part of life is the process.
Speaker 1: Most of the time, it's the progress that we're making.
Speaker 1: It's the steps in between, and so if we're not
Speaker 1: learning how to appreciate that and gain from that, then
Speaker 1: our bursts of happiness and joy are going to be
Speaker 1: very fleeting and very small when we reach those little
Speaker 1: milestones that we're creating for ourselves. I recently read an
Speaker 1: article that said that the way that we handle disappointment
Speaker 1: actually starts early in our childhood conditioning. Now, I don't
Speaker 1: think that that means it's our parents' fault, but I
Speaker 1: think what it means is how we deal with disappointment
Speaker 1: from a young age naturally shapes how we deal with
Speaker 1: it in our adulthood, and becoming aware of that is
Speaker 1: really important. So sometimes taking yourself back to how you
Speaker 1: reacted when you can remember you first being disappointment, maybe
Speaker 1: you didn't get the gift that you wanted as a kid,
Speaker 1: maybe something of taken away from me, maybe your mom
Speaker 1: said you can't go somewhere. How did you react in
Speaker 1: that moment, and how do the people around you react?
Speaker 1: And some people, after facing disappointment, they learn to protect
Speaker 1: themselves by shrinking. They set the bar really low, They
Speaker 1: stop hoping too much, because if they don't expect anything,
Speaker 1: then they just can't be let down. But that ends
Speaker 1: up being a false piece. It's not a real peace.
Speaker 1: That's just self preservation disguised as acceptance, and it can
Speaker 1: lead to a mediocre, un fulfilled life because you're just
Speaker 1: constantly protecting yourself. You're not allowing yourself to take chances,
Speaker 1: you're not allowing yourself to fall in love deeply, you're
Speaker 1: not allowing yourself to jump in to a job that
Speaker 1: you really want but you're too scared to just in
Speaker 1: case you get disappointment. And so a lot of us,
Speaker 1: based on our experiences in life, can actually end up
Speaker 1: protecting so much we actually don't give ourselves the opportunity
Speaker 1: to even make progress or to achieve those goals because
Speaker 1: of our worry of that disappointment. So our fear actually
Speaker 1: holds us back. So we think we're protecting ourselves and
Speaker 1: creating the shield around us which avoids disappointment. But actually
Speaker 1: then you're not feeling the you're not feeling or fulfilling
Speaker 1: this potential of joy that you actually could have. But
Speaker 1: on the other hand, there are people who become overachievers.
Speaker 1: They chase perfection, telling themselves that they need to try harder,
Speaker 1: do more, be better, and I think that high expectations
Speaker 1: equals higher standards. But perfectionism isn't always a strength. It
Speaker 1: actually is also a fear response, and ironically it creates
Speaker 1: the exact same outcome, disappointment. So both this underachiever mentality
Speaker 1: and this perfectionist mentality are doing the same thing. They're
Speaker 1: trying to control disappointment instead of learning to live with it,
Speaker 1: instead of learning how to deal with it, instead of
Speaker 1: learning how to process it. And so the thing we
Speaker 1: all have to realize is disappointment is absolutely a natural
Speaker 1: human response. It's kind of a spin off emotion of
Speaker 1: grief if you think about it. It's grief over what
Speaker 1: could have been, or what someone could have been, or
Speaker 1: what a situation could have been. But what makes it
Speaker 1: destructive is what happens next. So feeling the emotion isn't wrong.
Speaker 1: It's about how we then receive that emotion, process it,
Speaker 1: and move forward with our life. Some people turn it inward,
Speaker 1: it's my faul, I'm not good enough, and it can
Speaker 1: lead to a shame spiral or a self blame game.
Speaker 1: Others can turn it outward. This person let me down,
Speaker 1: they didn't care enough, they don't value me. As much
Speaker 1: as I value them, and that turns into bitterness and resentment.
Speaker 1: But the thing is both end up robbing you of
Speaker 1: your power, and I think to really deal with disappointment
Speaker 1: in a healthy way, you have to try and find
Speaker 1: the middle ground. Not blame, not bitterness, but understanding. Understanding
Speaker 1: comes from dialing down the assumption and dialing up curiosity, compassion,
Speaker 1: and benefit of doubt, just like you'd want someone to
Speaker 1: do for you. So asking yourself what actually happened here?
Speaker 1: What was in my control and what wasn't was my
Speaker 1: expectation actually realistic? And that pause between emotion and interpretation
Speaker 1: is literally everything. It's where you stop being a victim
Speaker 1: of disappointment and you start using it as your teacher.
Speaker 1: So I heard this story and I'm going to share
Speaker 1: it with you. It was a really great lesson in
Speaker 1: understanding disappointment a little bit better and giving you perspective
Speaker 1: on how to deal with it. So there's a man
Speaker 1: and he spends years and years building his business but
Speaker 1: it collapses overnight, and of course he is so devastated.
Speaker 1: But instead of calling it failure, he calls it tuition.
Speaker 1: He says that this was the price I paid for
Speaker 1: the lesson I needed to learn. So it's just a
Speaker 1: great lesson or a great story to remind us to
Speaker 1: think of disappointment as our tuition or the fee that
Speaker 1: we pay for the wisdom and learning that you gain
Speaker 1: from it. And also I think we have to get
Speaker 1: our mind away from this idea that things not going
Speaker 1: our way or not going the way you wanted them
Speaker 1: to is a bad thing. It's something we have told
Speaker 1: ourselves versus what's actually real. Who said that things are
Speaker 1: supposed to go the way that we want them to go.
Speaker 1: Sometimes what we want and what's good for us are
Speaker 1: very different things, and we assume that we know what's
Speaker 1: best for us, but often we actually don't. We also
Speaker 1: don't have this vision of what is even possible. Sometimes
Speaker 1: what we want for us is far smaller and undervalues
Speaker 1: who we actually are, and so we end up wasting
Speaker 1: months and months replaying what went wrong, even when in
Speaker 1: reality you can't change it. You can't change what happened,
Speaker 1: and replaying can be a good thing if you're analyzing
Speaker 1: the situation to extract the lesson from it, But if
Speaker 1: you're replaying it without purpose, it becomes wallowing and it
Speaker 1: keeps you stuck in the pain cycle over and over again.
Speaker 1: So instead we can take that pain. You can sit
Speaker 1: in it for a little bit, but then you turn
Speaker 1: it into data. You turn it into data about your beliefs,
Speaker 1: about your boundaries, about your judgment, and you use it
Speaker 1: to fuel and to inform you about future things so
Speaker 1: that you don't make the same mistake again. And I
Speaker 1: also want to add that this is not false positivity.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying just be happy about everything and everything
Speaker 1: will be okay, because the fact is, if someone promised
Speaker 1: you something, a promotion, a partner said that they'll be there,
Speaker 1: and they weren't, these are not assumptions that you've made.
Speaker 1: You have clearly created these hopes from facts and trust
Speaker 1: in other people's words. So disappointed is a valid emotion,
Speaker 1: especially if word was given, or a pact was made,
Speaker 1: or it's based on facts and truth. And sadly that
Speaker 1: disappointment is not in your control either, because how another
Speaker 1: person is acted towards you isn't in your control, which
Speaker 1: means it is valid. Of course it's valid, but it's
Speaker 1: still not something you can control or change. So the
Speaker 1: reframe and mindset still has to shift to avoid you
Speaker 1: taking on the pain or you suffering for longer than necessary.
Speaker 1: So let's make this a little bit more practical. How
Speaker 1: are we going to go through this? We feel disappointed?
Speaker 1: What do we do now? The first thing is feeling
Speaker 1: it fully. The fact is anything suppressed or anything that
Speaker 1: stays with us will then impact the way that we
Speaker 1: live the rest of our lives. And we don't want that.
Speaker 1: We don't want this disappointment staying with us through other experiences,
Speaker 1: through other relationships, through the parts of our life. And
Speaker 1: sometimes you don't even realize it. And so in the
Speaker 1: moment you feel it fully, you don't feed it, but
Speaker 1: you don't skip the emotion. That is where toxic positivity happens.
Speaker 1: And all you have to do is let it all out,
Speaker 1: write it out, feel it, name it, cry or talk
Speaker 1: to someone, really get out everything in your mind that
Speaker 1: you want about this issue. And that might mean for
Speaker 1: a week you have to write the same thing over
Speaker 1: and over again, until one day you wake up and
Speaker 1: you're like, you know what, it doesn't feel les painful.
Speaker 1: You know what, it doesn't feel like I even thought
Speaker 1: about it this morning, And slowly it will leave you.
Speaker 1: The more that you are able to get out of
Speaker 1: your system, the less it will follow you around, and
Speaker 1: the less power it has over you. And I think
Speaker 1: when you speak something, when you write it, when you
Speaker 1: let it go, the more you see it, the less
Speaker 1: power actually has over you because you're not keeping it
Speaker 1: within you and you're not allowing it to control the
Speaker 1: way that you are moving through life. The next part
Speaker 1: is auditain your expectations. So what does that mean for
Speaker 1: each disappointmenten you write two columns what actually happened and
Speaker 1: what I expected to happen. Was the expectation fair? Was
Speaker 1: it communicated? Was it in your control? And so once
Speaker 1: you figure out what the disconnect was between the two,
Speaker 1: the expectation and the reality, that's what you know you
Speaker 1: shouldn't get carried away with the next time you're in
Speaker 1: that same position. The third part is you have to
Speaker 1: stop outsourcing your peace. Disappointment hits hardest when your happiness
Speaker 1: depends on other people or uncontrollable outcomes, and so trying
Speaker 1: to shift your metric from did I get what I wanted?
Speaker 1: To did I show up how I wanted? This one
Speaker 1: thing completely changed me as a human. One way that
Speaker 1: it really made a difference in my life was I
Speaker 1: have always really liked giving to friends and family in
Speaker 1: many different ways. My mom always used to get protective
Speaker 1: of me because many times as a child, i'd plan things,
Speaker 1: i'd spend time energy on someone, and often it wasn't reciprocated,
Speaker 1: and so my mom very lovingly would always say, well,
Speaker 1: she wasn't say in this way, but essentially she'd be saying, girl,
Speaker 1: you're doing too much. Do less. And I say, back
Speaker 1: to that, but I really love doing those things, and
Speaker 1: I really don't care whether they reciprocate or not. And
Speaker 1: for a while, I kept coming back to what my
Speaker 1: mom said to me. When I would do something and
Speaker 1: it wasn't reciprocated, I would get disappointed. And then I
Speaker 1: realized that I was capping myself or stopping myself from
Speaker 1: showing up how I wanted to, how I naturally am
Speaker 1: inclined to be because I think I should be a
Speaker 1: specific way, because I think I should expect something from
Speaker 1: other people. So I started just showing up how I
Speaker 1: wanted to, rather than thinking about what I'm getting or
Speaker 1: not getting them, and trying to do things based on
Speaker 1: a calculation. And honestly, that has made such a difference
Speaker 1: to how I've chosen to live my life and even
Speaker 1: more importantly, how happy I am every single day because
Speaker 1: I know I show up in a way that I
Speaker 1: want to, rather than doing it based on what others
Speaker 1: are doing for me. Next up, try to communicate honestly.
Speaker 1: If someone disappointed, you tell them, but clearly and calmly
Speaker 1: and without blame. I felt her when this happened. Is
Speaker 1: really different from you always let me down. Those two sentences.
Speaker 1: You may be feeling the same way, but the way
Speaker 1: that you've communicated them will really determine how the other
Speaker 1: person responds and how that conversation is going to go.
Speaker 1: And so healthy communication prevents resentment from festering, and sometimes
Speaker 1: seeing their perspective, seeing it from their point of view,
Speaker 1: not through your pain filters or triggers, can actually make
Speaker 1: you realize that you've totally misjudged the situation. Have definitely
Speaker 1: been there. Even in conversations with Jay, I've always I've
Speaker 1: ended up assuming things or thinking he meant something when
Speaker 1: he said this thing, and actually he didn't mean any
Speaker 1: of it, and I made it up in my head,
Speaker 1: and when he explained it to me completely change the
Speaker 1: way that I felt. And so having that communication, whether
Speaker 1: it's a friend of friend's family, even work colleagues. I
Speaker 1: think it's really important choosing your response. So what are
Speaker 1: you going to do? So you can either sit in
Speaker 1: this disappointment or you can digest it and let it
Speaker 1: flow through you. If you feel it's just ruminating and
Speaker 1: it keeps coming up in your mind and your heart,
Speaker 1: write a letter to yourself if you're disappointed towards you,
Speaker 1: or write a letter to the person or thing that
Speaker 1: it's because of. Get words down on paper and just
Speaker 1: let it go and release it. Sometimes it's not even
Speaker 1: about letting them know, it's just about it getting out
Speaker 1: of you. You might need to do that for days
Speaker 1: before it fully leaves you, but just know that it
Speaker 1: will if you try hard enough, and if you really
Speaker 1: want to let go of it, it will definitely leave.
Speaker 1: So I really hope that these words help you to
Speaker 1: deal with the past, present, and future disappointment. And please
Speaker 1: remember that acceptance isn't giving up. Accepting something and moving
Speaker 1: on from it. Does not mean that it's okay what
Speaker 1: that person did or what happened or what that situation was.
Speaker 1: It's honestly just saying that this is what it is,
Speaker 1: and I trust that I can handle it. And every
Speaker 1: single disappointment carries this piece of feedback, a signal about
Speaker 1: who you are, what you value, and what you still
Speaker 1: need to heal. And if you ignore it, you end
Speaker 1: up repeating it. But if you face it, you get
Speaker 1: to evolve from it and use it to inform you
Speaker 1: about how you should be dealing with things in the future,
Speaker 1: and also a great way to protect yourself in the future,
Speaker 1: because as soon as you process something and you analyze it,
Speaker 1: you'll realize that the way that you've reacted has come
Speaker 1: from somewhere, and so it creates a way for you
Speaker 1: to make informed decisions and protect yourself based on information
Speaker 1: rather than assumption. But yeah, I really hope that this
Speaker 1: is helpful and I would love to hear your feedback.
Speaker 1: I know disappointment is something that we probably could feel
Speaker 1: every single day if we wanted to, if we chose
Speaker 1: the let it affect us in that way, and so
Speaker 1: sometimes it can get really overwhelming. But send me a DM.
Speaker 1: I'd love to hear your stories, and I hope you
Speaker 1: have such a wonderful week. Tending you so much love,
Speaker 1: M