DISAPPOINTMENT – Disappoint or Disappointing

My word for this blog is DISAPPOINTMENT (or Disappoint/ Disappointing). It has come up several times already this week mainly inspired by stories other people have told me.

One of my friends has recently moved house for the second time in a short space of time. She is alone and as you can well imagine, packing up boxes and moving again is quite a task. And everything seems to work against it being a smooth transition. The removal men don’t just do what you expect them to, the timing is wrong, so you end up rushing and having to suddenly drive off to return the keys, even if the job is not entirely finished. She was telling me how disappointed she was that not a single one of her friends had offered to help. Now how many of you can relate to this? A lot I suspect.

The word disappoint comes from the French verb: desapppointer. And literally means:-

‘fail to fulfil the hopes or expectations of ….’

Hmmm, that sort of sums it up completely for her. She was disappointed that her friends did not fulfil any hopes she had of help. You could ask yourself, should she have actually asked them? Or should you sit back and wait that people offer by themselves? Tricky. Maybe if said friends were reading this blog they would be raising their eyebrows and saying – but no one asked!

It sort of sums up the feeling when you are disappointed about something that is it more about your own expectations and hopes. Do you set them too high? I personally think that we should always have expectations of what we want in life.

This week stories have kept crossing my path and this word too, so it seems to be a feature this week.

I could sort of relate it to something (very minor), which happened to me too. I suddenly read something on social media about someone I know and have been working with for many years. All about the new plans, new ideas and such like and I did not know a single thing about it. Not that I should really because it is an indirect situation, but all the same, the thought crossed my mind that perhaps it would have been nice to hear something about it before it went out into the open. Was I disappointed, no to be honest, more surprised I think. Did I expect too much?

At the moment the energy is very much about this topic. Things that have fallen into a routine for a long time suddenly come to an end. I am not sure why, but it is all about the energy for this year and what a lot of people, particularly spiritual ones, have been talking about. It is more a mergence of people coming together to create things together rather than as individuals. A sort of attraction of opposites, which in the first place may sound strange but often when this happens, something quite new and exciting can come out of such a co-operation.

Is disappointment something that hurts your feelings and if so, how to you deal with it? You can choose to just shrug your shoulders and think you will just get on with things or you could say something about it. What would you choose? I am pretty sure if you brought the subject up with someone they would look at you completely surprised, wondering what on earth you are actually talking about. In their hurly burly busy lives, the thought may have simply not entered their head. But my question is: if you feel disappointment , should you be honest and say so?

I think this is a difficult point. Because in some or other way you are hurt and do you just bottle up the feelings or release them? By releasing them you could just think, right, I will remember that for the future and allow the friendship to cool off, which is probably not what you really want, or find the right moment to speak out. But deep down inside the pain is there.

A true friend will be open and listen as opposed to what we all have in our lives; the ‘hanger’s on’. People who are just in our life who are really not true friends but more acquaintances. We all have a lot of those. Sometimes you can think about colleagues in this category too. 

You know something I have experienced recently is that in moments of need, you really find out who your friends are! And sometimes it can be quite a shock when you come to the realization that they are so self-centred in their own lives that they don’t really have time for you. I am not saying that they do it on purpose, because the pace of life is really to blame for this. People just do not seem to have time anymore. Society puts so many demands on us these days we are continually rushing around. Until the moment comes when you cannot. Something crosses your path and brings you to an absolute stand still. These are big moments, which at the time are annoying to say the least, but I have often learnt that moments like these are the greatest moments of real learning. Really learning about yourself and in retrospect you look back and think that whatever happened to you, was really for a reason, because it made you stop and think. 

The universe and our soul just work like that! It is a sort of message within that you are not either on the right path or continually subjecting yourself to things that are not right for you. This can be literally anything, from not being happy in your job, or in the wrong sort of relationship. Not taking enough time for yourself, or looking after yourself, not taking enough exercise, not eating properly, not getting enough rest or sleep. The list is very long. If you like it is as if your soul is disappointed in what you are doing and to be sure, it will give you a sign to make you sit up and take notice.

If you find yourself in a situation of disappointment, then you can do several things and it all begins with doing things that you like. For me this is writing, putting words onto paper (or my laptop), and telling a story. For others it is going out into nature, learning once again to appreciate how beautiful it is. 

If you want to have grace in your life, then that is where it all begins, as I have said before, with gratitude. And many big spiritual influencers are saying exactly the same thing.

Every night before I go to sleep, I listen to a short story. Now 90% of the time I never hear the end, because I usually fall asleep which is the general idea after all. But those 20 minutes or so, of just winding down, listening to a pleasant story, breathing in and out deeply as you listen, makes you much more appreciative.

Appreciation and pleasure in whatever form they take is to my mind, perhaps the solution to disappointment? Just accepting too, a situation is what it is, and releasing the whole subject can be very therapeutic. There is no point whatsoever getting yourself wound up about it, thinking negative thoughts, or even blaming someone. It just makes matters worse.

Just let it go, and pamper yourself a bit by doing something you like. Works wonders believe me!

I was looking for some images to add to this blog and came across the first quote on Google. I am afraid I cannot agree entirely with it. Because I believe we should have a lot of expectations about what we truly desire in life. We have to have dreams, bucket lists and ideas. Maybe it should say, something along the lines that: ‘we should expect everything, but learn to deal and release disappointment’. Release the pressure we put on ourselves albeit with or without awareness!

One of my friends reacted to this blog on Facebook and said the following, which is a lovely quote from Robert Browning: ‘A man’s or woman’s reach should exceed his grasp, or what is heaven for?’

Isn’t this lovely and oh so true!

Quotes: From Google