December 9, 2025 • 20 mins
Could the pain you feel actually be wisdom waiting to unfold?
How often do your expectations write a story your reality can’t live up to?
Could disappointment be your teacher, not your enemy?
In this episode of A Really Good Cry, Radhi Devlukia dives deep into the emotion we all try to avoid—disappointment.
She explores why this feeling cuts so deep, describing it as the space between expectation and reality—a form of grief for what could have been. Drawing from her own reflections, Radhi reveals how disappointment often says more about our assumptions than the situation itself.
Instead, Radhi invites listeners to find peace in the middle ground: To feel the emotion fully, take ownership of their response, and reframe disappointment as tuition—the price we pay for wisdom.
In this episode, you’ll learn:
- Why disappointment may be a form of grief, not failure
- How perfectionism and shrinking dreams both come from fear
- Why effort doesn’t always equal outcome—and that’s okay
- How to reframe disappointment as tuition, not tragedy
- Why feeling your emotions fully gives them less power
- How to stop outsourcing your peace to other people or results
You’ll learn how to stop outsourcing your peace, communicate with compassion, and find meaning in moments that didn’t go as planned. This isn’t about pretending everything’s fine—it’s about trusting that you can handle what is.
Follow Radhi:
https://www.instagram.com/radhidevlukia/
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxWe9A4kMf9V_AHOXkGhCzQ
https://www.facebook.com/radhidevlukia1/
https://www.tiktok.com/@radhidevlukia
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
We assume that our effort guarantees a reward, and we
assume that being good means that we will get good things.
We assume that life owes us something based on the
work or the effort that we've put in. And the
truth is, sometimes you will do every single thing right
and it still won't work out. I'm Rady Wukiah and
on my podcast A Really Good Cry, we embrace the
(00:22):
messy and the beautiful, providing a space for raw, unfielded
conversations that celebrate vulnerability and allow you to tune in
to learn, connect and find comfort together. Hey everyone, and
welcome back to this week's episode of A Really Good Cry.
I hope that your week has been good. To be honest,
I've been really struggling with feeling so tired lately, and
(00:43):
I don't know whether it's the weather or it's just
my body just struggling to really move into this season.
But I have heard that people get sick the most
during seasonal transitions, so right now we're kind of going
from autumn to winter, and I've been hearing what so
many people getting coughs and calls, So I've really been
trying to support my body and follow what Kieran the
Incredible Gut Expects said in my recent podcast about improving
(01:06):
your gut health. So I've been taking my jester of
probiotics and my digestive bit is before my meals, and honestly,
so far, so good. Touch would I have been feeling
pretty good. So this is your reminder to make sure
that you are doing all the things that you need
to stay healthy and well this season. So this week
I actually did a panel and one of the questions
(01:27):
I got asked was how do you deal with disappointment?
And I was thinking about the question even after the
panel about my relationship with disappointment and how much has
actually changed over the years. I used to be someone
that got disappointed a lot. Either I would feel like
someone wasn't doing as much as I was, that they
weren't reciprocating in the way that I wanted them to,
(01:49):
or rejection would feel really personal, or that something didn't
quite happen the way that I had envisioned it the
way that I'd planned it out to be, so I'd
be disappointed. Disappointed. Disappointment that's a place that I lived
in for a really long time, and it began to
change how I actually interacted with people in the world,
and one day I just realized, like, I don't want
to do this anymore. I don't want to be a
(02:11):
fit thing moaning myrtal over here. That's not me, or
at least that's not who I want to be. I
don't want to feel like the victim. I don't want
to look at the world pessimistically. I don't want to
see people and expect them to disappoint me. I don't
want to see the world through the eyes of constant
sadness or frustration. And let's be real, it is such
a common feeling. You order a pizza and it doesn't
(02:31):
have enough cheese and you're like, oh, I'm so disappointed.
You put trust in a partner or a friend and
they don't follow through. You're disappointed. You watch Gilmore Girls
again forgetting how it ended, and expect Rory and just
to get back together, but they didn't. Really disappointed. Actually,
that part of my life was really sad. I was
thinking about it for like a whole week. Why did
they not get back together? Why did I think that
(02:53):
they should have? And I created a whole reality in
my mind where that happened, But it actually didn't, and
I was extremely disappointed after that, and I had to
say to myself with some serious tough love, babes, it
is a you thing. And yes, people do do stuff,
People do things that you don't want them to, people
do do things that are sometimes very horrible. And yes,
things happen that you didn't expect or want, things don't
(03:15):
go to plan, and your life maybe in complete shambles.
But choosing to feel disappointment was a choice, not a given.
It's not something that was given to you. It's something
that you are choosing to feel from the things that
are given to you. And so here is a question
to ask yourself, what if disappointment isn't something that happens
(03:35):
to you, but it's something that you're creating. And I
know that sometimes that can be really difficult to digest
because there are a lot of things that feel unfair
in this world. There are so many things that happen
to us, even if we feel like we're good people.
And so it's really not about diminishing or making something
that's happened to you feel small or insignificant. It's not
(03:57):
that at all. But it's helping you to realize you
have a choice to carry that with you day in
day out, week after week. And so it's less about
what they've done, being right or wrong. It's more about
do you want to carry this? Do you want to
take on this weight and this responsibility? Do you want
to take on this constant sadness, this constant frustration through
(04:19):
your life, and do you want to see the world
in that way? And sometimes this ends up being really difficult,
Like I feel like this world of self help and
growth and trying to be better people, it feels like,
why is everything something I have to fix? Why can't
it be their fault? And yes, it is a lot
of responsibility, and it is difficult when the fingers pointed
constantly back to you when you're thinking, actually, I didn't
make myself upset. They did. But if you are trying
(04:42):
to live in a victim mindset, you're listening to the
wrong podcast. Because here we have to own things and
we make our lives better and we do the work required.
And that is the hard part about trying to be better,
that you can't keep blaming other people for the way
that you feel, the way that you live through life,
the way that you see the world, the way that
you see your circumstances. So first things first is you
(05:05):
have to take ownership not of the entire situation, but
of how it's making you feel. And often it's not
the situations we're in or life that's the problem. It's
the expectations that we are putting on them. Every single
time I've struggled to deal with the hand that I've
been out or felt like something was unfair, it wasn't
because life was actually unfair. It was because my expectations
were clashing with reality. I had created this picture in
(05:28):
my mind of how things should be a job, a relationship,
an opportunity, or even how a version of myself should look,
and when life didn't match that picture, it led to
this feeling of disappointment. And so it wasn't even that
life was necessarily painful, even though sometimes it is. But
it was more that my attachment to how I thought
life should be wasn't happening. And that's what disappointment is.
(05:51):
It is this gap between your expectation and your reality.
It's this mismatch between this idea that you've created and
what's happening in real time or real life. And so
the wider that gap is the harder the fall ends
up being. The more you create this vision of how
this relationship should be, how this person should be treating you.
(06:11):
The more you've created that before it's actually happened, the
harder you're going to fall, and the worse it's going
to feel when it doesn't. And I think we just
taught to romanticize everything. We romanticize every single thing. We
romanticize a walk in the park, which actually can be
really nice, but we also romanticize things that haven't happened yet,
including relationships, including friendships, including success, including timelines, including outcomes.
(06:33):
We assume that our effort guarantees a reward, and we
assume that being good means that we will get good things.
We assume that life owes us something based on the
work or the effort that we've put in. And the
truth is, sometimes you will do every single thing right
and it still won't work out. And if your peace
only exists when things go your way, you will always
(06:55):
be at war with reality. And so a big part
of dealing with disappointment is actually being more present in
the moment and seeing what life is actually giving you
rather than what you are constantly wanting for yourself. And
that can be really difficult because, of course we have
aspirations for what we want in life, and that is
so okay. Of course we should have them, but we
also need to be in touch with reality at the
(07:17):
same time so that we don't constantly live in disappointment.
There's this thin line and this balance that we have
to strike between having aspirations and having this desire to
have something happen, but also realizing that we are committing
to the process, not just the result. We're committing to
what we're going to receive from the process and from
(07:37):
the progress that we're making while we're trying to make
this result happen. But if the result doesn't happen, we
also have to be aware of what we've gained through
that journey, what we've gained through that process. And the
problem is if we're constantly attached to a specific result,
we're actually never going to enjoy life because the result
ends up being such a small part of our life.
The end product is usually a fleeting experience or a
(08:00):
excitement that we get. It's not usually the longest part
of life. The longest part of life is the process.
Most of the time, it's the progress that we're making.
It's the steps in between, and so if we're not
learning how to appreciate that and gain from that, then
our bursts of happiness and joy are going to be
very fleeting and very small when we reach those little
milestones that we're creating for ourselves. I recently read an
(08:22):
article that said that the way that we handle disappointment
actually starts early in our childhood conditioning. Now, I don't
think that that means it's our parents' fault, but I
think what it means is how we deal with disappointment
from a young age naturally shapes how we deal with
it in our adulthood, and becoming aware of that is
really important. So sometimes taking yourself back to how you
(08:43):
reacted when you can remember you first being disappointment, maybe
you didn't get the gift that you wanted as a kid,
maybe something of taken away from me, maybe your mom
said you can't go somewhere. How did you react in
that moment, and how do the people around you react?
And some people, after facing disappointment, they learn to protect
themselves by shrinking. They set the bar really low, They
stop hoping too much, because if they don't expect anything,
(09:05):
then they just can't be let down. But that ends
up being a false piece. It's not a real peace.
That's just self preservation disguised as acceptance, and it can
lead to a mediocre, un fulfilled life because you're just
constantly protecting yourself. You're not allowing yourself to take chances,
you're not allowing yourself to fall in love deeply, you're
not allowing yourself to jump in to a job that
you really want but you're too scared to just in
(09:27):
case you get disappointment. And so a lot of us,
based on our experiences in life, can actually end up
protecting so much we actually don't give ourselves the opportunity
to even make progress or to achieve those goals because
of our worry of that disappointment. So our fear actually
holds us back. So we think we're protecting ourselves and
creating the shield around us which avoids disappointment. But actually
(09:49):
then you're not feeling the you're not feeling or fulfilling
this potential of joy that you actually could have. But
on the other hand, there are people who become overachievers.
They chase perfection, telling themselves that they need to try harder,
do more, be better, and I think that high expectations
equals higher standards. But perfectionism isn't always a strength. It
actually is also a fear response, and ironically it creates
(10:12):
the exact same outcome, disappointment. So both this underachiever mentality
and this perfectionist mentality are doing the same thing. They're
trying to control disappointment instead of learning to live with it,
instead of learning how to deal with it, instead of
learning how to process it. And so the thing we
all have to realize is disappointment is absolutely a natural
(10:33):
human response. It's kind of a spin off emotion of
grief if you think about it. It's grief over what
could have been, or what someone could have been, or
what a situation could have been. But what makes it
destructive is what happens next. So feeling the emotion isn't wrong.
It's about how we then receive that emotion, process it,
and move forward with our life. Some people turn it inward,
(10:54):
it's my faul, I'm not good enough, and it can
lead to a shame spiral or a self blame game.
Others can turn it outward. This person let me down,
they didn't care enough, they don't value me. As much
as I value them, and that turns into bitterness and resentment.
But the thing is both end up robbing you of
your power, and I think to really deal with disappointment
(11:15):
in a healthy way, you have to try and find
the middle ground. Not blame, not bitterness, but understanding. Understanding
comes from dialing down the assumption and dialing up curiosity, compassion,
and benefit of doubt, just like you'd want someone to
do for you. So asking yourself what actually happened here?
What was in my control and what wasn't was my
(11:36):
expectation actually realistic? And that pause between emotion and interpretation
is literally everything. It's where you stop being a victim
of disappointment and you start using it as your teacher.
So I heard this story and I'm going to share
it with you. It was a really great lesson in
understanding disappointment a little bit better and giving you perspective
(11:56):
on how to deal with it. So there's a man
and he spends years and years building his business but
it collapses overnight, and of course he is so devastated.
But instead of calling it failure, he calls it tuition.
He says that this was the price I paid for
the lesson I needed to learn. So it's just a
great lesson or a great story to remind us to
(12:18):
think of disappointment as our tuition or the fee that
we pay for the wisdom and learning that you gain
from it. And also I think we have to get
our mind away from this idea that things not going
our way or not going the way you wanted them
to is a bad thing. It's something we have told
ourselves versus what's actually real. Who said that things are
supposed to go the way that we want them to go.
(12:40):
Sometimes what we want and what's good for us are
very different things, and we assume that we know what's
best for us, but often we actually don't. We also
don't have this vision of what is even possible. Sometimes
what we want for us is far smaller and undervalues
who we actually are, and so we end up wasting
months and months replaying what went wrong, even when in
reality you can't change it. You can't change what happened,
(13:02):
and replaying can be a good thing if you're analyzing
the situation to extract the lesson from it, But if
you're replaying it without purpose, it becomes wallowing and it
keeps you stuck in the pain cycle over and over again.
So instead we can take that pain. You can sit
in it for a little bit, but then you turn
it into data. You turn it into data about your beliefs,
about your boundaries, about your judgment, and you use it
(13:25):
to fuel and to inform you about future things so
that you don't make the same mistake again. And I
also want to add that this is not false positivity.
I'm not saying just be happy about everything and everything
will be okay, because the fact is, if someone promised
you something, a promotion, a partner said that they'll be there,
and they weren't, these are not assumptions that you've made.
You have clearly created these hopes from facts and trust
(13:48):
in other people's words. So disappointed is a valid emotion,
especially if word was given, or a pact was made,
or it's based on facts and truth. And sadly that
disappointment is not in your control either, because how another
person is acted towards you isn't in your control, which
means it is valid. Of course it's valid, but it's
still not something you can control or change. So the
(14:10):
reframe and mindset still has to shift to avoid you
taking on the pain or you suffering for longer than necessary.
So let's make this a little bit more practical. How
are we going to go through this? We feel disappointed?
What do we do now? The first thing is feeling
it fully. The fact is anything suppressed or anything that
stays with us will then impact the way that we
live the rest of our lives. And we don't want that.
(14:32):
We don't want this disappointment staying with us through other experiences,
through other relationships, through the parts of our life. And
sometimes you don't even realize it. And so in the
moment you feel it fully, you don't feed it, but
you don't skip the emotion. That is where toxic positivity happens.
And all you have to do is let it all out,
write it out, feel it, name it, cry or talk
(14:53):
to someone, really get out everything in your mind that
you want about this issue. And that might mean for
a week you have to write the same thing over
and over again, until one day you wake up and
you're like, you know what, it doesn't feel les painful.
You know what, it doesn't feel like I even thought
about it this morning, And slowly it will leave you.
The more that you are able to get out of
your system, the less it will follow you around, and
(15:15):
the less power it has over you. And I think
when you speak something, when you write it, when you
let it go, the more you see it, the less
power actually has over you because you're not keeping it
within you and you're not allowing it to control the
way that you are moving through life. The next part
is auditain your expectations. So what does that mean for
each disappointmenten you write two columns what actually happened and
(15:36):
what I expected to happen. Was the expectation fair? Was
it communicated? Was it in your control? And so once
you figure out what the disconnect was between the two,
the expectation and the reality, that's what you know you
shouldn't get carried away with the next time you're in
that same position. The third part is you have to
stop outsourcing your peace. Disappointment hits hardest when your happiness
(15:57):
depends on other people or uncontrollable outcomes, and so trying
to shift your metric from did I get what I wanted?
To did I show up how I wanted? This one
thing completely changed me as a human. One way that
it really made a difference in my life was I
have always really liked giving to friends and family in
many different ways. My mom always used to get protective
(16:18):
of me because many times as a child, i'd plan things,
i'd spend time energy on someone, and often it wasn't reciprocated,
and so my mom very lovingly would always say, well,
she wasn't say in this way, but essentially she'd be saying, girl,
you're doing too much. Do less. And I say, back
to that, but I really love doing those things, and
I really don't care whether they reciprocate or not. And
(16:39):
for a while, I kept coming back to what my
mom said to me. When I would do something and
it wasn't reciprocated, I would get disappointed. And then I
realized that I was capping myself or stopping myself from
showing up how I wanted to, how I naturally am
inclined to be because I think I should be a
specific way, because I think I should expect something from
(17:00):
other people. So I started just showing up how I
wanted to, rather than thinking about what I'm getting or
not getting them, and trying to do things based on
a calculation. And honestly, that has made such a difference
to how I've chosen to live my life and even
more importantly, how happy I am every single day because
I know I show up in a way that I
want to, rather than doing it based on what others
(17:20):
are doing for me. Next up, try to communicate honestly.
If someone disappointed, you tell them, but clearly and calmly
and without blame. I felt her when this happened. Is
really different from you always let me down. Those two sentences.
You may be feeling the same way, but the way
that you've communicated them will really determine how the other
person responds and how that conversation is going to go.
(17:43):
And so healthy communication prevents resentment from festering, and sometimes
seeing their perspective, seeing it from their point of view,
not through your pain filters or triggers, can actually make
you realize that you've totally misjudged the situation. Have definitely
been there. Even in conversations with Jay, I've always I've
ended up assuming things or thinking he meant something when
(18:05):
he said this thing, and actually he didn't mean any
of it, and I made it up in my head,
and when he explained it to me completely change the
way that I felt. And so having that communication, whether
it's a friend of friend's family, even work colleagues. I
think it's really important choosing your response. So what are
you going to do? So you can either sit in
this disappointment or you can digest it and let it
(18:25):
flow through you. If you feel it's just ruminating and
it keeps coming up in your mind and your heart,
write a letter to yourself if you're disappointed towards you,
or write a letter to the person or thing that
it's because of. Get words down on paper and just
let it go and release it. Sometimes it's not even
about letting them know, it's just about it getting out
of you. You might need to do that for days
(18:46):
before it fully leaves you, but just know that it
will if you try hard enough, and if you really
want to let go of it, it will definitely leave.
So I really hope that these words help you to
deal with the past, present, and future disappointment. And please
remember that acceptance isn't giving up. Accepting something and moving
on from it. Does not mean that it's okay what
(19:06):
that person did or what happened or what that situation was.
It's honestly just saying that this is what it is,
and I trust that I can handle it. And every
single disappointment carries this piece of feedback, a signal about
who you are, what you value, and what you still
need to heal. And if you ignore it, you end
up repeating it. But if you face it, you get
to evolve from it and use it to inform you
(19:27):
about how you should be dealing with things in the future,
and also a great way to protect yourself in the future,
because as soon as you process something and you analyze it,
you'll realize that the way that you've reacted has come
from somewhere, and so it creates a way for you
to make informed decisions and protect yourself based on information
rather than assumption. But yeah, I really hope that this
(19:47):
is helpful and I would love to hear your feedback.
I know disappointment is something that we probably could feel
every single day if we wanted to, if we chose
the let it affect us in that way, and so
sometimes it can get really overwhelming. But send me a DM.
I'd love to hear your stories, and I hope you
have such a wonderful week. Tending you so much love,
(20:09):
M
We assume that our effort guarantees a reward, and we
assume that being good means that we will get good things.
We assume that life owes us something based on the
work or the effort that we've put in. And the
truth is, sometimes you will do every single thing right
and it still won't work out. I'm Rady Wukiah and
on my podcast A Really Good Cry, we embrace the
(00:22):
messy and the beautiful, providing a space for raw, unfielded
conversations that celebrate vulnerability and allow you to tune in
to learn, connect and find comfort together. Hey everyone, and
welcome back to this week's episode of A Really Good Cry.
I hope that your week has been good. To be honest,
I've been really struggling with feeling so tired lately, and
(00:43):
I don't know whether it's the weather or it's just
my body just struggling to really move into this season.
But I have heard that people get sick the most
during seasonal transitions, so right now we're kind of going
from autumn to winter, and I've been hearing what so
many people getting coughs and calls, So I've really been
trying to support my body and follow what Kieran the
Incredible Gut Expects said in my recent podcast about improving
(01:06):
your gut health. So I've been taking my jester of
probiotics and my digestive bit is before my meals, and honestly,
so far, so good. Touch would I have been feeling
pretty good. So this is your reminder to make sure
that you are doing all the things that you need
to stay healthy and well this season. So this week
I actually did a panel and one of the questions
(01:27):
I got asked was how do you deal with disappointment?
And I was thinking about the question even after the
panel about my relationship with disappointment and how much has
actually changed over the years. I used to be someone
that got disappointed a lot. Either I would feel like
someone wasn't doing as much as I was, that they
weren't reciprocating in the way that I wanted them to,
(01:49):
or rejection would feel really personal, or that something didn't
quite happen the way that I had envisioned it the
way that I'd planned it out to be, so I'd
be disappointed. Disappointed. Disappointment that's a place that I lived
in for a really long time, and it began to
change how I actually interacted with people in the world,
and one day I just realized, like, I don't want
to do this anymore. I don't want to be a
(02:11):
fit thing moaning myrtal over here. That's not me, or
at least that's not who I want to be. I
don't want to feel like the victim. I don't want
to look at the world pessimistically. I don't want to
see people and expect them to disappoint me. I don't
want to see the world through the eyes of constant
sadness or frustration. And let's be real, it is such
a common feeling. You order a pizza and it doesn't
(02:31):
have enough cheese and you're like, oh, I'm so disappointed.
You put trust in a partner or a friend and
they don't follow through. You're disappointed. You watch Gilmore Girls
again forgetting how it ended, and expect Rory and just
to get back together, but they didn't. Really disappointed. Actually,
that part of my life was really sad. I was
thinking about it for like a whole week. Why did
they not get back together? Why did I think that
(02:53):
they should have? And I created a whole reality in
my mind where that happened, But it actually didn't, and
I was extremely disappointed after that, and I had to
say to myself with some serious tough love, babes, it
is a you thing. And yes, people do do stuff,
People do things that you don't want them to, people
do do things that are sometimes very horrible. And yes,
things happen that you didn't expect or want, things don't
(03:15):
go to plan, and your life maybe in complete shambles.
But choosing to feel disappointment was a choice, not a given.
It's not something that was given to you. It's something
that you are choosing to feel from the things that
are given to you. And so here is a question
to ask yourself, what if disappointment isn't something that happens
(03:35):
to you, but it's something that you're creating. And I
know that sometimes that can be really difficult to digest
because there are a lot of things that feel unfair
in this world. There are so many things that happen
to us, even if we feel like we're good people.
And so it's really not about diminishing or making something
that's happened to you feel small or insignificant. It's not
(03:57):
that at all. But it's helping you to realize you
have a choice to carry that with you day in
day out, week after week. And so it's less about
what they've done, being right or wrong. It's more about
do you want to carry this? Do you want to
take on this weight and this responsibility? Do you want
to take on this constant sadness, this constant frustration through
(04:19):
your life, and do you want to see the world
in that way? And sometimes this ends up being really difficult,
Like I feel like this world of self help and
growth and trying to be better people, it feels like,
why is everything something I have to fix? Why can't
it be their fault? And yes, it is a lot
of responsibility, and it is difficult when the fingers pointed
constantly back to you when you're thinking, actually, I didn't
make myself upset. They did. But if you are trying
(04:42):
to live in a victim mindset, you're listening to the
wrong podcast. Because here we have to own things and
we make our lives better and we do the work required.
And that is the hard part about trying to be better,
that you can't keep blaming other people for the way
that you feel, the way that you live through life,
the way that you see the world, the way that
you see your circumstances. So first things first is you
(05:05):
have to take ownership not of the entire situation, but
of how it's making you feel. And often it's not
the situations we're in or life that's the problem. It's
the expectations that we are putting on them. Every single
time I've struggled to deal with the hand that I've
been out or felt like something was unfair, it wasn't
because life was actually unfair. It was because my expectations
were clashing with reality. I had created this picture in
(05:28):
my mind of how things should be a job, a relationship,
an opportunity, or even how a version of myself should look,
and when life didn't match that picture, it led to
this feeling of disappointment. And so it wasn't even that
life was necessarily painful, even though sometimes it is. But
it was more that my attachment to how I thought
life should be wasn't happening. And that's what disappointment is.
(05:51):
It is this gap between your expectation and your reality.
It's this mismatch between this idea that you've created and
what's happening in real time or real life. And so
the wider that gap is the harder the fall ends
up being. The more you create this vision of how
this relationship should be, how this person should be treating you.
(06:11):
The more you've created that before it's actually happened, the
harder you're going to fall, and the worse it's going
to feel when it doesn't. And I think we just
taught to romanticize everything. We romanticize every single thing. We
romanticize a walk in the park, which actually can be
really nice, but we also romanticize things that haven't happened yet,
including relationships, including friendships, including success, including timelines, including outcomes.
(06:33):
We assume that our effort guarantees a reward, and we
assume that being good means that we will get good things.
We assume that life owes us something based on the
work or the effort that we've put in. And the
truth is, sometimes you will do every single thing right
and it still won't work out. And if your peace
only exists when things go your way, you will always
(06:55):
be at war with reality. And so a big part
of dealing with disappointment is actually being more present in
the moment and seeing what life is actually giving you
rather than what you are constantly wanting for yourself. And
that can be really difficult because, of course we have
aspirations for what we want in life, and that is
so okay. Of course we should have them, but we
also need to be in touch with reality at the
(07:17):
same time so that we don't constantly live in disappointment.
There's this thin line and this balance that we have
to strike between having aspirations and having this desire to
have something happen, but also realizing that we are committing
to the process, not just the result. We're committing to
what we're going to receive from the process and from
(07:37):
the progress that we're making while we're trying to make
this result happen. But if the result doesn't happen, we
also have to be aware of what we've gained through
that journey, what we've gained through that process. And the
problem is if we're constantly attached to a specific result,
we're actually never going to enjoy life because the result
ends up being such a small part of our life.
The end product is usually a fleeting experience or a
(08:00):
excitement that we get. It's not usually the longest part
of life. The longest part of life is the process.
Most of the time, it's the progress that we're making.
It's the steps in between, and so if we're not
learning how to appreciate that and gain from that, then
our bursts of happiness and joy are going to be
very fleeting and very small when we reach those little
milestones that we're creating for ourselves. I recently read an
(08:22):
article that said that the way that we handle disappointment
actually starts early in our childhood conditioning. Now, I don't
think that that means it's our parents' fault, but I
think what it means is how we deal with disappointment
from a young age naturally shapes how we deal with
it in our adulthood, and becoming aware of that is
really important. So sometimes taking yourself back to how you
(08:43):
reacted when you can remember you first being disappointment, maybe
you didn't get the gift that you wanted as a kid,
maybe something of taken away from me, maybe your mom
said you can't go somewhere. How did you react in
that moment, and how do the people around you react?
And some people, after facing disappointment, they learn to protect
themselves by shrinking. They set the bar really low, They
stop hoping too much, because if they don't expect anything,
(09:05):
then they just can't be let down. But that ends
up being a false piece. It's not a real peace.
That's just self preservation disguised as acceptance, and it can
lead to a mediocre, un fulfilled life because you're just
constantly protecting yourself. You're not allowing yourself to take chances,
you're not allowing yourself to fall in love deeply, you're
not allowing yourself to jump in to a job that
you really want but you're too scared to just in
(09:27):
case you get disappointment. And so a lot of us,
based on our experiences in life, can actually end up
protecting so much we actually don't give ourselves the opportunity
to even make progress or to achieve those goals because
of our worry of that disappointment. So our fear actually
holds us back. So we think we're protecting ourselves and
creating the shield around us which avoids disappointment. But actually
(09:49):
then you're not feeling the you're not feeling or fulfilling
this potential of joy that you actually could have. But
on the other hand, there are people who become overachievers.
They chase perfection, telling themselves that they need to try harder,
do more, be better, and I think that high expectations
equals higher standards. But perfectionism isn't always a strength. It
actually is also a fear response, and ironically it creates
(10:12):
the exact same outcome, disappointment. So both this underachiever mentality
and this perfectionist mentality are doing the same thing. They're
trying to control disappointment instead of learning to live with it,
instead of learning how to deal with it, instead of
learning how to process it. And so the thing we
all have to realize is disappointment is absolutely a natural
(10:33):
human response. It's kind of a spin off emotion of
grief if you think about it. It's grief over what
could have been, or what someone could have been, or
what a situation could have been. But what makes it
destructive is what happens next. So feeling the emotion isn't wrong.
It's about how we then receive that emotion, process it,
and move forward with our life. Some people turn it inward,
(10:54):
it's my faul, I'm not good enough, and it can
lead to a shame spiral or a self blame game.
Others can turn it outward. This person let me down,
they didn't care enough, they don't value me. As much
as I value them, and that turns into bitterness and resentment.
But the thing is both end up robbing you of
your power, and I think to really deal with disappointment
(11:15):
in a healthy way, you have to try and find
the middle ground. Not blame, not bitterness, but understanding. Understanding
comes from dialing down the assumption and dialing up curiosity, compassion,
and benefit of doubt, just like you'd want someone to
do for you. So asking yourself what actually happened here?
What was in my control and what wasn't was my
(11:36):
expectation actually realistic? And that pause between emotion and interpretation
is literally everything. It's where you stop being a victim
of disappointment and you start using it as your teacher.
So I heard this story and I'm going to share
it with you. It was a really great lesson in
understanding disappointment a little bit better and giving you perspective
(11:56):
on how to deal with it. So there's a man
and he spends years and years building his business but
it collapses overnight, and of course he is so devastated.
But instead of calling it failure, he calls it tuition.
He says that this was the price I paid for
the lesson I needed to learn. So it's just a
great lesson or a great story to remind us to
(12:18):
think of disappointment as our tuition or the fee that
we pay for the wisdom and learning that you gain
from it. And also I think we have to get
our mind away from this idea that things not going
our way or not going the way you wanted them
to is a bad thing. It's something we have told
ourselves versus what's actually real. Who said that things are
supposed to go the way that we want them to go.
(12:40):
Sometimes what we want and what's good for us are
very different things, and we assume that we know what's
best for us, but often we actually don't. We also
don't have this vision of what is even possible. Sometimes
what we want for us is far smaller and undervalues
who we actually are, and so we end up wasting
months and months replaying what went wrong, even when in
reality you can't change it. You can't change what happened,
(13:02):
and replaying can be a good thing if you're analyzing
the situation to extract the lesson from it, But if
you're replaying it without purpose, it becomes wallowing and it
keeps you stuck in the pain cycle over and over again.
So instead we can take that pain. You can sit
in it for a little bit, but then you turn
it into data. You turn it into data about your beliefs,
about your boundaries, about your judgment, and you use it
(13:25):
to fuel and to inform you about future things so
that you don't make the same mistake again. And I
also want to add that this is not false positivity.
I'm not saying just be happy about everything and everything
will be okay, because the fact is, if someone promised
you something, a promotion, a partner said that they'll be there,
and they weren't, these are not assumptions that you've made.
You have clearly created these hopes from facts and trust
(13:48):
in other people's words. So disappointed is a valid emotion,
especially if word was given, or a pact was made,
or it's based on facts and truth. And sadly that
disappointment is not in your control either, because how another
person is acted towards you isn't in your control, which
means it is valid. Of course it's valid, but it's
still not something you can control or change. So the
(14:10):
reframe and mindset still has to shift to avoid you
taking on the pain or you suffering for longer than necessary.
So let's make this a little bit more practical. How
are we going to go through this? We feel disappointed?
What do we do now? The first thing is feeling
it fully. The fact is anything suppressed or anything that
stays with us will then impact the way that we
live the rest of our lives. And we don't want that.
(14:32):
We don't want this disappointment staying with us through other experiences,
through other relationships, through the parts of our life. And
sometimes you don't even realize it. And so in the
moment you feel it fully, you don't feed it, but
you don't skip the emotion. That is where toxic positivity happens.
And all you have to do is let it all out,
write it out, feel it, name it, cry or talk
(14:53):
to someone, really get out everything in your mind that
you want about this issue. And that might mean for
a week you have to write the same thing over
and over again, until one day you wake up and
you're like, you know what, it doesn't feel les painful.
You know what, it doesn't feel like I even thought
about it this morning, And slowly it will leave you.
The more that you are able to get out of
your system, the less it will follow you around, and
(15:15):
the less power it has over you. And I think
when you speak something, when you write it, when you
let it go, the more you see it, the less
power actually has over you because you're not keeping it
within you and you're not allowing it to control the
way that you are moving through life. The next part
is auditain your expectations. So what does that mean for
each disappointmenten you write two columns what actually happened and
(15:36):
what I expected to happen. Was the expectation fair? Was
it communicated? Was it in your control? And so once
you figure out what the disconnect was between the two,
the expectation and the reality, that's what you know you
shouldn't get carried away with the next time you're in
that same position. The third part is you have to
stop outsourcing your peace. Disappointment hits hardest when your happiness
(15:57):
depends on other people or uncontrollable outcomes, and so trying
to shift your metric from did I get what I wanted?
To did I show up how I wanted? This one
thing completely changed me as a human. One way that
it really made a difference in my life was I
have always really liked giving to friends and family in
many different ways. My mom always used to get protective
(16:18):
of me because many times as a child, i'd plan things,
i'd spend time energy on someone, and often it wasn't reciprocated,
and so my mom very lovingly would always say, well,
she wasn't say in this way, but essentially she'd be saying, girl,
you're doing too much. Do less. And I say, back
to that, but I really love doing those things, and
I really don't care whether they reciprocate or not. And
(16:39):
for a while, I kept coming back to what my
mom said to me. When I would do something and
it wasn't reciprocated, I would get disappointed. And then I
realized that I was capping myself or stopping myself from
showing up how I wanted to, how I naturally am
inclined to be because I think I should be a
specific way, because I think I should expect something from
(17:00):
other people. So I started just showing up how I
wanted to, rather than thinking about what I'm getting or
not getting them, and trying to do things based on
a calculation. And honestly, that has made such a difference
to how I've chosen to live my life and even
more importantly, how happy I am every single day because
I know I show up in a way that I
want to, rather than doing it based on what others
(17:20):
are doing for me. Next up, try to communicate honestly.
If someone disappointed, you tell them, but clearly and calmly
and without blame. I felt her when this happened. Is
really different from you always let me down. Those two sentences.
You may be feeling the same way, but the way
that you've communicated them will really determine how the other
person responds and how that conversation is going to go.
(17:43):
And so healthy communication prevents resentment from festering, and sometimes
seeing their perspective, seeing it from their point of view,
not through your pain filters or triggers, can actually make
you realize that you've totally misjudged the situation. Have definitely
been there. Even in conversations with Jay, I've always I've
ended up assuming things or thinking he meant something when
(18:05):
he said this thing, and actually he didn't mean any
of it, and I made it up in my head,
and when he explained it to me completely change the
way that I felt. And so having that communication, whether
it's a friend of friend's family, even work colleagues. I
think it's really important choosing your response. So what are
you going to do? So you can either sit in
this disappointment or you can digest it and let it
(18:25):
flow through you. If you feel it's just ruminating and
it keeps coming up in your mind and your heart,
write a letter to yourself if you're disappointed towards you,
or write a letter to the person or thing that
it's because of. Get words down on paper and just
let it go and release it. Sometimes it's not even
about letting them know, it's just about it getting out
of you. You might need to do that for days
(18:46):
before it fully leaves you, but just know that it
will if you try hard enough, and if you really
want to let go of it, it will definitely leave.
So I really hope that these words help you to
deal with the past, present, and future disappointment. And please
remember that acceptance isn't giving up. Accepting something and moving
on from it. Does not mean that it's okay what
(19:06):
that person did or what happened or what that situation was.
It's honestly just saying that this is what it is,
and I trust that I can handle it. And every
single disappointment carries this piece of feedback, a signal about
who you are, what you value, and what you still
need to heal. And if you ignore it, you end
up repeating it. But if you face it, you get
to evolve from it and use it to inform you
(19:27):
about how you should be dealing with things in the future,
and also a great way to protect yourself in the future,
because as soon as you process something and you analyze it,
you'll realize that the way that you've reacted has come
from somewhere, and so it creates a way for you
to make informed decisions and protect yourself based on information
rather than assumption. But yeah, I really hope that this
(19:47):
is helpful and I would love to hear your feedback.
I know disappointment is something that we probably could feel
every single day if we wanted to, if we chose
the let it affect us in that way, and so
sometimes it can get really overwhelming. But send me a DM.
I'd love to hear your stories, and I hope you
have such a wonderful week. Tending you so much love,
(20:09):
M
Host
Radhi Devlukia
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
My Favorite Murder with Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark
My Favorite Murder is a true crime comedy podcast hosted by Karen Kilgariff and Georgia Hardstark. Each week, Karen and Georgia share compelling true crimes and hometown stories from friends and listeners. Since MFM launched in January of 2016, Karen and Georgia have shared their lifelong interest in true crime and have covered stories of infamous serial killers like the Night Stalker, mysterious cold cases, captivating cults, incredible survivor stories and important events from history like the Tulsa race massacre of 1921. My Favorite Murder is part of the Exactly Right podcast network that provides a platform for bold, creative voices to bring to life provocative, entertaining and relatable stories for audiences everywhere. The Exactly Right roster of podcasts covers a variety of topics including historic true crime, comedic interviews and news, science, pop culture and more. Podcasts on the network include Buried Bones with Kate Winkler Dawson and Paul Holes, That's Messed Up: An SVU Podcast, This Podcast Will Kill You, Bananas and more.