Web of Disappointment

Life is full of expectations and disappointments.  Indeed, they go hand-in-hand.  We can only be disappointed if we had some sort of expectation.  Balancing the two is very difficult, as was once again shown to me in the past two weeks.

I don't want to live life without expectations.  Are not expectations related to wishes, dreams, plans and manifestations?  We dream or plan and we expect, with great hope, that our desire will come true.  But, then when our plans fall through or our dream does not pan out, we become disappointed.  The trick is to accept what did not happen without attaching a heavy emotion, like disappointment, to it, and that is not easy.  We can take a spiritual outlook of "It was not meant to be" or "Something better will come along in its place" or we can just shrug our shoulders and shake off any emotion that may have momentarily attached itself to us. Disappointment left to fester becomes discontentment and then dissatisfaction and finally, depression.  Ridding yourself of disappointment in what did not come to pass is important to your mental and emotional health.  

Those kind of disappointments, the ones involving expectations of what we tried to create, can be heart-breaking, but because the expectation probably started and ended with us, we are in total control of how we react and how we move forward.  Disappointment in others is different.  

I recently came across some old emails about a business some friends and I were planning to start.  It never came to pass.  Someone, or maybe all of us, dropped the ball.  There were feelings of disappointment that we did not get beyond the initial planning stages; there were feelings of disappointment in one or the other of us.  And, there were feelings of blame.  Who was responsible?  Who can we blame?  We, and by that I mean one or all of us, could regroup and move forward without the others or we could shrug our shoulders and say the timing most not have been right, the partnership was not solid enough, the interest was not as strong for all involved.  We did the shrugging thing.  In retrospect, I do think all of those statements were true and it was best that our business never got beyond the earliest stages of planning, but still there was disappointment at some level.  

Closer to my heart was a disappointment in someone that I experienced recently.  Someone who did not act as I thought was appropriate, someone who did not seem appreciative, someone who took advantage, someone who placed blame in the wrong place.  I believed in, trusted, defended and supported that person and now, I am disappointed.  I had expectations in someone else and those expectations were not met.  The disappointment was not limited to just me; others felt the same and we all paid a price, emotionally and financially. The situation was, and is, difficult and heart-breaking.  Disappointment itself is hard to accept, but when there are hard consequences that come with the disappointment, the feelings are more raw and more difficult to escape.  

It is necessary for those of us who had the expectations and now have the disappointments to release all the negativity, all the blame.  We will be dealing with consequences due to that person's behavior for quite awhile to come, but we need to do what has to be done and try not to blame, to try very hard to forgive.  That does not mean we condone what has happened.  It means we accept it as a lesson - for all of us.  Relationships may be altered or even severed - hopefully, not.  Reconciliation may come with time, but, for now, there is hurt all around.  I don't want anyone involved to be left bitter or to be afraid to trust and believe in someone in the future, but there is always a chance our disappointment will leave some of us with distrust.  I am not sure how to avoid that.  I think only time will help.  Sometimes we just have to stew for awhile and work through the feelings before we can move on.  Trying to sugar-coat the situation and the injured feelings is not the answer.  In fact, sugar-coating will just cause the hurt to fester and one day it will rise to the surface, unexpected and probably focused on something or someone not even associated with the original incident.

This past weekend, after dealing with the disappointment and its consequences, I took my daughter and grandchildren to Mount Dora for the town's annual Christmas street parade and boat parade.  A nice getaway, something to help us forget problems and hurt feelings, but instead I felt more disappointment.  I looked around my favorite town and felt like I would never be able to manifest a home there. Surely, the disappointment of the previous two weeks and my physical and emotional fatigue contributed to my down mood, but so did the fact that I am not any closer to what I am trying to manifest than I was when I started this project in March.

I am home and back in my regular schedule and still feeling a little sad - sad enough that I really had to push myself to write this post.  I keep telling myself that Manifesting Mount Dora is a journey and one in which the lessons learned may be the only result. Usually, I am okay with that, but not now.  Now I want something more hopeful, something that helps me through all the other disappointments and irritations.  January starts the busiest time of my work year and each year I find it harder to summon the strength and energy to tackle the 7-days-a-week work schedule I will have for two months.  And, this year, December is turning out to also be extremely busy.  Hope is what keeps us going when life is rough.  I am looking for a little hope and, yes, I know that my life is so abundant and I feel guilty for being disappointed and for feeling down.

Disappointment is a web, and I am caught in the middle of it right now.  Webs trap and hold.  I am there, held tight and wrapped up in disappointment.  Struggling against the web will just tighten its hold on me.  Telling myself that the web does not exist will not make it disappear.  Knowing that my web exists in an otherwise decent and often happy place does not change the confining environment of the web.  Feeling guilty for being caught in the web does not make the web any looser or easier to escape.  So, I will sit here and try to work within the confines of the web and I will wait for a breeze that blows the web apart or for time to loosen the strands that are holding me.  Perhaps time is my hope.