Dealing with Disappointment

Quote: "We've all heard that in life, when one door is closed, another is opened. Unfortunately, many of us are so focused on the darkness left by what has been lost, we never see the light coming through the newly opened door.” – Bill Crawford Comment: By the way, while I believe that this week's quote has much to offer for those of us looking to better navigate life's ups and downs, I want to begin by making sure that this concept isn't misinterpreted to imply that grieving a loss is somehow wrong, or a failure on someone's part to "see the light." As a psychologist and someone who lost both of my parents to cancer in my early 20's, I know how important it is to allow oneself to grieve after a significant loss. If you are interested in more of my thoughts on the grieving process and its role in healing, feel free to read my two-part essay on the subject under “grief” on my website. For this discussion, however, just know that my thoughts on seeing the light versus the darkness are not a prohibition against grieving. Instead, they are an observation on our tendency to focus on the past and the problem when things don't turn out the way we had hoped, and how this perspective may very well have us missing those other more beneficial aspects of the situation that have also changed. This situation could be something we had but lost, such as the loss of a job or relationship, or sometimes our disappointment is centered around something we wanted, but didn't get, such as a promotion, a date, a new business opportunity that fell through, etc. Regardless, the tendency for most of us is to pay a LOT of attention to the loss, or the "closed door." We find ourselves fixated on what is no longer available to us, which, of course, has us feeling dejected and deflated. Unfortunately, this then has us looking for who's to blame ("them" or us) which adds resentment and/or guilt to our list, and deepens our feelings of despair. While this is understandable, I'm going to suggest that it is not working for us, and that there is another alternative to dealing with those aspects of life that don't turn out the way we had hoped. This alternate view is wider and more encompassing than the typical myopic perspective described above, and takes in, not only what doors have closed, but also what new rays of light that might be spilling from other doors jarred open by the upheaval. My guess is that we all have had this experience. Something is lost but eventually something else is found which often, is even better than the experienced on which we were so transfixed. . . a light spilling through some newly opened door that would have never been seen if it were not for the darkness created by the door that was closed. In fact, maybe the question shouldn’t be "should we feel bad?" or “isn't it normal to feel disappointment when something doesn't turn out the way we had hoped?" but instead: “Given that this door is closed, how long do I want to dwell on what is lost and feel the feelings that accompany this view? A month? A week?, A day? An Hour?" Or, "If someone I loved experienced this loss, how long I would recommend they feel bad, what would I want for them? You see, while it's true that the "normal" reaction to a loss is some degree of sadness and/or regret, the length of time that these feelings need persist is not fixed. Plus, as this week's quote suggests, the real goal here isn't to just "avoid feeling bad" or even to simply limit the amount of time that we feel bad, but to look for what else has changed, or the ray of light spilling through some newly opened door.

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Dealing with Disappointment is an episode from Quotes from the Top of the Mind™ by Bill Crawford, Ph.D..

This episode is 7:52 long.

This episode was published on Apr 11, 2009.

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