The Pain Of Disappointment & Why Disappointment Is One Hell Of A Feeling
If you’ve followed me for a while now & have read my older blog posts, you’ll know that most of things I write about centre on the deeper things of life, like relationship pains, and parental wounds.
Without romanticising the pain that comes with being disappointed, I want to shine a light on the feelings that arise and the frustration that we feel when we learn that what we hoped or desired is nothing like we imagined and to be honest this is the current season of life that I’m in right now. Phased out, hurt, and also in pain and although there is no manual for disappointment or being heartbroken, I do believe that it is not often discussed how crumbling this feeling can be.
Really liking someone and then realising it all has been an illusion??? Like WTF!! Honestly, I know people talk about snapping out of it and getting back into formation whatever the hell that means but there is not enough discussion about how it really hurts. How being disappointed by that which you didn’t think could disappoint you in that manner, how the days seem to blur how your day-to-day tasks get slower because you’ve just lost the will power. How your heart hurts and you feel the deep sighs and palpitations and the list goes on…
Yes, people often talk about lowering our expectations or having higher standards but the matter of the fact is anyone and everyone can disappoint you even the ones you thought could never. It is in fact these groups of people be it friends or romantic love interests and even family, but more so the romantic love interests that will show you pepper! As my beloved Nigerians say…na everybody go chop breakfast and whether this is something you think you can handle or not it just hurts to be disappointed. And to be honest, yes having better boundaries aka leaving when you see the warning signs and choosing not to repeat certain cycles play a role but when you instantaneously meet someone and you feel a connection or vibe it’s hard to follow these rigid rules.
I am a firm believer that the heart wants what the heart wants and you can have all the self-respect, self-esteem, come from a loving home and still get played and be disappointed by a love interest. I think being disappointed by friends also hits different, that’s a different kind of hurt entirely but Danielle mentioned something… experiencing a pain that is so visceral that it re-routes your entire existence, I think this is the common factor pain and disappointment share. The two are interchangeable, without pain there is no disappointment and without disappointment there is no pain. None of the above are avoidable in this strange journey called life even if you are evolved or healed, we are all susceptible to this.
Quoting one of the infamous quotes from Bob Marley the “truth is everybody is going to hurt you: you just gotta find the ones worth suffering for” and I believe this is a lesson Saturn in Pisces is teaching me. Proverbs 4 v23 tells us to “Guard your heart above all else, for it determines the course of your life.”, and as deep as these words of advice that one cannot dismiss in the world that we currently live in. Whilst you may not be able to physically see a person’s intentions when you first meet them, your spirit will.
They say to avoid disappointment you take people as they are, and quite frankly this means accepting that we cannot control outcomes or people, I think the only thing we can quite control is our perspective. Initially, when you are going through the several phases of grief shock is initially the first step which is where you try and make sense of what’s happened and usually where we begin to blame ourselves and ask ourselves the various why questions (been there and done that and this is something I still struggle with till date).
Then comes the next stage disappointment and to be honest, there is truly no manual when it comes to handling disappointment. The feeling sucks, it’s a heavy one, it feels tiring, the uneasy feeling you get in your heart, your stomach sinking, you feel on edge and anxious, the overthinking and repeating scenarios, the intensity of every emotion you are feeling x100, tears and disrupted sleep, and the list goes on. It really adversely affects you and alters your brain chemistry. I hate it, because for me I am unable to function properly. Like I am here but my heart is so hurt and trying to remain focused on simple tasks take a lot of will power.
I’ve also come to realise that people, places, and things are experiences as opposed to permanent fixtures in my life which means they may come and go. Something that triggers my abandonment and attachment wounds, and asides from this I hate saying goodbyes. Whilst some goodbyes are liberating, some really hurt. So, growing to unlearn the learnt and self-taught behaviours that make it hard to understand that we are all experiences in each other’s stories is something I am trying to learn…and as mentioned above with Saturn being in Pisces and having experienced a full year of this transit, I’ve come to understand that in my journey I will be meeting and un-meeting more often than I thought.
I’ve also learnt that it is one thing to acknowledge the saying coined by the Hoodhealer that “there is no benefit in doubt”, but another thing to fully embody this and experience this. It means understanding that people may be disingenuous, they may hide things from you, they may even lie to you and be shady, but the moment your spirit feels off its taking that connection for what it is and not what you want it to be.
I’ve had a track record of giving questionable people the benefit of the doubt, and each and every time it has led to disappointment and me breaking my own heart. I love that some women know their worth and do not short-change themselves in connections where the warning signs are glaring at them, but for the women like me who may give people one too many chances than they deserve or do not know how to walk away from connections until things go really really left, I write this for you. I write this so that you may know that one day it will click, one day you will get tired of having to repeat the same story (my current reality) and this does not mean instantaneously you will wake up and just cut everyone who has not poured back into you off… it just means that you will begin to want to choose more of you and put you first.
After all, when everything is said and done it is often us the ones who have poured more into connections who are left feeling depleted and drained. So, the responsibility is on us, to not go in with our hearts when you are a sensitive and open-hearted person. I know this may sound like bad advice to others, who believe we should but if you have not mastered the art of discernment like myself who is slowly , steadily, and surely getting there you may end up in multiple disappointing situations which will take a toll on you.
So, I say this, not that you shut off your heart to everyone, but as the Bob Marley quote says it’s deciding and choosing who is worth seeing your beautiful heart. All of you, the colourful vibrant you. I am still learning how to do this, which brings me back to the point I made above. Choosing to see people for who they are vs who you wish they would be makes all the difference, it is a sobering truth and harsh reality but one that is needed to move forward. Again, this is something my delulu self (7H Pisces ruled house) cannot take.
A love situation in 2022, viscerally changed the course of my life and I also had various astrological transits that were forcing the much-needed transformation and between the period of April-Dec 2022 I died various deaths and rebirthed new realisations and one of these was that I had to stop choosing not to see the truth in people, for who they showed me they were, for what their actions showed me, and most importantly for what my spirit showed them to be.
Disappointment is inevitable, pain is inevitable and something we must experience in our human experience otherwise we wouldn’t have reincarnated here on earth we would have remained in the ancestral realms. There are lessons we (including myself), that we haven’t quite mastered, and if you are someone who feels deeply, overthinks, cares about how others are treated and empathic to the suffering of others in general, it is advisable to build boundaries and not over-extend yourself. I do think some situations that result in painful and unfavourable outcomes at times can be avoided, but then again there are some karmic lessons that we simply have to visit.
Someone I know once said in 2017, that all relationships are transactional and indeed 7 years later I can say that she didn’t lie, not everyone but nowadays people will want to benefit/or gain something from a connection. Me and my friend call this having a strategy…make sure you are nobodies strategy unless you want to be!!
Whilst it is good to believe that everyone’s intentions are pure like yours, in the current world we live in it would do you some good and even me to not think like this. We will never truly know anyone’s true intentions towards us unless we pray/meditate/assess/observe over a period of time or unless you have psychic visions etc…but even then, not everything is revealed until God/Our Maker/Our Ancestors wish to reveal these things to us!
Not everyone recovers from being disappointed, some people are mentally, emotionally, physically, and spiritually broken from this and it’s safe to say that all of us have been in this position. For some of us, it is the grace of God that has carried us out of darker spaces and for others there is a legion of waring ancestors who do not want to see their child in such spaces so they fight courageously and vigorously to ensure they remove their children from such spaces.
It can happen to anybody and therefore, whilst it may seem trivial to some it is ever more important for others to be cautious. Guard your heart, listen to your spirit murmurs even in the confusion your ancestors/spirit guides are speaking to you. You know you can hear them ever so clearly so do not allow doubt to cloud your judgement.
Take people for who they are and not what you want them to be, clock your realisations and epiphanies do not sleep on them. Assess their character and most importantly listen to your spirit for above all else….the spirit never lies!
