THE ONE OBSTACLE SERIES - OVERCOMING DISAPPOINTMENT
Welcome to the Small Jar Podcast, where we moms of teens find the power to step off the emotional rollercoaster between motherhood and the empty nest. I'm your host, Jennifer Collins. Episode number 127.
Hello, my friend, and welcome back to the One Obstacle series of the Small Jar Podcast, where I'm sharing how to access the power to overcome the challenges we face as moms in midlife, to give you the tools to create the experience of your life that you want, as you cherish time with your kids still at home, or as you approach your next chapter as a mom whose kids have flown. You know, on one level, I think we all recognize that we all have different challenges. Some of us struggle with our teens.
Others of us struggle with the transition to the empty nest. We might be going through a divorce. We could be facing any number of challenges.
But we can also sometimes think in our minds, well, that's not my problem. My teen is great. I don't know why people are complaining so much.
Or alternatively, I can't wait for my kid to leave home. The empty nest sounds amazing. Why would women be sad? It can seem like everyone is experiencing different challenges that we can't relate to.
And of course, that's true in many respects. There are also the challenges we don't talk about, and so it can be easy to feel alone in them. Sometimes our lives really are blessed in so many ways, but there's one area of our lives where we're in pain.
We might feel embarrassed to talk about it or feel guilty, as if we shouldn't be complaining about it. So with this series, I want to cut through all of the various reasons we're in pain and just talk about the pain itself. Because this one obstacle, that one painful emotion that's at the heart of your experience or challenge right now, that emotion is what's holding you back.
Now don't get me wrong, there are many things we can blame for our painful emotions. For sure there are people in the world that can be terrible or mean. Our kids, in fact, can sometimes be really hurtful.
There are certain circumstances in life that are truly awful. That's not to say that any of those things aren't true or that you need to convince yourself that they're not. Some things in life are just not great.
But also, now what? That's really the question at the end of the day. Now what?
So your mother-in-law is rude every time she comes over. Now what?
Your teen is being disrespectful. Now what?
You're not sure what comes next for you? Literally, now what?
You see, you can stay stuck blaming the people or blaming your life for making you feel terrible. And when you do, you rely on other people or your life to change so that you can feel better. Have you ever noticed that this very rarely works? When you think circumstances that are entirely out of your control are responsible for how you feel, you are literally stuck.
Stuck in an endless cycle of trying to get that thing or that other person to change. Stuck in inaction because you're not sure what to try next to get that other person or thing to change. There's a line between taking action to try to change things that are not in your control and taking action where you do have control.
And that, in essence, is where your power lies. Understanding the difference. So in this series, I'm focusing on the emotional pain as the obstacle holding you back rather than focusing on that other person or that circumstance that you wish were different.
And here's why this is important. The emotional pain you're experiencing in your life right now is driving how you show up in your life. You might be reacting to your pain or desperately trying to avoid or resist your pain.
And all of that directly impacts the results you create for yourself. So with this series, my goal is to shift your perspective to where you do have agency, where you have power. And that is over your emotional experience.
My friend, I wish this was something they taught all of us when we were in elementary school. I've actually noticed that experts are trying to bring these messages to school audiences. But what I've also noticed, having spent some time working in a school setting, is that often we as parents are resistant to these messages.
We've been raised to believe that other people have control over our emotional experience. Therefore, we're sure that our children's emotional experience is dependent on other people as well. Here's what I mean.
You remember growing up when people would say to you, did Susie hurt your feelings? Or did John make you mad? Truth be told, I'm sure I said something similar to my boys when they were growing up. But what I've learned is that when we make other people responsible for how we feel, we're also dependent on them behaving and acting the way that we want them to act so we can feel okay. And again, that's not to say people can't be mean or do things that are wrong.
But why do we let them hurt our feelings or let them make us mad? The truth is, there are reasons we let other people hurt our feelings or make us mad. Sometimes they're very good reasons. But do you even know what they are? These reasons are why the emotional pain you're experiencing is holding you back.
And they're also the way you can get unstuck.
So this week, I'm going to focus on the painful emotion of disappointment. This is actually one that I don't think we often admit to ourselves.
Whether it be societal expectations, a sense of pride, or not wanting to be vulnerable, disappointment can be hard to admit, even to ourselves. There are things you might be disappointed about that you don't want to admit because you're afraid other people will judge you for it. Admitting disappointment can feel like admitting failure.
Even admitting disappointment to your closest friend can cause them to give you a response that tells you to be resilient and look on the bright side. It's like, oh no, for sure, don't feel that disappointment. That's not good.
You need to be tougher than that. You need to be selfless. You have so much to be grateful for.
Gratitude shaming, that is the worst. Do you have so much to be grateful for? Yes. I sincerely hope you do.
I know I do. But that doesn't change or discount the fact that I sometimes feel disappointed. It's not selfish.
It doesn't mean I'm ungrateful. It doesn't stack my complaints against others who might have quote unquote bigger challenges. You know, you can feel grateful and disappointed at the same time, even about the same thing.
So please, if you hear nothing else, hear this. Don't tell yourself you don't deserve to feel any emotion because you should be more grateful. We also don't want to let anyone else down.
Admitting we're disappointed in some area of our lives can feel like a betrayal of those we love. We're so invested in supporting our families and friends, and we'd never want them to think that we weren't satisfied with what we have. It can be hard to be honest about our unmet needs or feelings.
Honestly, it can be easier to just avoid the feeling altogether. It can feel like indulging in disappointment means that we make ourselves stuck in the past, regretting past decisions or missed opportunities. It can feel easier not to face it.
Also, do you ever look around and think some other women your age have it all together? Or maybe they have it all together in the ways that you don't. They have kids who seem to be more successful or at least just nicer to them. They have more friends or more money, a better husband.
You don't mean to compare, but you do, in your mind. Stacking up your accomplishments and connections and wonder if it's enough, but also not wanting to admit that these thoughts are running through your head. Maybe you know other women who you perceive don't have it together in some way, and you don't want anyone to think you're in the same boat.
We each have so many expectations of ourselves. We don't even realize it, but we set these high, even impossible standards for ourselves. As moms, how we manage our homes, how together we are, the importance of how we spend our time.
I actually think we don't even realize how often we set ourselves up for being disappointed in ourselves without even consciously being aware of what expectation we have of ourselves. Another reason it can be hard to admit we're disappointed? Hope. We want to be optimistic that things will get better, and so admitting disappointment can feel like you're giving up on that hope, almost like acknowledging your feelings somehow makes them more permanent.
In all of these ways, we're fighting so hard against this feeling of disappointment, trying to shove it down, ignore it, shame ourselves for it, tell ourselves we don't deserve to feel it. But none of these things are actually helping us move past the disappointment. So if we're going to be honest here, let's talk about why we're disappointed.
The first and probably biggest reason we're disappointed is simply because our expectations don't match reality. That in a nutshell is what disappointment is. You wanted one thing, and you got another.
You hoped for one outcome, and the reality is you got this one. So let's get into it. What expectations do you have? What are the ones where you experience disappointment? With your teen, you might have expectations that they're motivated or self-actualized in some way.
Think about what that would look like specifically in your mind. Maybe that they're studying some number of hours a day, or that their report card has some number of A's. When reality doesn't meet this expectation, we often notice the frustration first, the sense of urgency to get them to step up and be more focused, to get them to understand why it's important to do well in school.
But you could also be feeling an underlying sense of disappointment that feels kind of yucky to admit. Almost like by acknowledging this disappointment, you're somehow giving up on your kids' potential or betraying them in some way. Or you might feel disappointed by where you are in life.
As your kids grow up and get caught up in their own lives or leave for college, you can be left feeling disappointed with what's left. So many women say to me they wish they had kept up with a career while they were raising their kids. You can feel like your kids were your purpose and now you've lost it.
Many of us haven't necessarily thought through what comes next after kids. I know I never did. My life plan was basically go to college, find a husband, buy a house, have kids.
There was no grand plan after that step. The have kids item on the list seemed like the grand finale. But now you get here and it's like, wait, this kid thing ends? And for sure it doesn't end completely.
They come home. Sometimes they even move back home. There are definitely times and stages when our kids really still need us, but it looks a lot different.
You end up with so much more time on your hands. Maybe that's the biggest practical difference. Raising young children takes up a lot of time and there's no question in your mind that this time is well spent when you're spending it, that it's meaningful.
But then you get to this empty nest stage and you not only have potentially more time left open, left to be filled, but you have in your mind that unrealized expectation that you thought it was going to be different. Or honestly, you didn't know what it was going to be like, but you didn't want it to feel like this. We have expectations about everything in our lives, but when these expectations don't line up with reality, this feeling of disappointment can feel like a profound and heavy weight.
This concept of time is also really tricky because on the one hand, we can find ourselves with a lot more time to fill, but on the other hand, we can feel like we don't have time to make significant change in our life either. Like we've both lost time or the opportunity to have made choices in the past, and the going forward, it's like both that we've lost time or the opportunity to have made certain choices in the past, but also that going forward, we don't have enough time to create something different. We can feel disappointed about where we are in life from a personal or a professional standpoint, or frankly, we can feel disappointed about who we think we are at this point in our lives.
Feeling disappointed that I'm just a mom, or that I'm not a confident person, or frankly, that I just don't know who I am anymore, period. Like how did I get to 50 years into my life and not know who I am and what I want? With this increased space we have in midlife to contemplate who and where we are, we can become almost inevitably self-critical. We can blame ourselves, think there's something wrong with us, we can feel like we need fixing, and it would seem like relationships could be a source of support to us in midlife.
Certainly spending time with people we love, a partner or close friends, can give us a chance to feel connected and supported, but do you realize that we only feel connected and supported when our expectations of the interaction we have with that other person match reality? If your partner engages with you in the way you most want him to, you feel connected and supported. If he doesn't, for example, if he doesn't listen when you ask him for help, or if he gets pissed off about something and you think he shouldn't be pissed off, you can very quickly feel disconnected to him. Expectations versus reality.
And in this time of life, the quality of your relationships could be meeting your expectations or they might not. And when they don't, you feel disappointed, lonely, and disconnected when you were hoping to feel supported and fulfilled, happy. All of us crave connection and meaning.
Truth be told, what's the point of life if not to strive for those two things? Our role as mothers have given us this profound gift over the past two or more decades of feeling such an important sense of purpose, feeling this unparalleled connection to these beautiful humans who were ours. We didn't actually have to go too far out of our comfort zone to create the sense of connection and meaning. I take that back.
Pregnancy and childbirth were no walk in the park, but once we became moms, it was like built-in purpose, ready connection, so many years of hugs and I love you moms and important to-dos, helping these humans self-actualize. But then we get to this place where these kids aren't our little buddies anymore. They're these baby adults with their own dreams and preferences and quirks and deficiencies.
They, like others in our life, might, if we're really honest with ourselves, disappoint us. Even if it's disappointing us in the sense that we wish they were just a little more motivated or a little more responsible with money, maybe a little less addicted to their phones. We can feel disappointed by this and honestly, we can feel responsible for that too.
Like if we had just parented a little better, we could somehow have gotten them to meet our expectations of them a little more. Of course, we don't say it that way, but that's essentially what we mean. With all this transition in our life and added time to reckon with where we are, it makes sense that we crave new opportunities for connection and meaning.
And honestly, sometimes it also makes sense that we feel disappointed with areas in our life, wishing they were different. But getting back to the question I asked in the beginning, now what? Well, first, acknowledge the disappointment. Don't judge yourself for it.
Don't tell yourself you shouldn't be feeling it or that you should be more grateful. It's not your fault that you feel disappointed. You didn't do anything to deserve it.
It's also not other people's fault that you're disappointed either. You simply feel disappointed. This feeling is quite literally a common part of the human experience.
It's simply a feeling that accompanies the perception that what you wanted doesn't match the reality of life. You can literally think of it as simple as waking up and hoping the sun would be shining and seeing that it's raining instead. Your hope or expectation was the sun.
The reality is the rain. It's no one's fault. It just is.
And you get to be disappointed by it. Taking stock of your expectation in areas of your life where you're disappointed can be really powerful. Start with being really honest with yourself about where you are, sticking to the facts.
What is the truth about where you are now? And what do you wish were different? Think of this simply as, I wish I was at A, but in reality, I'm at B. We often spend a lot of time thinking about how our past decisions got us to B, feeling disappointed or even resentful about how the past has contributed to the reality of our current situation. And look, this is a painful feeling, regret, resentment. And it's true that the sum of the past has brought you to this moment.
That's actually a reality. The good decisions you made, the decisions you regret, the good and the bad things that have happened in your life, things that were out of your control, all of that is in the past and has also brought you to where you are now. Why should any of that be different? I get that you might want it to be different, but spending the time feeling disappointed about the past changes nothing about the past.
So notice if your mind wants to take you there, to disappointment about the past. So again, I wish I was at A, but in reality, I'm at B. The other question you can ask yourself is, what's stopping you from getting to A? What's stopping you from making a decision right now to start working towards A? This is another place we get stuck because you think you've tried. You've tried to get your teen to study more.
You've tried to have hard conversations with your husband about what you need from him. You've tried to connect with friends. You've tried to get organized.
You've tried to figure out what you're going to do. Either it hasn't worked or you don't know how. This is where it's really important to be clear with yourself about what's actually in your control.
What's not in your control? Well, other people. Definitely not your teen. You can't control their behavior, their moods, their words, the results they're creating in their lives.
No matter how much you love them and want more for them, or want more from them, you actually cannot change them. You also can't change the past. It's done.
It's decided. It's out of your control. So if you've been trying to change or influence these things, it's no wonder that you continue to be disappointed.
But what is in your control? My friend, your expectations are in your control. You don't have to drop them. But are your expectations worthy of setting boundaries around? Or are there just some that are keeping you stuck in disappointment in your relationships? Another obvious area where we have control is over our own actions.
But you might not realize that you spend more time reacting to your emotions than consciously deciding how you want to proceed. When you're disappointed in your teen, you might tend to lean into the urgency to fix things. So you react to frustration or anxiety.
The feeling like my expectations don't match reality and this is a big problem. I've got to fix it. I've got to change them.
But what if instead you took stock of your disappointment? What is happening that doesn't meet your expectations? This doesn't mean you don't love your teen. This doesn't mean that you're a bad person or that you don't believe in your teen. I actually think it means the opposite.
You want the world for your teen. And when they're not taking on the world, reaching for their dreams in a way that you hope, it's disappointing. Not to mention frustrating and anxiety producing.
But sometimes focusing on the disappointment helps you connect more with why this difference between reality and your expectations is a problem for you. So your teen isn't the way you hoped in this specific way. Is this something you need to fix or address? If so, how are you going to specifically respond when they do this thing in the future? This isn't about controlling them.
It's about deciding how you will respond in the future. Let's say you're disappointed with your partner or a friend. Something they're doing doesn't match your expectation of them.
What are you making that mean about your relationship? Is this even a relationship you want to be in? And if it is, how might their behavior have nothing to do with you? Can you take responsibility for how you're taking it personally anyway? Or if their behavior is something that's unacceptable or something you need to address with them, by all means talk to them about it. But then decide, how will you respond the next time this happens?
When it comes to disappointment about where you are in your life, you are at B and you wish you were at A, or you have no idea where you wish you were, but you know it's not where you are. What's stopping you from figuring it out? How are you holding on to the unchangeable past as the reason you can't move forward? How are you discounting yourself or telling yourself you don't have time or don't have the energy? How are you telling yourself, I don't know? Or making the steps in front of you so complicated that it all just feels overwhelming? Where do you start? What if it doesn't have to be so complicated? What if you don't have to have figured it all out by now? What if you have plenty of time, that there's no rush? My friend, disappointment is one of those emotions that I think we're really good at stuffing down because we don't really want to look at it.
We don't really want to admit that we're not where we want to be or that our relationships aren't what we want. But the reason we push back on this feeling is because of what we're making this gap between our expectations and reality mean. That our kids aren't good enough or that our relationships aren't good enough.
That we're not good enough. It's pretty painful to tell ourselves that life isn't what we want it to be. But what if all that's happening is that reality doesn't quite match what you hoped it would be? Does that mean that you can't go out and create it? What you want in life is meaning and connection.
My friend, these feelings aren't created by something you do or accomplish. They're not created by your kids or your partner or anyone else. These feelings are created when you decide this relationship is the right relationship.
When you decide that what I'm doing has meaning. When you decide where I am is where I'm meant to be. But also you have the potential to decide I can create even more.
Accepting the reality of where you are right now doesn't mean that you have to give up hope to create more. But ignoring the disappointment you feel about where you are right now. Allowing that feeling to fester and keep you stuck in limiting beliefs and indecision.
Keeping you stuck in feeling like a victim or stuck in the past. This is why disappointment feels so heavy. When you recognize that all disappointment is your brain's process of checks and balances.
Oh, I thought it was going to be X. Now I see it's a Y. You get to feel disappointed about that. But now what? My friend, that now what? This is the work we do in my one on one coaching program, Mom 2.0. Want to overcome disappointment? Recognize where you have control and make a decision to move forward. Becoming that next version of yourself can be as simple as that.
Until next time.
If you enjoyed this podcast, please leave a review and check out our coaching program, Mom 2.0 at www.thesmalljar.com. You have more power than you think, my friend.
