Disappointment^.^

i wrote this awhile ago and thought i’d put it up.

i haven’t said it yet, not sure if i will, it’s probably the most powerful phrase a parent can wield on their child, more painful than any spanking, more thought provoking than anything a raised voice could deliver, and a useful tool to get a person to actually think about their actions.

What am i talking about? 

The monotone uttering of “I’m disappointed in you.” the most effective delivery is the following: you must hold your jaw so that your teeth are only a quarter of an inch apart, spoken from your mouth using your lips, almost a whisper – forcing the sound from your throat. Of course a dead eyed stare upon delivery helps as well. When someone says this to you, there is nothing you can do. You can’t argue with it. Walking away in quiet contemplation is about all you got. Do you remember the first time you heard it? Well, perhaps not the first time, but I guarantee that more than a few of you know the situation that caused a masterful delivery of that phrase by someone in your life.

Disappointment.

See, I think all of us seek the approval of an adult in our lives, the approval of someone we look up to, we all want to hear the opposite of disappointment, and we want to make them proud. Perhaps it was an adult early on, and now you seek the approval of someone else. I know that when my kids grow up in the future I will want them to be proud of me, to see me as a person that they can count on, but I think their is something profound in letting a loved one down. not that I aim for it, it may have looked that way sometimes, but when you disappoint someone you are not the only one forced to contemplate the expectations. The person who is disappointed had better be examining their vision of you, what they want to see in you, and ultimately your relationship. We can, sometimes unknowingly, load loved ones with unrealistic and ridiculous expectations; we do it to ourselves too. I believe in high standards, I live my life expecting a lot from myself and those that I am around – i know this.

disappointing someone is not something that you purposefully do, it is something that someone thinks you have done to them. there are times we need to be more aware of those around us and understand our role in their lives, but there are times when people in our lives need to be forced to understand that we are not purposefully hurting them, but doing what we feel is right, and perhaps that shouldn’t lead to disappointment, but a further understanding of one another’s lives.

I have been thinking a lot lately about disappointment. Sounds a little depressing when I re-read that sentence, but trust me you won’t need any Kleenex after reading this blog. One of my BIG issues I worked on when I was on The Biggest Loser was disappointment. It wasn’t featured a ton, but it was the biggest piece of my puzzle. See, you all know by now how type A I am by nature, and to my detriment I can be pretty controlling. Ah, control….well, I tried to control everything (which is impossible) and it got me to 284lbs at my highest. In my mind I always convinced myself that by keeping such tight control of things I was being “productive” & “driven”. Ha. Ha. Ha. It was a very candid conversation with Bob Harper that really turned my thinking around. He simply said, “You spend so much time and effort trying to keep all these balls in the air…what would happen if you let one of them drop?”. I will tell you that even hearing him say those words made me sweat! Let a ball DROP? That is enough stress to drive me to eating a whole sheet cake alone, but the more I thought about it the more I realized that if I dropped a ball the earth would still turn & I would not die. He challenged me to really spend some time thinking about that concept. As I began to dig into this issue I will tell you that I couldn’t for the life of me come up with a reason why I feared letting go. Then it hit me like a ton of bricks….well, actually that ton of bricks happened to come in the form of Jillian Michaels. She simply said, “Honey, you can’t let go of control because you are terrified of disappointment.” Um, WHAT?? In that moment it became very clear. She was right…I was afraid of disappointment. You know in cartoons when the light bulb turns on…it was like that. I avoided really putting my self out there in my career, relationships, & really life itself to avoid being disappointed. The biggest area where this manifested was in my struggle with weight loss. Don’t get me wrong…I was always on a diet, but I NEVER really tried because that way if I failed it was because I did it half way & wouldn’t be disappointed. In my mind disappointment = weakness & failure. Whew….that’s a mouthful.

Have I fixed all this? I’ll say that I have made HUGE strides, but it’s a work in progress. I find myself at times trying to control things & I have to step back and adjust. The joy in that is the awareness…it’s half the battle right? Also, I look at disappointment in a very different way. I no longer fear it…do I like it…no, but who does? That being said I look at disappointment as an opportunity to overcome. If I set a goal & fall flat on my face…I allow myself to take a moment & be disappointed, but then get up brush myself off & set a new goal. You know why? Well, if you fall or fail the earth keeps on turning & you won’t die. Trust me…Bob said so. By getting up it gives you one more chance to achieve, and I just love that.

xoxoxox,