A (3:58)
Okay, let's get right into it. It is time for this week's mantra. I let myself feel disappointed. What I really think is at the core of this mantra, what I really think this is all about, is toxic positivity and fighting against toxic positivity. So let's just start there. Toxic positivity. If you haven't heard of this before, it is basically the belief that no matter what challenges pains you or what you struggle with, whatever you are going through, you should always maintain a positive attitude. You should always be attempting to look on the bright side. Look for the silver lining. Imagine the person who has it worse than you. Emotions like sadness, anger, grief, or of course, disappointment are painted by this mindset as actually a choice. And we can either choose endless optimism and feel happy all the time, or let ourselves allow ourselves feel bad. And if we do that, that's on us. What this approach means is that there seems to be two types of emotions, those that are acceptable and those that aren't. And the acceptable ones are the pretty ones, the nice ones, the happy ones, the unacceptable ones, the grief, the shame, the disappointment. Those need to be hidden. Not so much for us, but for others. The thing about toxic positivity is that it isn't always explicit. This is kind of what it can sound like day to day. This is how you can recognize it, perhaps in your interactions with other people or in your own life. Some of the things that people may say are, you know, everything happens for a reason, even though what's happened is something that is truly devastating or really upsetting. Other people have it so much worse. So you shouldn't complain. You'll get over it. Just give it time. I think we hear that a lot with romantic rejection or relationships. Sentences that are prefaced with at least, at least you have a job. At least you're healthy. At least you don't have to worry about this or that. At least you're not that person, another one you know, if you stay optimistic, if you think good thoughts, the universe will reward you. Or just outright dismissal that there is no reason to be upset, there is no reason to be annoyed. You should just be grateful. Gratitude will solve all your problems. Those are some, like explicit ways that you might see it showing up. They're a bit more loud. There are some more subtle ways that this kind of makes its way into conversations and makes its way into our life as well. For example, yes, someone might not say, give it time or everything happens for a reason, but they may immediately change the conversation or appear uncomfortable. When you talk openly about your disappointment appointments. They may immediately offer solutions instead of just listening to you. They may minimize your experience. They may act annoyed or impatient with you. They may try and rush you through the emotional experience you're having so that you get over it and get back to the happy Persona that they want from you. I think people just aren't comfortable with some of the hardest parts of life. But that doesn't mean they don't happen and it doesn't mean they don't suck. You are allowed to be upset or disappointed by something you really wanted or by something that you really thought was going to happen and didn't. Even if someone somewhere has it worse, there will always be someone who has it worse that doesn't discount or undermine the feeling that you are having. The issue is when we start as well to take this toxic optimism on board ourselves. Instead of acknowledging that something mattered to us and that it didn't go the way we hoped, we immediately try to reframe it. We force ourselves to be grateful. We force ourselves to downplay the experience. On the surface, you know, that actually might look like resilience, which is why it's kind of confusing, but underneath, it's often kind of a form of like self gaslighting, like you're convincing yourself you don't care, when in fact you deeply, deeply do. And it can leave us feeling, I think, oddly very hollow, very disconnected from our desires. Because, you know, we've trained ourselves to believe it's not acceptable or safe to feel let down. What is the cost of this emotional suppression when we suppress our emotions? Because that is basically what we're doing here. We are suppressing disappointment, frustration, annoyance, all of those kind of feelings. We basically cut ourselves off from one of the most important sources of self knowledge we have. Emotions are Signals, they tell us what matters. They tell us where our boundaries are. They tell us what we need to pay attention to, what we really desire, where we should point our ambitions towards. So by ignoring or avoiding them, we lose really valuable feedback about our own lives. You know, for instance, disappointment really signals that we care deeply about something, that we had high expectations for ourselves and for our lives. They give us a sign of what we are truly searching for in our future. Hence why the reaction to not getting it feels so intense. I think that's all information that is deeply enriching and rewarding and that I think that we should explore more. But without allowing ourselves to fully feel every dimension and crevice of this emotion, we do actually miss out on opportunities for growth and self reflection. Here's the other thing. No one has ever made their life better. No one has gotten better developed as a person by only letting themselves feel a very small subset of their emotions and thinking that that was enough. You know. Yeah, disappointment may feel uncomfortable. Losing out on a job you really wanted, feeling let down by a friend, being rejected by a potential boyfriend or girlfriend. That sucks. I've experienced all of those things. But it is all part of our broader emotional experiences and catalog of experiences that have been gifted to us or that maybe are required of us as humans. We've talked about this before, but psychologists often reference this concept known as emo diversity. And it's this idea that experiencing and acknowledging a wide range of emotions is actually essential for our mental health. You can't just have the good ones. Just like, you know, biodiversity strengthens ecosystems in nature, emo diversity strengthens our psychological resilience. People who report greater emotional variety, including unpleasant feelings like sadness, frustration, disappointment, you know, it might sound counterintuitive, but they often have better overall well being and lower rates of depression. Suppressing emotions just like flattens our inner landscape. And so that means that we are stuck in a very narrow band of forced positivity that doesn't actually reflect the complexity of real life and that is actually rather boring as well. Avoiding emotions may feel easier in the short term, especially when perhaps you don't feel a lot of societal based acceptance or openness to talk about it or manage it. But it does also come at the cost of long term health. Research has shown that chronic emotional suppression is linked to higher stress. It is linked to a weakened immune system, even an increased risk of cardiovascular problems. This happens because when we push emotions down, our nervous system still reacts, our heart rate increases, our cortisol rises, and our body really does carry the burden of what our minds refuse to process. Instead of releasing the emotion, instead of moving through it with flow and with grace and, you know, with kindness towards ourselves. By not acknowledging it, by ignoring it, we trap it. And over time that manifests as tension, it manifests as burnout or unexplained fatigue, amongst many other symptoms. So here are your options. You can either be open about your disappointments and A integrate important learnings better. B, actually recover from the setback faster. C seemingly be happier long term, have a greater level of control over your shifting emotional state. Or the second option, you can pretend the things that actually really sting don't bother you and therefore deny your own emotions, take longer to recover from them, maybe never recover from them, not learn anything new about yourself, build up resentment and frustration, all to maybe make some people feel more comfortable. Just sit with that equation for a second because I think there is a very clear, correct choice here and that is to let yourself feel your disappointments. One final thing that I will say about this, acknowledging when we are disappointed also helps our relationships as well, which I think feels counter to what a lot of us have been taught. I know I used to be the kind of person who would never bring up stuff that annoyed me, who would never address it when a friend really let me down or my expectations weren't met. And because of that choice, over time, I felt a lot worse about our relationship and I felt a lot worse about our dynamic compared to if I just said, hey, this moment upset me, I feel let down. I want to hear your side of the story or I want to give you an opportunity to make it right and for us to grow together and kind of bond through this experience. That's actually a really incredible moment of vulnerability. To say I'm disappointed and to let someone prove themselves to you and prove why perhaps they didn't mean to disappoint you, why they are perhaps in your life. It's something I'm definitely getting better at and we're going to talk about how I'm getting better at that and also how I've moved through some of those previous disappointments, especially social disappointments after this short break. So stick around.
