When the World Breaks Your Heart

“There’s always failure. And there’s always disappointment. And there’s always loss. But the secret is learning from the loss, and realizing that none of those holes are vacuums.”

— Michael J. Fox

Tomorrow is Election Day here in the U.S., and on the following day we will know the result of the races so many have been running and working on for well over a year.  The time, energy, and money spent on these campaigns amount to a massive investment, and passions are running hot about who the winners will be.  Anytime we commit to a goal and pursue it with abandon, we run the risk of being sorely disappointed, and one thing that’s clear from late-breaking polls is that there will be large numbers disappointed in the aftermath of most races.  These feelings will only be intensified by the convictions many hold about the dire importance of their candidates’ victories; political policy is one of the things that gets at our most strongly held worldviews about what is right and good.

This blog, then, is for everyone who will be disappointed in some way on November 9th, but also for anyone who has worked for a deeply significant goal of any sort, only to miss the mark in a heartbreaking letdown.  No one can escape moments of disappointment and loss in life—this is part of what it is to be human—so how do we cope and regroup on the other side of such loss?

Before I address this question, let’s take a moment for a side trip to review some relevant principles found in many traditions of thought:

·      Nothing that happens to us has only a single possible interpretation.  We get to decide what the events in our lives mean.  This truth gives us the opportunity to learn, grow, and become empowered by everything we experience if we so choose

·      Even if you don’t believe that things happen for a reason, your choices about how to react to life events can allow all experience to serve your own and others’ highest good

·      In the face of difficult, even awful, events, we can uphold what is best about humanity just because that is the kind of person we choose to be.  We only have the power to govern our own actions, so that is where we can most effectively focus our efforts

·      On a planet that now sustains billions of people, and more every day, we cannot avoid other people, or the natural differences of opinion that result from the interaction of billions of unique viewpoints.  Cultivating compassion for others means challenging ourselves to appreciate our common humanity even when our differences irritate us

·      The vast majority of people are basically after all the same things:  A safe, peaceful environment and the prosperity to take care of their families so that they can enjoy long, happy lives

·      People who are violent, selfish, and fearful are not happy, healthy people.  (People who feel loved, safe, and secure, and who are able to receive necessary health care in the case of serious imbalance, do not behave this way.)  Such people deserve our compassion and help, at the same time that everyone else deserves to be protected from their violence

·      Nothing is permanent.  In order to live a happy life, it helps to work on the ability to let go of rigidity about what should happen at any given moment; instead, we can strive to maintain a sense of humor, being present in the here and now, and appreciating what is good already even when our eyes are on an attractive goal

Now, on to our question.  When the battering ram of a major disappointment knocks us down, we’re likely to confront a wash of emotions, including confusion, anger, sadness, and possibly jealousy or resentment, among others.  Because we’re not generally taught how to process emotions, sometimes the best we know how to do is to stew in those emotions until the intensity subsides a bit and we’re better able to sweep them under the rug.  They’re then hidden, but still gnaw at our faith and sense of self for as long as they remain undealt with.  We then jump to mental decisions about what our experience means, and these are likely to follow what we learned by observing family members’ thinking patterns.  You may do this without even noticing, thinking that the interpretation is obvious, whether that’s “The world is going to hell in a handbasket,” or “Everyone who disagrees with me is stupid and corrupt and ruining everything,” or simply, “I can never get what I want.”  It’s normal to experience disappointment sometimes and have difficulty reimagining life without the hoped-for results.  However, if we don’t make an effort to be conscious and constructive with our thinking about what happened, we’re likely to spiral downward into the swamp of those hidden feelings every time the subject comes up again. 

Feelings follow thought, so if you want to feel better about something, part of doing so is elevating your mental game.  Challenging yourself to find the good that has, or might, come out of an upsetting loss can make space for awareness of new potential paths that will both honor and build on your experience.  When you find yourself mentally harping on the negative aspects of the situation, mistakes you made, ways in which you feel you were victimized, work to redirect your thinking to how going through that made you stronger or deeper, and make note of the ways in which that remains difficult.  You may need to talk through things with a friend, or find a book about someone who endured disappointment to become someone you admire, in order to find new ways to mentally frame your experience.  Unlearning old mental habits takes time and effort, so don’t be surprised if it’s harder than it seems like it should be.  There’s a lot of great work being done on positive thinking, but don’t misunderstand—this is not all we have to do to work out of disappointment.  It’s not a replacement for feeling, expressing, and allowing the transformation of your emotions.

The emotional side of things is where I see a lot less work being done and made available to others, but it’s absolutely essential to our health and well being, as well as our ability to return to effectiveness in everything we do.  If we don’t deal with the lingering emotional effects of disappointment, it’s all too easy to let them fester and shape our sense of identity.  So here’s a process for clearing out old emotional stuff that isn’t serving you:

·      As mentioned above, first you give yourself license to feel it.  We’re so often taught through the words and actions of others that emotions are weak, useless impediments to be steamrolled so that we can live life on our own terms.  I find this to be horribly inaccurate, and dangerous in the long term, as repressed emotions have very real effects on our health.  Feeling uncomfortable emotions is not the point, but it is a necessary step in the process.  Emotions have messages for you that will help you, but you have to buck common thinking and be willing to tune into them in order to receive and leverage those messages.

·      Next, you need to express your emotions.  I find that the most helpful way to do this is by speaking out what you feel while Tapping.  Doing so helps your body to relax and let go of the stressful effects of difficult emotions until they’re far less bothersome.  Expression while Tapping also helps to enable new insights and thinking that will be more helpful.  It can greatly accelerate your ability to let go of those old negative thought loops that are otherwise extremely difficult to disrupt.

·      Lastly, you need to reach for a willingness to allow change.  Even if you’re not sure how it could come about, just the openness to finding comfort and positive transformation will allow your body and emotional system to continue to release old, stuck impediments and poor thinking patterns, particularly if you continue to use EFT throughout this part of the process.

All of this can sound pretty foreign in the beginning, but with a little practice it becomes such a relief to be able to actually admit and transform how you feel, and free up your thinking so you can make real progress.   Disappointment and loss need not define how you think of yourself or what you can achieve in the future.  There is actually a process you can follow that will lead you upward and onward toward better things.  You can learn to work with and customize it until it works well for your unique needs.  Periodic heartbreak at disappointment is something you may continue to experience throughout your life, since there will always be injustice, mistakes, accidents, and clashes.  Learning to honor and eventually transform it can make you a better, more compassionate, more sane human being.

Since we started within the context of political elections, I’ll round back with a few parting thoughts for when your disappointment is a matter of a goal missed or postponed (though of course these apply beyond the political sphere as well).  It’s fine to want what you want, but let’s recall that no one can know everything, or clearly see all the future effects of any event; it’s helpful to have the humility to acknowledge that your interpretation of what’s best for the world is just that—an interpretation.  Of course you’re important!  You’re also one of billions of people on this planet.  Sometimes your ego is going to want to be able to dominate the whole world, but I’m pretty sure that’s never going to happen, so let’s maybe try to have a sense of humor about that!  Even the most famous historical figures never commanded absolutely everything in creation, and there’s more competition now than ever before!  On the upside, though, there’s also more cooperation than ever before, and exciting possibilities for future solutions in which you can take part.  Give yourself some time to recover, address your thinking and your emotions, and you can find a new path forward to pursue whatever excites your interest next.  A world of opportunity will be waiting for you when you’re ready to rejoin it.