Breaking the Cycle of Disappointment

Disappointment was the tool my parents used to keep me towing the line to the norms that were important to them. it felt like a stab in the heart when I was young when they were disappointed with me. And I still bristle at times at the use of that word.

So, David and I have been cleaning up our own cycles of disappointment lately. One thing that has really helped us is knowing the actual root of the word.

In the Online Etymological Dictionary ‘to disappoint’ has two roots- from the early 15th century “to undo an appointment or remove from office.” And later that century the modern sense “to frustrate expectations.”

Not taking someone else’s disappointment personally is made a bit easier when I look at it in terms of being ‘removed from office’. Some of the norms my parents believed in didn’t match my natural expression. So I “undid” the appointments that I didn’t agree to by being me not being what they thought I should be.

The energy that goes with disappointment is a contorted expression of love. I was confused by my parents who really did love me and yet were disappointed when I was not following the rules they set forth.

But really, disappointment results when our own will gets in the way of Divine Will- or when we try to impose our personalized will on others. The driver of our will is “You got to do it my way or the way I think it should be.”

Breaking the cycle of disappointment requires a clear loving heart. In love, we can have acceptance for ourselves and others. If my parents or I had known better we would have done differently. My parents did their best as did I.

And most of all when we act from being informed by Divine Will first, we don’t disappoint ourselves or run that energy toward another. We are acting in love and no mismatch occurs. I am no longer out of ‘appointment’ with the Divine.

If we prayerfully hold the question “What is the way right now?” and allow the answer to come, then love or Divine Will will be what shapes our actions.

We want to live in a world where dis-appointment from the Divine is healed. Where our trained habits and conditions of separation are no longer running us.

In truth, our hearts ache because of separation from love. And if God, the Divine, Source is love then when we are in alignment there is no way to be disappointed. The cycle is broken because we have closed the gap.

We welcome your comments below and look forward to hearing from you.

Love
Susan and David

Wisdom Rx