The Beauty of Disappointment

I recently, along with some of my close friends, experienced the bitter sting of disappointment. 

I had ventured down a potential path where I was unsure of what I wanted but spent many days thinking, ruminating, and marinating in options and potential scenarios. It was so easy for me to get stuck in the over analyzing of whether something may or may not be right for me. So easy, that it became innate in how I would think about the situation. And then, it didn’t turn out the way I thought it would.

Disappointment makes you look in the mirror and admit that you had little control over whether or not the thing you’ve been worrying and overanalyzing even pans out the way you want it to. Disappointment is painful.  But, the beauty of disappointment is that it forces self awareness.

Disappointment is a friend to transformation, a call to both accuracy and generosity in the assessment of our self and others, a test of sincerity and a catalyst of resilience. Disappointment is just the initial meeting with the frontier of an evolving life, an invitation to reality, which we expected to be one particular way and turns out to be another, often something more difficult, more overwhelming and strangely, in the end, more rewarding.

– David Whyte

I was reminded of a powerful Huffington Post article that has become part of my weekly, if not daily, mindfulness practice. It speaks about timing and how important practicing self-compassion is in times of disappointment or uncertainty. And,  it reminds me of something very important: Our experience cannot always be manipulated.

And, sometimes the experience we are meant to have is that of beautiful disappointment.