Our desperate attempt to avoid disappointment

I think one of the greatest hidden motivations behind human behavior is our desperate attempt to avoid disappointment.
And I will also add the fear of disappointing others.
Literally disappointment has become a mind warping factor in so many people’s lives.
In my years of pastoral care and counseling, transformational life coaching and leadership coaching and development consulting I have learned the power of disappointment.
More accurately the control the emotion called disappointment has over us.
We try to mitigate it.
Avoid it.
Hide it.
Perform to outrun it.
And none of it worked.
I started to see a pattern in people that were not living their lives to the fullest God had for them.
But in order to help others…
I first had to understand and overcome this in myself so I am able to recognize how it dictates and controls the way others see themselves, live their lives or more accurately don’t live the lives they were created for.
Just like I did.
And if I’m completely transparent…catch myself still doing at times.
Disappointment isn’t just about plans that didn’t work out.
Really understanding what disappointment is will help you understand why you run from it so hard.
It isn’t simply a “missed appointment” as its high level definition suggests.
For many of us, disappointment has a history.
It was the father who never came.
The mother who couldn’t protect us.
The relationship that ended.
The promise that was broken.
The prayer that seemed unanswered.
The hope that was crushed.
The people that didn’t show up.
The life that you haven’t fully lived.
What began as disappointment slowly became a belief.
I really need you to hear and understand this part…
Disappointment is a state of being that has many feelings attached to it. And living from the state of disappointment cause you to believe things about yourself, God, the world and others that are limiting you.
I call this the belief lid
The lid in your mind that doesn’t allow you to see what’s possible because you are too busy trying to protect yourself from what you believe is inevitable.
I have to protect myself because no one else will.
I have to make them see me or I will disappear.
I need to be small so no one thinks I’m too much.
If I don’t expect too much from myself and others and even God then I won’t be …
Disappointed.
As if it’s the worst emotion to have.
So we started controlling.
We control our expectations.
We control our emotions, not well but we try to not feel.
We control our relationships.
We control how vulnerable we will be.
We control how much we hoped and what we allow ourselves to hope for.
We control how others see us or try to.
We control how others treat us despite how we treat ourselves.
We control what we believed is possible.
Some of us became people pleasers because disappointing someone else felt unbearable.
Some of us became perfectionist because we believed that would make us worthy or safe.
Others stopped dreaming because disappointment hurt too much.
Some settled for lives they didn’t really want because at least disappointment couldn’t find them there.
I know, because I did it.
I spent years trying to build a life where disappointment couldn’t reach me.
Then I became a parent and unknowingly tried to do the same for my children
As if disappointment was something they needed to be rescued from instead of something they needed to learn to walk through with God.
That’s where the participation trophies came from btw 😉
But can you trust me on this…I promise…disappointment isn’t deadly.
It’s painful.
But did you die though.
Do you know anyone that died from disappointment?
I know people that live from it. But I’ve never known anyone to die from disappointment.
I see people stop hoping.
Stop believing.
Stop loving.
Stop trying.
Stop honoring themselves.
Because their focus in life has become mitigating disappointment.
And here’s the truth that set me free…
At some point there is a collision between the expectations we have formed of ourselves , God and others and the life God never promised.
Some of the expectations I mourned weren’t stolen from me.
They were never guaranteed in the first place.
Perfect relationships.
Constant approval.
A life without loss.
Love and belonging.
People who never leave.
Plans that always work.
Somewhere along the way I realized I wasn’t actually trusting God.
I was trusting my expectations of what I thought God should give me.
😬 let’s pause for a moment.
I was trusting MY expectations of what I thought God should give me.
I mean life taught me this but I perfected the process.
Freedom came when I stopped asking life to fulfill me. For you to see me. For them to approve of me.
Freedom came when I stopped the silent fear of disappointment.
Nothing in this world was ever designed to give me a life. Gods the only Source of life there is.
Nothing will ever fill me.
Not even the things I have expected to get fulfillment from…
Not success.
Not marriage.
Not ministry.
Not my children.
Not other people’s opinions.
Not the future I imagined.
Only Christ can hold that kind of weight.
The weight of being my Source.
Everything else I tried to get meaning, approval and value from has… you guessed it… disappointed me.
Probably not intentionally.
But the outcome was the same.
The beautiful irony is that when God becomes enough, disappointment loses its power to control you.
When you allow God to take the belief lid off of your mind and heart you start to see yourself from Love. Your expectations are no longer in the things this world offers.
You can still grieve.
You can still hope.
You can still dream.
But your peace no longer rises and falls with the outcome.
That is where I live.
Because my life isn’t built on what I’m hoping will happen.
It’s built on the One who has already given me everything I truly need.
When I stopped trying to protect myself from disappointment…
I finally became free enough to live with open hands.
A mind renewed in Truth and a hope that was not in this world but only in HIM.
I still get disappointed.
I still have hope for things I can’t yet see…
But I no longer hope in the outcome.
I no longer hope in the world. Or others or even myself.
My hope is in the Lord.