{"id":3356,"date":"2013-10-11T18:07:01","date_gmt":"2013-10-11T15:07:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/?p=3356"},"modified":"2013-10-11T18:07:01","modified_gmt":"2013-10-11T15:07:01","slug":"ways-to-overcome-disappointment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/ways-to-overcome-disappointment\/","title":{"rendered":"Ways to Overcome Disappointment"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/div>\n

 <\/p>\n

\n

\u201cWe would never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world,\u201d wrote Helen Keller.<\/p>\n

How I wish she were wrong.<\/p>\n

Disappointments leave us with the unpleasant task of squashing, crushing, and pinching lemons to extract any and all juice.<\/p>\n

Here, then, are a few of my techniques to turn sour into sweet, to try my best to overcome disappointment.<\/p>\n

1. Throw away the evidence<\/strong><\/p>\n

Albert Einstein failed his college entrance exam. Walt Disney was fired from his first media job. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team. Get it?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

2. Stay in the mud<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe lotus flower blooms most beautifully from the deepest and thickest mud,\u201d says a Buddhist proverb, just in case you thought all crap was bad.<\/p>\n

3. Make a pearl<\/strong><\/p>\n

Allow your disappointment to form a pearl just as an oyster does when an irritating grain of sand gets inside its shell, but grab the pearl before the sand gets in your eyes.<\/p>\n

4. Ignore the critics<\/strong><\/p>\n

Success is one percent talent, 99 perspiration. Take it from a writer whose eighth-grade paper was read aloud as an example of how NOT to write.<\/p>\n

5. Grow your roots<\/strong><\/p>\n

Although the bamboo is the fastest-growing plant on Earth, it looks lazy at first because there is no branching \u2026 just growing lots of deep and wide roots. At the right time, though, the evergreen is capable of surging as fast as 48 inches in 24 hours. So are we \u2026 if we grow strong roots.<\/p>\n

6. Persevere<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe greatest oak was once a little nut who held its ground.\u201d\u2013Author Unknown<\/p>\n

7. Don\u2019t rush the process<\/strong><\/p>\n

Only in struggling to emerge from a small hole in the cocoon does a butterfly form wings strong enough to fly. Should you try to help a butterfly by tearing open the cocoon, the poor thing won\u2019t sprout wings, or if it does, its friends will make fun of it.<\/p>\n

8. Protect yourself<\/strong><\/p>\n

Avoid the highly educated relative who might tell you \u201call things happen for a reason\u201d or that you somehow attracted this disappointment with the wrong thoughts. Build an imaginary bubble and hide inside.<\/p>\n

9. Stay big<\/strong><\/p>\n

Newspaper columnist Ann Landers once wrote, \u201cExpect trouble as an inevitable part of life, and when it comes, hold your head high. Look it squarely in the eye, and say, \u201cI will be bigger than you. You cannot defeat me.\u201d For once in your life, the bigger you are, the better!<\/p>\n

10. Allow cracks<\/strong><\/p>\n

A crack in your marriage, career, or personal plans doesn\u2019t mean that your life is broken. According to Canadian singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen, \u201cThere is a crack, a crack in everything. That\u2019s how the light gets in.\u201d<\/p>\n

11. Write about it<\/strong><\/p>\n

Recent research by Dr. James Pennebaker, chair of the psychology program at the University of Texas, has concluded that writing about painful feelings and emotional events relieves stress and promotes healing on many levels. So keep a journal.<\/p>\n

12. Back up<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sometimes you can\u2019t make sense of a picture until you back up. Up close all you see is dots \u2026 lots of them in different shapes and colors. But with some distance the painting comes alive. It tells a story.<\/p>\n

13. Stand up again.<\/strong><\/p>\n

A Japanese proverb says, \u201cfall seven times, stand up eight.\u201d Notice there is no mention of sitting down when you\u2019re tired, or crawling when you\u2019re scared.<\/p>\n

14. Join the race<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the human race I\u2019m talking about. Because no one is perfect. The human experience is an exercise in collecting disappointments and mistakes, ruminating on them for a little bit, and turning them into wisdom.<\/p>\n

15. Take the fork<\/strong><\/p>\n

Yogi Berra once said, \u201cWhen you come to the fork in the road, take it\u201d \u2026 meaning: it doesn\u2019t matter which direction you choose as long as you keep moving.<\/p>\n

16. Start over<\/strong><\/p>\n

Every disappointment is an opportunity to start over. A white piece of paper. And if this time you still can\u2019t color within the lines, you get another blank sheet, as many new beginnings as you want.<\/p>\n

17. Be gentle<\/strong><\/p>\n

Don\u2019t scream at yourself. Speak to yourself with loving kindness, the same way you would to your friend who was just dealt a big, fat, unfair blow.<\/p>\n

18. Get directions<\/strong><\/p>\n

Oprah Winfrey was taken off the air in Baltimore at the start of her career, then she was given a shot at a talk show. Says Oprah: \u201cI have learned that failure is really God\u2019s way of saying, \u2018Excuse me, you\u2019re moving in the wrong direction\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

19. Dance in the rain<\/strong><\/p>\n

My mom once told me, \u201cYou can\u2019t wait for the storm to be over. You have to learn how to dance in the rain.\u201d<\/p>\n

20. Believe in miracles<\/strong><\/p>\n

I\u2019ve witnessed enough miracles in my life to know they happen \u2026 usually when I least expect it.<\/p>\n

21. Hang on to hope<\/strong><\/p>\n

There is one thing that never, ever disappoints. And that\u2019s hope. Hold on to it forever.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  \u201cWe would never learn to be brave and patient if there were only joy in the world,\u201d wrote Helen Keller. How I wish she were wrong. Disappointments leave us with the unpleasant task of squashing, crushing, and pinching lemons to extract any and all juice. Here, then, are a few of my techniques to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3685,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[427],"tags":[485,1123,857,1126,763,1503,486,528,1124,1127,1125],"class_list":["post-3356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-427","tag-adel","tag-brave","tag-disappointment","tag-evidence","tag-frustration","tag-psychiatry","tag-serag","tag-seragpsych","tag-seragpsych-comwordpress","tag-throw","tag-wagih","entry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3356"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3358,"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3356\/revisions\/3358"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3685"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/seragpsych.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}