Can you let yourself be disappointed?

About the wisdom of Fear

CARE.CHECK*: What is your relationship with disappointment?

Have you ever thought about it?

Is it an emotion that you try to brush aside, repress, push through, or ignore so compulsively you don’t even feel it anymore?

Is it an emotion you know how to comfort yourself through—with tenderness, patience, grace and equanimity?

Was it allowed to feel disappointed when you were a child?

How do you feel at the idea of disappointing someone else?

There’s so much beauty and love to find in those emotional corners that trigger our shame to come forth. I hope that this week’s letter will feel like a heartwarming torch guiding you in the forest of your psyche.

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 Hi Care.Friend,

What is new for you this week?

On the other end, is something sunsetting that needs honoring, reverence and maybe even celebration?

Does something feel extra tender, does something feel extra yummy?

OR does everything feel pretty numb right now—and if so, can we let that be okay? Can we just let it be…

Trusting that what is is what needs to be.

It’s hard though, right? To let it be okay (whatever “it” is). 

Yet, I’m humbled everyday by this constant witnessing of how what is happening is often the origin of my pain, but how my bracing against it is ALWAYS the origin of my suffering.

And there’s an emotion I’ve been particularly bracing against lately: DISAPPOINTMENT.

Something within my system still registers disappointment as “not allowed”, dangerous, ungrateful, and WRONG.

It’s strange because witnessing disappointment in others does not feel triggering to me… All I want to do is lean in and help! Because no matter how small, disappointment always hurts.

Additionally, my coach asked me yesterday if I felt like disappointment and gratitude could coexist… and I do! So why is a part of me so convinced that admitting any kind of disappointment would render me unequivocally ungrateful?—even when I’m literally within me, thereby ensured that I am indeed genuinely grateful for the opportunity, even when I’m crushed by the results.

I’m not sure what’s going on here... I’m not coming with answers today! I’m coming with questions.

I am on a quest for myself, for my heart voice. And I’ve noticed that I’m looking for it in the only place where it cannot be found: in the outside world. 

I went to a workshop this weekend, guided by the incomparable Liz Gilbert and she asked us to let our Fear write us a letter. This is not the first time I do this very potent and enlightening exercise so most of what I uncovered I was already very aware of.

Actually, I mostly felt relieved—because I could witness that most of those core fears do not feel so vibrant anymore. 

But two fears came up that I didn’t expect to see on paper. The first thing that Fear told me is “I am afraid that you can’t trust.” I remember thinking that Fear meant to say “I am afraid I can’t trust YOU,” but that is NOT what was written. What was written is “I can’t trust” period. And that one resonated deeply. 

What is happening is often the origin of my pain,

but my bracing against it is ALWAYS the origin of my suffering.

I am often afraid that I can’t trust. Trust you, me, Life (aka the God of my understanding), anyone… anything. A part of me is afraid this ability is lost forever and that there’s no recovering it.

Now, I also know it’s not true.

I trust Life, I’ve proven this to me. I trust Love, wholeheartedly. I’m learning how to trust me, day by day, bit by bit. And there are people around me that my heart trusts completely!

But STILL. It caught my attention and I am glad it did. Because there can’t be true love without trust and it reminded me that I can only trust when my armor is off. 

My armor is not off as often as I would like it to be…

I've been shading many layers of it—including my belief that I can know better than anyone else what is good for them and including my white coat. Including the title “Doctor” that holds so much power in this culture and yet, I have learned, means so very little. Including the compulsive smile that was meant to keep me safe in this world and only kept me feeling imprisoned, disingenuous and taken advantage of. Including overworking and including wine. Including disembodiment, the quest for adrenaline highs and the glorification of exhaustion and numbness. BUT my armor is still thick.

And my armor is DEFINITELY not off when I feel disappointed. 

I’m looking for my heart voice in the only place where it cannot be found:

in the outside world. 

During the weekend, for many reasons that have nothing to do with Magic Liz, I felt deeply disappointed… and it felt so unsafe for me.

A part of me was panicking: “What if people can see it? What will they think of me? What will it do to them? What will they do to me…” So I armored up through every inch of my skin.

One thing that I genuinely love witnessing though was how much it hurts for me now to turn into metal the soft tender loving blanket that is my skin. That’s progress! That means I do have moments where I walk in the world bare skin.

I was yearning to catch a moment to catch my heart, but it didn’t come and I left this retreat utterly exhausted.

Which again means that I left DISAPPOINTED—and so my armor is extra sticky right now! Yes, two days later, it’s still making me feel tight, separated, lonely and disconnected. 

There can’t be true love without trust

and I can only trust when my armor is off. 

It took me a while to learn that our armors do not necessarily appear as a shield. I don’t feel anger right now. I don’t feel fragile or attacked...  I don’t feel like attacking anybody! My current armor is not made up of fight-or-flight energy.

So I can have lunch with my wonderful friends and see the beauty that surrounds me! I could even sing from heart voice yesterday, and that felt so healing…

But what I do feel is rejected. 

My current armor feels like a suffocating invisibility cloak woven with the thread of a doomsday prophecy.

Because disappointment led to full-on rejection where I grew up, and I haven’t been able yet to unburden that part of me that believes that if I am disappointed, I am not allowed to exist. 

When I expressed disappointment, the adults around me just couldn’t handle it.

My mother would collapse into rage and rise back up immediately as a dragon whose flames were all focused on me (Oh to be chosen… what a gift). But that was not what hurt most—that is not what still feels like a death sentence to me. 

Because the worst part was that when I felt disappointed, my father would do one of three things—and more often than not all three—he would look utterly crushed and liquify into shame, lamenting about how he had failed at everything (which was beyond terrifying to me: I made Daddy sad! What’s wrong with me?), he would blame me for making my mother mad and ruining everybody’s day (and I believed him… Daddy is so right, what is wrong with me??), and/or he would leave. He would just leave. He would physically leave the room and disappear. Or if he stayed, he would wall himself into silence for hours (if not days, if not weeks).

To this day, silence still feels like punishment to me. There’s no shaking this feeling. No matter what I try to tell myself, when someone is silent? They’re punishing me. Rationally, I know they’re not, but the felt experience is undeniable. 

How much it hurts to turn into metal

the soft tender loving blanket that is our skin.

That’s okay (sort of). I’m used to it, and I know that if I wait a little longer, the silence will end and I will witness that no one was mad at me! But a part of me will still need a lot of care and love and reassurance from me—because that wound is deep.

And that brings me to my second fear, because silence is linked to both.

This one surprised me the most. Fear wrote “I am afraid that no one will ever read what I write or listen to my songs because my truth doesn’t matter.”

I had no idea I was afraid of that and yet, that fear is real—I feel it vividly now that I’m aware of it. And it’s a tough one to reckon with because truth is so important to me. It is one of my deepest values.

Truth seeking often feels like the reason I wake up in the morning. And both my artistic and healing journeys are dedicated to truth in many ways…

So if my truth doesn’t matter, it feels like I need to not exist.

The good news is that rationally, again, but also WHOLEHEARTEDLY, I know that my truth matters. 

Because I know how much yours does! 

Because our truth is what heals us and liberates us. 

Because our truth is the source of our liveliness: it gives us JOY—and if not joy, it gives us relief, meaning and peace. 

Our truth gives us back to ourselves, and once we are our own, we can find our swanhood and we can find our swan tribe (I wrote about that HERE). 

Our truth matters so much. Everybody’s truth matters, because truth is life giving. I believe we came here as vessels of life, whose essence is creativity and that we’re meant to serve creativity by creating—and we can only find what we’re meant to create by connecting to our truth.

When someone finds the courage—and LOVE—to reclaim their truths and break away from everything they’ve been taught from their family of origins of culture (which doesn’t mean rejecting everything but only remembering that we are free to keep the teachings that feel true to OUR hearts, and to let go of those that are not cleared by our guts or don’t resonate within our entire bodies), they heal…

And when they heal, so do we.

Everybody’s truth matters, and I have learned a while back that “everybody” includes me.

It’s not always obvious to us though, is it? Everybody deserves love, but what about us? Yes, rest is good for everybody, but maybe we should work a little more before we can be worthy of having some, shouldn’t we? Everybody deserves grace but we’re the exception. Everybody needs help sometimes, but not us—not today, not if there’s anything left within us, not if there’s any way to do it alone. 

Still… everybody includes me; so when I believe that something indeed applies to everybody, it allows me to question why I can’t believe that it applies to me.

My truth matters even when nobody reads it. It matters to my heart, it matters to Love, it matters to me.

I just need to remember that it can be ENOUGH even if it is just for me.

But now I see how silence plays a part in this, since my system registers silence as rejection… Which means that when it looks like nobody is reading what I write—or listening to my songs that I do not share: a very tortuous self-prophecy—that gets translated in my unconscious as “I am being rejected”.

Hence the belief that my truth doesn’t matter (and that I shouldn't exist).

So here’s my takeaway from all of this:

Our Fear needs us and we need our Fear.

We need to understand our Fear INTIMATELY and to listen to everything Fear has to say.

Because Fear is the guardian of our deepest wounds and only by tending to our Fear can we find the blood leak that is keeping us feeling so drained, vulnerable, isolated.

Only by listening to that little voice, can we connect to those very young parts of us that do not know that we’re safe, that we’re loved, that there is beauty, support and grace available right around us.

Only by surrendering to Fear, can we truly drop back into our body and find the sacredness that lives at the core of our being.

Only by hugging our Fear can we reclaim our sense of self, our agency, our tenderness, our power and our ability to feel.

Only by remembering our truth can we heal—and at the root of our truth lies our deepest fears.

Only by understanding our Fear, can we truly understand ourselves and what keeps us stuck, armored up, cold and unsure of whether we belong in a world, in which it is both impossible and deathly to fit in.

Our Fear is the embodiment of our humanness, yes, but it is also the gateway to our humanity.

Our Fear shows us what feels unlovable within ourselves, but more importantly it shows us which parts of us are most in need of our own loving.

Fear shows us where there is no light yet, so that we can bring the light in.

Fear is here to let us know how to love ourselves fiercely, deeply, reverently.

Fear is here to remind us that we are very tender beings that need constant care and that are inherently worthy of it.

Fear is the only ingredient that our heart needs to create courage! Courage is Fear touched by heart alchemy.

And courage is of paramount importance for human beings, because as Miracle Maya Angelou reminded us:

“Courage is the most important of all the virtues, because without courage you can't practice any other virtue consistently.” 

And finally dear Care.check, I have learned—and keep relearning—that only by meeting and healing our Fear can we ever become who we’re meant to be, because learning how to Love our Fear back home is how we learn HOW to love unconditionally.

Only by hugging our Fear can we truly reclaim our ability to feel.

I can trust. 

I know that because I trust you… 

And my truth matters.

Because yours do. 

And because someone else’s truth has always been what brought me back to mine! So it has to mean that my truth can lead you back to you.

MY TRUTH HEALS ME—and when I heal me, whether any of us is aware of it or not, I heal you.

And what heals you, heals me!

Yes… Life is actually that beautiful and kind.

Love your Fear and your truth will appear.

With kindness, love and light—knowing that all three are born in the sacred darkness that we do not need to fear anymore.

leo