Everyone has a special dream; starting your own business, having children, climbing Mt. Everest. Mine was to sail around the Galapagos Islands and enjoy the amazing animals, plants and volcanic islands.
I was having a conversation with my husband, Steve, in the beginning of July. Our boys were away at camp and he asked me, “What do you want to do while the kids are away?” I responded, “I want to go to the Galapagos Islands.”
Steve has heard me talk about them, watch shows, and knows how much I’ve wanted to go. He suggested I check to see if there were any last minute deals. Reluctantly I did. I say reluctantly because I did not want to be disappointed if it was going to be cost prohibitive or not work out. I hate feeling disappointed, especially when it’s my lifelong dream.
I looked. There was a great deal. I took it. I left two weeks later, flying from DC to Miami, then from there to Ecuador. Another flight, 600 miles west in the Pacific Ocean, I would finally realize my dream.
The flight from DC to Miami was uneventful. I boarded the next flight, the cabin door closed, engines on and we were ready to take off. Then the Captain came on the speaker and said, “Everyone deplane, we are delaying our flight due to a volcanic eruption in Ecuador. We will try again tomorrow at 6:00 am. Be back at the airport at 4:00 am. We are not removing your bags from the plane. Have a nice day.”
“NOOOOOOOOO!!!!”
Death of a dream by a volcano.
Disappointment.
I immediately booked a hotel room in the airport, canceled my hotel in Guayaquil, Ecuador and called my best friend. She’s my best friend because I knew I could call her and sob, slobber all over myself, be wildly pessimistic, fatalistic; a complete mess.
It took awhile for me to calm down. Then I got angry. I have no control over volcanoes or the airlines holding my luggage. I can’t make the flight leave in the morning, or fly a plane to catch my boat.
Here’s what I learned from this experience:
Deal with disappointment: we all want to avoid feeling disappointed.
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- The person who says they want to marry you changes their mind.
- The promotion you worked for months to get is given to someone else.
- The dream car you just bought is dented on the first day.
“Don’t let today’s disappointments cast a shadow on tomorrow’s dreams.” Unknown
HOW TO BOUNCE BACK FROM DISAPPOINTMENT
- Call a friend at GET IT OUT OF YOU!
Express what’s inside you to get it out. It’s uncomfortable to be so vulnerable but getting it out means it doesn’t stay inside you and come back for processing later, at a worse time, and mess up the next situation.
After I called my friend, I walked up five flights in the parking garage, threw my water bottle as hard as I could on the ground and repeatedly yelled, “BLANK YOU VOLCANO!!!” It took all five flights to get it out of my system.
- Beware “The Committee” or Watch out for Backlash
The committee is the set of voices in your head that drive you crazy, criticize you and generally try to ruin your life. Watch out for the negative tapes that come up, “See, you got too big for your britches and the universe showed you! You’re so stupid! Why didn’t you plan for the volcano erupting? What were you thinking? I told you NOT to go for your dreams because you’ll be too disappointed if it doesn’t happen. You should have listened to me. Who do you think you are? Go back to being like others. Stop being selfish.”
Those voices are really just a bunch of scared kids running wild. Take the time to calm down and answer those questions. “I know you are disappointed and I will do everything possible to correct this.” “ I hear you are scared and I will handle this situation. You can go play now.” It’s cheesy but it works.
- Reframe, reframe, reframe.
This is the process of changing the way you see a situation and find alternative ways to view it. Doing this reduces stress and increases access to your frontal lobe, the executive thinking part of your brain.
This is called your Explanatory Style – it a person’s habit of explaining negative events to themselves. It is self-talk after an experience.
Ask yourself these three questions:
A pessimistic explanatory style state this situation is:
“Is it permanent?” It will last forever.
“Is it personal?” I’m the one to blame for this.
“Is it pervasive? The causes are widespread rather than specific to the situation.
An optimistic explanatory style states this situation is:
Temporary – volcanoes don’t erupt all the time
External – it’s a volcano erupting, not me doing anything to cause the delay
Specific – this rarely happens. I could not plan for it but can respond to this circumstance.
Dispute the pessimistic responses. The more you do this, the faster you bounce back from disappointment and make better decisions.
- Find Acceptance
This is hard to do. I want to hide, blame others, and be afraid. Instead, I can practice acceptance. I don’t have to like the situation, the feelings, and the uncertainty. But I can accept it. Acceptance is a choice.
Just like working out to build muscles is a choice, learning to accept disappoint happens is a choice too. Both have positive results.
How did it turn out? I went to the gate, put on my head phones and listened to 70’s rock-n-roll music as loud as I could tolerate it. Everyone around me was practicing pessimistic explanatory style. I was listening to talking heads avoiding all the chatter. I’ll let this picture of a blue-footed booby answer this question.
