Learn to Feel Disappointment – Dr. Walter J. Matweychuk
In Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT), one distinguishing feature is that we want you to feel healthy negative emotions when you do not get what you want, desire, or prefer. We also want you to feel a healthy feeling of concern when you face a threat to what you have or hold dear. Unlike unhealthy negative emotions, which are self-defeating, healthy negative emotions help us acknowledge the existence of adversity or its possible future occurrence. These helpful negative emotions enable us to do something to address the problem when there is a viable solution. Otherwise, healthy negative emotions allow us to live reasonably happily with those aspects of life that we cannot change or prevent.
I recently wrote on the value of the healthy negative emotion of concern. I often say concern keeps us out of trouble. Concern helps us get started at doing something or stop doing something when it is the right time. When we are anxious, we tend to avoid constructive action to meet a threat. We do not start to address the problem or threat we face. Unlike anxiety, the healthy negative emotion of concern helps us strategically mobilize ourselves to handle a threat.
In addition to my regard for the healthy negative emotion of concern, there is also great value in learning to cultivate feelings of disappointment in response to not getting what we want, desire, or prefer. Think of this for a moment. All humans will ultimately face situations in life where other people do not give them what they want, life does not go favorably for them, or the individual themselves creates some problem through their poor judgment or missteps. In these negative situations, one could feel angry, hurt, depressed, anxious, or shameful. These unhealthy emotions would result from a rigid attitude that other people must give them what they want or act as the individual would desire, that life must go favorably, or that the individual themselves must perform ideally in situations they believe they absolutely need to do so. These unhealthy negative emotions will not only reduce one’s well-being, but they will also increase the likelihood of a self-defeating response to adversity. However, when we have disciplined our minds to hold a flexible attitude towards obtaining our goals and desires, and then fail to receive or achieve these goals and desires, we experience a healthy feeling of disappointment. The healthy negative emotion of disappointment is an acknowledgment that something of value to us has not occurred. Not only is the feeling of disappointment feedback from within that we have detected that things have not gone as we desired, but it is also what I like to call a “clean-burning fuel” and thereby provides motivation to address what has not gone our way. When under the motivational influence of disappointment, we are activated but not over or under activated. If we depress ourselves upon experiencing a loss or failure by holding a rigid demand like “this absolutely should not have happened to me,” it is unlikely we will have sufficient energy to address the loss or failure constructively. We are de-energized by the unhealthy feeling of depression.
When we anger ourselves over a personal rule that another person breaks, an insult that someone hurls at us, or a mistake we have made, we rigidly believe “this absolutely must not happen.” Our unhealthy anger is likely to over-activate us. Emotional overactivation is exhausting and can lead to very negative consequences. While under the spell of unhealthy anger, we may say or do things we may very well come to regret in the future. We might tell someone off for “angering us,” which feels good in the short run but could hurt us in the long run. We may impulsively throw or break something in anger or, worse yet, strike the person who has transgressed our rule. Tragic consequences can come from this sort of emotional overactivation.
Disappointment in response to not getting what we want can range from mild to quite strong. The intensity of disappointment is a result of the importance of the matter at hand. If we hold a flexible attitude towards something of great importance, this interaction will generate a strong feeling of disappointment when things do not go as we wish. We will feel more significant disappointment when the matter is of greater importance than when it is of lesser relative importance. However, great disappointment is never equal to a little depression, mild anger, slight hurt, or shame. These unhealthy negative emotions never overlap with disappointment because they squarely rest on the stance that we want what we want. We do not like what has occurred, but we remain firmly flexible in the mindset that we do not have to have what we want or desire. Depression, anger, hurt, and shame result from holding a rigid attitude towards getting what we want or desire. A flexible mindset is practical because, in this world, things will not always happen according to our masterplan. In this world, other people will not always do what we want or what is right or best but are more likely to do what they want or think is right. Even with our efforts to pursue our self-adopted goals and standards, we will error and fail. We live in a challenging world with fallible humans, and we, too, are highly imperfect and possess an incurable error-making tendency. Disappointment is sensible. Disappointment works. Disappointment allows us to acknowledge a negative situation and acknowledge that it deviates from our preference or strong desire. Disappointment also acknowledges that all the conditions are in place for a particular negative state of affairs to exist. Disappointment helps us to feel inclined and to take action to attempt to change what we can change strategically. When this is not possible or slow to come about, the healthy feeling of disappointment allows us to have some degree of happiness even though we did not get what we want. Disappointment will enable us to healthily and unconditionally accept our self, others, and life. In REBT, unconditional self, other, and life acceptance are the foundation for emotional health.
A long time ago, I led groups in New York City with Dr. Ellis, the originator of Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy. I recall he used to say to our group members, “Keep your wishes and wants but give up your musts!” This phrase has stuck with me over the years, and I consider it to be sage advice. So I pass onto you that you would be well advised to have your life priorities and know what you want. Then tenaciously seek to get what you want from the world and other people, but don’t be a spoiled sport. See that the human condition is such that we will not always get what we want. We do not live in a utopia. If you demand that life always go your way, other people always give you what you want or expect, and for you to perform always well, you will experience a great deal of emotional disturbance in this unpredictable and uncontrollable world. These three rigid ideas will cause you to feel a whole range of unhealthy negative emotions and self-defeating behavior. You have a perfect right to want what you want, but discipline your mind to keep your “wants” as wants. Remain vigilant not to transform your wants into absolute demands, which will be easy to do when what you want is of great importance to you. With practice, you can mature as a human and learn to cultivate disappointment when life does not go your way. You can get good at feeling disappointment. Try it and see for yourself. Disappointment works!
Bottom line: Keep your wishes and wants but give up your musts!