3 Coping Skills to Try When Feeling Disappointment

It felt really vulnerable and scary.  You put yourself out there, risked being seen, and the worst case scenario happened.  Maybe you tried for that job promotion, or you asked that cute guy at the coffee shop out.  Whatever it was, you took a risk and are now left feel disappointed, self critical, and a little ashamed.  

If you are a fan of Brene Brown’s work then you know that in order to truly live life in a way that is meaningful, you’ve got to show up and risk being seen.  Congratulations! Chances are if you are reading this you already did the hard part...you risked showing up and being seen. Part of taking any risk means that sometimes we are going to fall.  So how do you pick yourself up after a fall?

1. Figure out what the story is that you are telling yourself and the belief underneath that story.  When we are going through difficult feelings we can sometimes turn the situation inwards, blame ourselves, and feel embarrassed.  To work through those difficult feelings, the feelings of shame, embarrassment, disappointment you need to understand the story you are telling yourself.  Often times self talk, our inner narrative, masks a fear; I’m not good enough, people don’t like me, I’m a failure, I’m not lovable.

In my therapy practice I frequently meet with women who have recently experienced a break up or divorce.  When exploring their self talk it frequently sounds like “I hate them”, “I can’t believe I trusted them”, “I can’t trust anyone”, “I’m all alone”, “no one will ever love me again”, “I’m so stupid to think that anyone could love me”, “I should have never let myself care”.  

In digging below these statements what my client’s often discover in therapy is that they are afraid that they are not lovable, they are afraid that they are not good enough.

2.  Re-attribute the responsibility.  What are some other potential factors that contributed to the outcome.  

Using the example above, divorce or a break up, rather than buying into the belief that you are unlovable and that is why the relationship ended, ask yourself what are some other reasons for the break up?  Is it that the two of you grew apart, maybe your life started to take off and your partners life stayed stagnant. That will cause conflict in the relationship. Maybe your goals changed...he wanted kids and you never imagined wanting children.  Is it possible that alone you are great, alone your partner is great, but together the two of you are like oil and vinegar - you just don’t mix. Or perhaps no matter how hard you tried, you could never fully get to the point where the two of you were actually communicating.  

There are many things that contribute to an outcome.

3.  Focus on your success.  You took a risk, it didn’t pay off - no shame in that game.  Failure doesn’t mean anything bad about you. Failure doesn’t mean anything about the type of person you are.  Failure doesn’t mean anything about your future. Taking a risk, asking for what you want means that you are a courageous bad ass.  That’s something to celebrate, not feel bad about. When you catch yourself falling into the trap of judging yourself, feel embarrassed because you took a risk and showed up to life I want you to repeat this mantra “I am a courageous bad ass who deserves amazing things in my life”.

Want a little guidance moving beyond your disappointment? When you do therapy with me, Gwendolyn Nelson-Terry, I work with women who have experienced disappointment in many forms; job loss, relationships ending, loss of a dream like having children, putting yourself out there for a raise or promotion. Most of these disappointments are temporary but can have an emotional impact on your self worth and confidence. I can help you get to the root of what is going on, why you are feeling disappointment and I can help you move beyond that hurt, shame, and discomfort. Call 619-383-1900 to schedule a free 15 minute consultation today.

What Feelings Am I Having?

Before you can address an uncomfortable feeling you need to first be able to label the feeling that you are having.  Our bodies and our brains communicate our feelings to us in many ways. People are often surprised to learn that their body is screaming their feelings at them, communicating in ways such as back problems and stomach aches.  There is no magic formula to identifying and labeling feelings. Everyone’s body is different and everyone’s body communicates to them in different ways. It’s important for you to learn the ways that your body communicates to you.

One way to start learning about how your body communicates uncomfortable feelings to you is by doing a body scan.  A body scan is basically taking notice of your body and the ways that your body is signaling feelings to you.

To do a body scan you would close your eyes and start by just focusing on your breath.  Breathe in and out, noticing the sensation of your stomach as your breathe in and breathe out.  Once you feel relaxed and focused you can start at the top of your head and slowly scan downward just noticing the different sensations in your body.  

- Do you notice pressure at the top of your head?  

- Are you tense in your neck or shoulders?  

- How does your heart feel?  Is it racing, is it beating slowly?  

- Is your gut communicating anything to you?  

- What about your back?  

- Keep moving down the body, observing and noticing the ways that your body is communicating to you.

The first few times that you do this exercise you might not be able to label your emotions or understand the ways in which your body is communicating your feelings to you.  That’s OK - with time and practice you will start to be able to understand and notice the ways that your feelings show up.

Set an alarm on your phone to go off one time a day for the next 7 days.  Use this alarm as a reminder to do a body scan and see if you can start to notice any feelings or messages that your body is sending you.

Feelings: Good or Bad?

You may have noticed throughout my blog and website that I refer to feelings as uncomfortable and comfortable.  That’s because we therapists believe that feelings are neither good or bad, they just are. An uncomfortable feeling might be sadness, anger or anxiety.  A comfortable feeling might be joy or happiness. Noticing the ways that feelings show up in your body can help you decipher if they are comfortable or uncomfortable.

Frequently when a person experiences many uncomfortable feelings they start to develop defenses to those feelings or they start to look for ways to numb those feelings.  Some common defenses to feelings are; overworking, drinking, avoiding, and sometimes even anxiety can be a defense.

Learning to work through our defenses and to experience the core emotions below our feelings is a key step in being able to work through uncomfortable feelings and in being able to let them go.  Finding a way to access your feelings and to sit with those uncomfortable feelings is important.

This week, as your homework, think about some of the defenses that you might have developed over time that keep you from being able to experience your core emotions.

3 Ways Therapy Can Help Your Relationship

Each couple brings in a unique set of challenges and experiences that dictate their needs in couples therapy.  Your therapist can discuss with you what your needs are and can help you and your partner create goals for couples therapy.  Along with those goals that you create with your therapist there are some benefits that just go along with doing couples therapy.  

There are no guaranteed outcomes in therapy and your therapist can’t promise resolution to the problem that brought you in.  However most people that do go to couples therapy report an increase in relationship satisfaction.

Couples therapy can help you learn the right way to argue so that the problem doesn’t get bigger.  This is a huge benefit to couples therapy. This goes way beyond just using I messages when in an argument with your partner.  What I tell my couples is that I messages are an art - they go way beyond “I feel angry”. Think about some of the I messages you’ve given in your life.  Chances are one or two of them have deteriorated into you statements without you even realizing it. They may have looked something like “I feel angry when YOU forget to clean up after yourself.  I am not your mom”. See how that might look like an I statement but after some examination it’s a little more clear how that turned into a you statement. If you’ve done this don’t get upset with yourself - I messages are hard.  A trained couples therapist can help you to learn the art of a softened startup which is basically learning nice ways to bring up potentially conflictual topics with your partner. A therapist can also help you learn how to de-escalate an argument that has gone south.  Learning the right way to argue now will save you a ton of frustration in the future. Even if you and your partner don’t have any major issues between the two of you now, learning how to argue will save the two of you from having small problems turn into much larger problems.

Couples therapy can also help you to build your friendship.  Of course you are friends with your partner, you have this relationship for a reason after all.  There is some part of you that does like this person. But as we grow and change so do our partners.  Couples therapy helps people to keep the friendship in focus and provides a space and opportunity to learn about some of the ways in which your partner may have changed since the two of you started dating.  Friendship is a key component to helping couples get through tougher times in their relationships.

Couples therapy can help you learn how to talk in a way that will help your partner listen.  This goes back to what I was saying earlier about the softened start up. If we go into a tough conversation with guns blazing, ready to take down our partner because we are pissed chances are our partner will run the other way and we will be left even more frustrated because not only were we mad about the situation but now we feel unheard.  Honestly, who likes that feeling? A trained couples therapist can help you learn how to speak in a way that helps your partner to listen. In return the therapist can help your partner learn active listening skills so that when you do speak, they can really hear what it is you are trying to communicate.

Are you ready to start working on your relationship? Call today to schedule your free 15 minute phone consultation and find out how therapy might be able to help your relationship. (619) 383-1900.

Why can't I just talk to my friend? Why go to a therapist?

Why can’t I just talk to my friend (or mom, or sister, or partner)? Why go to a therapist?

Great question!  Talking to a friend, sister, or partner sometimes is enough.  But sometimes it just doesn’t cut it. When things are really challenging and the struggle has been going on for a long time, leaning on friends and family may not be the best way to work through your problems.    So why can’t you just talk to your friend, partner, sister?

First, your friend, sister, partner, mom can’t be impartial.  These are people in your life who know you very well. When you talk to them about your stress, your depression, your anxiety, it is impossible for them to be impartial.  A therapist can provide you with a safe space to explore your feelings, gain insight into what is going on, why it is going on, and can help you to identify a clear path towards feeling better.  Coming to therapy is not just about venting your problems, it’s about experiencing those feelings, learning to understand them, and working through them so that you can move on and put them in the past.  

Second, more than likely your friends and family will want to fix the problem for you.  That is wonderful, kind, and totally understandable. If I saw my friend or daughter hurting, I’d want to fix it too.  But if the problem was an easily fixed problem, you would have already done it. Going to therapy allows you space to really explore patterns in your relationships, in your moods and feelings.  Therapy helps you to gain clear insight into how some of your choices and actions are impacting your mood and feelings. Once patterns are identified and goals for feeling better are set, then the process of learning how to change some of those patterns starts.  There is never any guarantee with therapy, sometimes you feel worse before you feel better. A therapist can not promise you that you will feel better but most people that go to therapy report gaining some value from it.

Lastly, your pain may be too much for them to manage.  Think about it. When we witness someone we love struggling, it’s like a dagger to the heart.  Their pain becomes our pain. This is the same for your mom, your sister, your partner. It’s one thing to have a bad couple of days and to struggle.  But when a big problem comes up, a really tough one that you’ve maybe struggled with for a long time, a problem that brings you some deep pain, it may be a lot for your friends or family to keep holding that pain for you and with you.  A therapist is a person that is there to sit with you when you are going through tough situations and feelings. A therapist is a trained professional that knows how to walk with you into those dark places and have those tough conversations.  A therapist can hold space for you, hold your emotions and struggles, so that when you are with your partner or your family or your friends, you can really be present with them and enjoy them.

I’m not saying don’t talk to your friends and family.  In fact for many things friends and family are just the right amount of support, but sometimes people need a little more support.  

I offer a free 15 minute phone consultation and would be happy to talk with you about how I might be able to help.  Because I work online I am able to meet with clients all over California and Missouri. If you are located in California or Missouri and have been considering therapy call (619) 383-1900 or email gwendolyn@gwendolynnelsonterry.com to schedule your free 15 minute consultation.