8 Ways to Manage Your Mind & Deal with Disappointment

It was all I could think about. 

For almost 3 years, getting pregnant was the only thing on my mind while walking to and from work, washing the dishes at night or when running and working out. 

Every book I picked up was about pregnancy. Every chance I had, I would read about birth, pregnancy and becoming the mom of a baby in my 40s.

I thought about my maternity wardrobe. And how I’d deal with the changes an infant would bring to our life. I imagined how we’d split up feedings. And thought about how we would pay for college.

Then there were the appointments with the fertility specialists. The jumbo packs of ovulation predictor tests, the pills and shots, and the romance of timing sex. 

During the 2-week wait, every strange symptom was a reason to wonder—an extra powerful sense of smell, crying too much at a commercial, a pinch in my abdomen. I Googled every sign and then pulled out my calendar to see what my due date would be and imagined what it would be like to have an infant in our home in time for Christmas, Easter or Halloween.  

My mind was totally focused on getting pregnant.

But I ended up having a series of disappointments, month after month.

And then we got the news from the fertility doctor. The treatments weren't working. 

How do you cope with your disappointment when your plans aren’t turning out the way you hoped they would? 

For me, it was not getting pregnant. For you, maybe your business is falling apart because the pandemic means people aren’t buying clothes, traveling, or eating out. Or with a compromised immune system, it may be months before you can safely leave the house. 

Whatever the case may be, life as you envisioned it isn’t happening. 

How do you accept what’s occurring and move forward?

Radical acceptance for accepting life as it is

Radical acceptance is a mind skill rooted in mindfulness and Buddhist philosophy that helps with managing the emotions that come with having a problem that can’t be solved. 

Radical acceptance is about accepting life as it is and not resisting what’s occurring. 

This is easiest to understand using the Buddhist story of the 2nd arrow. 

It goes like this. You’re out in the field hunting, and you get hit by an arrow. 

The 1st arrow brings the pain of being hit. You say, “ouch, this hurts”. 

The 2nd arrow comes from our emotional response to the first arrow. It’s the reaction you have to being hit. The “this can’t be happening” or “this is so unfair” or “if only I’d done that instead” as if these reactions can change what’s happened. Stepping on the mental merry-go-round and beating yourself up or fighting what’s occurred is called resistance. 

And resisting brings its own pain. 

As I’ve noticed for myself, resistance thinking often brings up past disappointments, and leads me to think, “this kind of thing always happens to me”. Then I’m suffering from the weight of those memories, in addition to what’s happening now. 

While we cannot control the 1st arrow, we have some choice in whether or not the archer hits us with a 2nd arrow. 

Radical acceptance asks you to accept life as it is. Feel the pain of the first arrow. Comfort yourself through the pain as you would a child in distress, with unconditional, non-judgmental compassion. 

Radical acceptance is a mind skill that takes practice. So start with something small. 

I tried it on Memorial Day. A day that I wanted warm sunshine but instead I got grey, overcast skies. 

Sun gives my mood a boost on yet another day of sheltering at home during the pandemic. 

I’m very disappointed it’s cloudy and I can feel my mood suffering. It’s the first arrow. 

I grumble and complain about the lack of sun. The second arrow is hitting. I whine and moan, “why is this happening”, “this is our 8th day without sun”, and “this can’t be like two summers ago when all we had was rain, I can’t take that.”

My disappointment is genuine. And the resistance thinking is weighing me down. I label and notice the feelings in my body as they come up so they have room to pass through me. I look for a little space to emerge between the resistance thoughts. 

I see how this is a mind skill that needs to be practiced and learned. My emotions are heavy and relief does not come quickly. But eventually my complaints slow down and I can feel that I’m accepting what is occurring. I’m co-existing with the grey day. I’m not approving of it, I’m just letting it be what it is. I’m not fighting against it any more. 

Once you accept what is occurring, you can make a plan to cope. 

We go for a walk. I turn on music when we get home. What I remember is that music and exercise boost my mood the same way that sunshine does. How interesting. There’s more than one way to boost my mood. 

Does that mean there may be more than one way to find happiness and fulfillment? 

Acceptance is one step towards being able to cope.

Looking for a change in perspective is another. 

How to deal with disappointment

When something isn’t working the way you want it to, naturally, you look for other ways to make it work. For us, it was fertility treatments. And then later, adoption, which we ruled out. 

What helped me move forward with building a life that didn’t involve motherhood was changing my mindset and falling back on some essential beliefs that I have about life.

1. Everything happens for a reason. Right now I don’t understand why this is happening, but one day I will. 

2. My life has a purpose. If I’m not getting pregnant, perhaps being a mother isn’t part of that purpose. I need to keep looking for my purpose.

3. The Universe has a plan for my life. Perhaps getting pregnant isn’t part of my life plan. If the Universe wanted me to get pregnant, it would happen. 

4. The Universe is leaving a space in my life for something better to come in. In time, all will be revealed. 

5. There’s more than one road to happiness and fulfillment. When I repeatedly focus on something I want, my desire for it expands. Are there other passions I can channel my energy into to find meaning and purpose?

6. By remembering the worst times of my life, I can see that I’ve overcome hard times before. And that I’ve got what it takes to endure. I can get through this, too.

7. Look for the good coming from the challenge. This isn’t about denying the pain or suffering. It’s about choosing to look for an up side in a way that helps buffer you from the blow. It’s called “grateful recasting”. And it can make the bad feel a little less bad and give the situation a new level of meaning. 

There’s more than one path to happiness

Two years later, I’ve discovered a new dream of being a writer and blogging. 

I’m so engaged with my alternative path that sometimes I wonder if the dream of being a mom was real or just one I borrowed from another woman in some kind of sociological experiment. 

That’s not to say I don’t sometimes wonder if my life will feel empty when I’m 70 because I don’t have kids. 

But when that happens, I remind myself that writing is adding so much to my life. 

And that there’s more than one way to happiness. 

---