"I'm So Disappointed in You"

Did you feel that one?

I know I did.

It starts as a memory. A memory we feel down to the very core of our being. “I’m so disappointed in you.”

And then it carries over into every part of our lives for a long, long time.

It’s a cycle. A pattern that’s easily predictable.

You disappoint someone – because you will, you know. And it all comes back.

But why is this all your responsibility? Isn’t it equally shared by the person who has such unrealistic standards of perfection for you that they can even dare to stand there from a position of “I’m disappointed in you”?

Why is this not on them? Why is it all on you?

This may start in our families of origin, but it carries over easily to our workplaces, to our friendships and especially to our romantic relationships where we choose someone who holds this kind of familiar power over us and we find ourselves once again taking more responsibility than is ever appropriate with someone who learns the extent they can control us (whether deliberately or not), with these words.

We’ve learned that by taking this overly responsible position of being the determiner of whether we disappointment someone or not, we gain control of an otherwise out of control situation for ourselves; that awful feeling of disappointing someone.

Instead, we now have the control.

WE can keep the situation harmonious and without the inevitable awful feeling in the pit of our stomachs that we’ve disappointed someone yet again if we can apologize and promise to put every effort into not disappointing them again.

Except why is this all our fault?

The cure is to embrace yourself as a perfectly imperfect human being. What you own, no one can come at you with. What you own yourself, no one can use to shame you, to make you feel bad, to elicit the old familiar response in you. You're ahead of them. You've already met yourself there.

For what is our normal reaction to that disappointment they feel but one of shame in us?

Why? Because it’s a familiar one. It’s the one we had before. They were disappointed and we were ashamed. This can be traced back to our earliest religious beliefs where God was disappointed in Adam and Eve for eating the forbidden fruit and then they were ashamed.

So are we.

If we’ve learned those early lessons well, we’ve played our roles equally well and we’ve adopted the expected response that if someone in power – or who we’ve placed in a power position over us – expresses their disappointment in us, then we respond with the “appropriate” response in us – the one of being ashamed.

If it seems so inappropriate to respond to power like this, there’s a reason. It’s exactly why I talk about power being at the root of everything and why questioning the status quo, questioning the way it’s always been, is questioning our programming and that’s never, ever a comfortable thing. But it matters because this isn’t about comfort, it’s about a life. Yours.

You don’t deserve to be doing the same thing over and over again when it’s only hurting you in the process.

You don’t deserve to be taking over the responsibility for everyone else simply because it serves you if it means you can finally have some control over it. You shouldn’t need control over a situation that has been created to serve someone else who gets to control you with the feeling that comes up for you.

When you don’t allow yourself to be controlled by someone who holds enough power over you that they feel it's their right to either say directly or treat you in a way that says “I’m disappointed in you”, you end this pattern of behavior that has never authentically served you.

Avoiding pain and shame isn’t a good enough reason to believe it serves you; it’s taking away the amount of power you’ve given someone over you to begin with.

If you want to talk more about this, I’m here for you.

A recent coaching session I had with someone inspired this topic here as it applied in her own life, and it’s not a light one. So if you want to talk more about it, the comment section is open here for you to share your thoughts and ask your questions. I offer personal email coaching too, if you'd like something more private.

If this resonated with you, sit with it and see if this might be the key to so many locked parts of your relationships whether with family, friends or in romantic relationships. It’s at the root of many of things we talk about here – power, expectations, boundaries and programming.

Could this be what you’ve been conditioned to fear  - “disappointing someone” – that it keeps you performing with your old playbook to ensure you don’t?

I'll leave it here for now.

Love,

Jane

Tell me what’s coming up for you in the comments below. This theme is a deep one, so if you’re not sure where this fits in for you but something’s resonating with you, I want to hear from you!