One of life’s most painful realities is unmet expectations. Desires unfulfilled. Dreams shattered.
This, at the very least, is disappointing. Disappointment can bring anger, sadness, and anxiety, which can last for a day, a week, even months or years. Disappointment’s ache can be so persistently painful that it alters our outlook on life and even our sense of who we are.
My family and I moved to Memphis just over a year ago. We moved from Iowa, leaving behind family and friends we loved, a city we felt connected to, and a career I found passion and purpose in doing. The main reason we moved was to be closer to my wife’s family. While this move was something we believed as a family we’d eventually do, it happened much sooner than expected. What I imagined occurring someday was happening now.
I was disappointed, sad, anxious, and angry because my desires and expectations were ending so quickly. For some of us, it’s the opposite: we’re disappointed, sad, anxious, and angry because our desires and expectations are taking so long to happen we’re wondering if they’ll ever arrive.
This may be the most painful disappointment of all: when what we hoped for didn’t happen.
About 10 years before moving from Iowa to Memphis, I moved from Los Angeles (where I attended seminary) to Iowa. As I looked out my train window that was leaving L.A. for my new life in the Midwest, I couldn’t stop crying. These unexpected tears flowed because I was saying goodbye to friends who’d walked with me through the hardest season of my life. The season included chronic anxiety that led to depression, the ending of a romantic relationship that led to grief, and a deconstruction of my faith that left me disillusioned. Simply put, much of what I hoped my life in L.A. would be didn’t happen. While I had good moments in California — including mountain hikes, beach trips, and In-N-Out burgers — I left there with buried hope.
I didn’t know at the time how connected hope and grief are.
It’s one of the differences between my move from L.A. and my recent move to Memphis. When I left L.A., I held onto hope tightly. If my expectations, desires, or dreams didn’t happen how or when I thought they should, something was wrong. Either I wasn’t doing what I needed to do, or worse, something about me was fundamentally flawed.
One thing I’ve learned in the past 10 years is that disappointment can be a gift. Not only do unmet expectations, unfulfilled desires, and shattered dreams not mean “I’m living life wrong” or that “I’m wrong,” they may actually be our first steps on the path of healing and growth.
This path often begins with grief because we first need to let go of what we thought life would be and embrace what it actually is.
This is what Peter did when standing in the courtyard close to where Jesus was being beaten (see Mark 14). Peter wept in that moment because he was grieving the loss of what he desired and expected Jesus’ way to be about. In that courtyard, his hope was crushed — yet it was in this “crushing” that he was able to eventually let go and begin to hope and trust in a new and better understanding of Jesus’s way.
When I left L.A., I was holding onto hope so tightly that it was almost impossible to trust that something new and better might be awaiting me. By “better” I don’t mean a grander version of what I’d previously hoped for. I mean a new way of seeing, a paradigm shift, inner healing, and a spiritual deepening. As Dr. Emily Anhalt says:
“I wish I could tell you it gets better, but it doesn’t get better. You get better.”
Life gets better because we’re learning to see differently.
It’s frequently not about our circumstances getting better because we often have little-to-no control over that. What can get better is how we see. For example:
We used to see marriage as a solution to our loneliness; now we’re seeing marriage as both a soothing of the pain of our loneliness but also a deepening of it, and that’s okay.
We used to see maturity as growing increasingly certain and using our power to first pursue our own success; now we’re seeing maturity as asking better questions and using any of our power to love others as we love ourselves.
We used to see mental health as being more productive and overcoming our suffering; now we’re seeing mental health as slowing down to embrace our limits and to find meaning in our suffering — even as we’re learning how to cope and find relief.
Seeing differently means we hope and it means we give hope space to work. As Anne Lamott says:
“When hope is not pinned wriggling onto a shiny image or expectation, it sometimes floats forth and opens.”
We may not get exactly what we want in life, but as we lessen our grip on hope and hold it lightly, we find that our disappointments may actually be gifts.
Leaving L.A. was painful, but it introduced me to holding onto hope lightly. My disappointment was a gift because my suffering led me to eventually find the vulnerability and courage to ask for help — first, through friends who gave me the space and support to struggle and heal, and second, by working with a therapist to do the hard work of therapy.
Moving to Memphis was painful, but saying goodbye was my re-introduction to learning how to grieve so I could embrace what was new. One gift of moving to Memphis has been the reminder that “home” is less about a place and more about who we are and whom we give ourselves to. Who I am is a husband to my wife, a dad to my two kids, and most importantly, loved without conditions by God. Another gift has been joining Kardia Collective's team of wise and compassionate therapists in Memphis, TN.
Life is difficult; disappointments will come. But if we hold onto hope lightly, we may find that the path of healing and growth, though often painful, will bring us gifts that are better than we ever imagined. If you’re ready to find out what your own path has in store for you, I encourage you to request an appointment with one of our counselors or coaches, who can help you take the first step.