Hi Unbeliever
I suppose you can't fear disappointment if there is no appointment there in the first place. If I don't appoint myself as 'She who cares what someone thinks', there's no disappointment to deal with if something doesn't work out as planned. I suppose, in this case, you could actually say detachment, to some degree, is a skill that tends to fuel healthy self esteem and keep stress levels down.
Personally, I've come to rely on the feeling of disappointment telling me something. If I'm feeling it at some level, I have to ask myself 'Okay, what's the appointment involved in this case and is it logical and is it serving me well?'
Only a few months back I appointed myself as 'She who will simply go with the flow'. All was going exceptionally well until I started experiencing challenging anxiety levels. I'd never had a problem with anxiety up 'til then. It got pretty bad, to the point where I had to call in sick for work. I discovered the problem with going with the flow to such a degree involved me appointing myself as someone who was not too concerned with getting everything done and wasn't too committed to time constraints. This had a down side. Suddenly, a lot of the things I really needed to get done were piling up and overwhelming me. Day by day, they were piling up more and more. I had, in turn, disappointed myself from significant responsibility and it had come back to bite me. The lesson was really about prioritising and managing effectively while going with the flow where possible. Cue disappointment again; I disappointed myself from being 'She who is irresponsible'. Things improved and a healthy balance was found.
While disappointment tends to be seen as a negative, I've found it to be a positive in my life. For sure it's a deeply challenging process to deal with at times, life and mind altering in fact, but over all it's constructive. It can help as a navigational tool with anxiety and depression. It's amazing just how many destructive beliefs and roles I'd been appointed to and had appointed myself during my years in depression.
We can definitely be conditioned to meet a lot of questionable appointments (beliefs and roles) without being given the skills when it comes to constructively questioning them and letting go of them.
By the way, I feel a test should simply be one way of grading our progress, not our self. If we're grading our over all self, there's always the potential to degrade our self in the process. Not good.
🙂
