Episode Transcript
We Americans enjoy a wonderful and powerful way of life, but internally and in relationships, we may wish for better. Join me as we look beneath the surface and gain insights to transform every aspect of your life. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare, and this is The Spiritual American. Hello everyone and welcome to the Spiritual American. My name is Dr. Anne O'Hare and I'm your host and today we will be talking about facing disappointment. I'm going to speak from the heart about this one and maybe a little bit different than you've heard before. Many many years of listening to self help and Psychology and so forth and they say okay, don't you won't get disappointed if you don't have expectations and All these things that sound great, you know, manage my expectations and this and that. And maybe I'm having too much pressure on myself or maybe I, there's all kinds of things. None of that really helped me get over what I'm going to talk about today. So facing disappointment. One way of talking about disappointment is talking about disappointment that things don't go the way I want them to go. Like, I don't get the raise or, the person that I'm dating never calls me again or something like that. But there's a deeper feeling of disappointment and that's what I want to talk about today. Disappointment in myself. Disappointment that feels like a pain inside. Let's say I, behaved badly in a situation and I feel really bad about it. And maybe I'm disappointed in myself. Disappointed about my behavior, let's say, okay? But I think that there's also disappointment in myself period. That's what I want to talk about. It's funny because I sometimes talk about anxiety and depression and I say to myself, Oh, I'm on the anxiety side of things and which I would say generally that is true. I'm generally more on the excitable side of things. But this thing, this being disappointed, disappointed in life, let's say, disappointed in myself, disappointed in what's going on for me, That can feel like depression inside. That's what I want to talk about today. I think the worst disappointment is when you have a hit to your self respect. And for me, I'm going to talk about myself. For me, my self respect was not good to begin with. So if I didn't get the job, if you've been watching the podcast, you know that. About eight years ago, I went for this job and I didn't get it. And it was a devastation, absolute devastation, because I really felt that I was qualified and that I would do well. And like, so I put all my eggs in this basket of work and I didn't get the job. And so that not getting the job. You could say it was a disappointment, but it felt deeper than just a disappointment. It took me years to get over that. Can any of you relate to this? Something happened. I got divorced. I got sick. I lost a child. Or I lost a loved one. Or something like that. And I feel inside the pain of that. Not talking about the normal grief here. Everybody goes through something, right? But maybe I feel bad about myself. Maybe I feel like, oh, it took me five years to get over not getting that job. Why would it take me five years to get over it? Because I invested myself so much in it. But then why did I invest myself so much in it? So what I want to talk about today is how can I build up my self respect? So that when things happen, even if there's a superficial disappointment, of course, there may be disappointment. Like I didn't get the job. Okay. I feel disappointed. That's natural, but I'm talking about this deep feeling that something's wrong. Something's wrong with me. And I really suffered. Now, intellectually, I could say, yes, because I was so attached. That's why I felt that way. And that's right. But how do I take care of that feeling? How do I take care of myself and how do I help myself to be stronger in my self respect in myself esteem so that when things change, I'm not like falling apart. Like I was in this case. The other thing I was thinking of was daily disappointment. I'm really going for the heart of this here. I don't think anybody talks about this except in the context of the I'm depressed. I'm not, no, not depression. Let's talk about the feeling itself. What does it feel like to wake up every day and feel like I'm trying again, but by the end of the day, I feel disappointed. I still don't feel happy. I tried my best. I did everything I was supposed to do according to what I know, and I still don't feel good about it. I don't feel good about myself. What do I do about that? And if it's a daily thing, like anybody can acknowledge, okay, I had a bad day or something happened and I feel disappointed or somebody died and I'm grieving. Everybody can, understand that. I'm talking about the day after day after day after day after day. Not happy, not content, not empowered, feeling alone, feeling like There's no hope, let's say. Really deep inside myself. On the outside, everything's great. I just shared on the other episode that I shared at work one time, Oh, I'm insecure about this. And the person said, you're insecure? I was doing such a good job of keeping everything looking good on the outside. I shared with somebody the other day. at the meditation center, another person who's meditating like me. And I said, it feels like this thing that we're talking about feels like you're an apple. It's like I'm an apple and the apple is beautiful and shiny and gorgeous. And then you bite into the apple and it's rotten inside. Does that mean I'm rotten? Am I telling you you're rotten? No. I'm saying that this kind of disappointment when I'm talking about. Is day after day after day and there's no end to it. And the only thing I can do is get up and try again and get up and try again and get up and try again. Is it possible to heal that thing? Is it possible to change that thing? I'm going to say yes it is, but there has to be something, some different information coming in. There's a principle, I said it on the last episode, there's a principle, you can't change anything from within the thing if you don't know anything different. If this is all I know, then this is what I'm going to keep doing and this is how I'm going to keep feeling. So what is it that I can know, what is different that I can bring in, that I can start working with in my mind and in my practice that's going to help me with this thing that I'm talking about right now. Which is every day I do everything right and I still don't feel happy. I still feel disappointed internally. I'm gonna say that in my experience, Raja Yoga meditation heals that thing. Because I'm giving medicine to the thing that's hurting. What's hurting is that I don't feel good about myself. I don't feel happy. I have money. Not happy. Have a good relationship. Not happy. Why would you not be happy if you have everything? Why would you not be happy? The apple looks great, but inside something's not right. So how do I access that part that doesn't feel right? Meditation. I'm sitting quietly every day. Daily practice. Meditation. Sitting still. I am a peaceful soul. I am a soul. I am living consciousness inside this body or working with this body, talking through this body. My nature is peace. I have love for all souls and all of nature and my heart is full of love for everyone, including myself. That's the real truth. That's the real truth of my existence. I kind of feel like it's this way. I have the external world that's happening, everything that's happening. Then I have my emotional landscape, my inner landscape, which is like the mind, my mind and my feelings, right? The inner landscape. And then I am the soul. I am the peaceful soul. So you have three levels, okay? The soul is peaceful. But whatever I'm paying attention to, that's where I'm going to have experience. So if I am paying attention to the outer layer, all the stuff that's happening or not happening, but I don't know who I am eternally. I don't know that I'm peaceful eternally. I don't know that I'm living consciousness. My nature is peace. My nature is love. My nature is benevolence. All I'm doing in that middle place is reacting to the outside. So what I'm doing now is I'm creating or bringing up, creating this new center of identification for myself. The truth of myself. I'm a spirit. I'm a soul. I am peaceful. I am God's child. You could say I'm God's child if that works for you. They give some value to the self I am, or it doesn't even have to be God. You could say, I am an unlimited loving being of light. That begins to build the self respect in the inner layer, right? So then the mind has a choice. If there's no choice, I'm going to keep doing what I did before. And I'm going to keep feeling the way I felt before Raj yoga is very powerful. You're telling yourself who you are I'm not telling myself what to do. I'm not telling myself that I should feel this way or that way I'm not dealing with the mind here. I'm dealing with the self The soul the self and I'm telling myself this is who I am. This is who I am And I'm experiencing the peace. Little by little that experience begins to have an impact on the rest of the system. That's raw yoga meditation. How did it help me? Well, I can tell you that you've heard me share this before. After two weeks of practicing this meditation, anger completely left. I've been practicing for 14 years and in 14 years, I could tell you that I have changed and transformed every aspect of my life. Every aspect of my life now is right where I want it to be. I mean, it's still tweaking, there's still growth and things are changing and there's still adjustments and things, but generally the foundation of every single aspect of my life right now is where I want it to be. I'm in charge of it. I'm working it. I'm dealing with myself on every level and my life on every level. Learning that I'm a soul and practicing this meditation and building my self respect from the inside out is the key, I'm going to say, to transforming that middle area. where the pain is, the disappointment, whatever. If I start thinking I'm a peaceful soul, I am gentle, I am loving, I am benevolent, my energy is going to build up so that when I don't get the job or when something happens, I'm going to have some power there in my mind. You could call that faith in yourself. I know you could also have faith in God. Some people have faith in God or their religion and that gives them that strength. They use that as a resource. I'm talking to the people that maybe aren't following a religion. The truth of you is spiritual and that can be a resource. So one other thing that. is very difficult to get over. And sometimes I call it the worst poison of the mind is the negative self talk. So again, back in that scenario where you have the outside world happening, you have your mind, which is the middle part where you're experiencing everything, and then you have the self. So let's say You're not telling yourself that you're a peaceful soul. You're a loving soul. You're, you're actually telling yourself, you're no good. You are worthless. You're whatever. You're mad at yourself. In your mind. You're telling yourself that. How am I going to have resilience and take care of myself and actually get some power in my life? If that's going on, because I'm telling myself who I am one way or the other, right? So in Raj Yoga, I'm telling myself that I'm good, that I'm powerful, that I'm loving, that I'm peaceful. That negative self talk, that negative self critical voice, don't tolerate it. Right from day one. When you're going to go on a spiritual journey, you're going to try to get better or try to help yourself immediately set a boundary with that thing. That's poison. And so what I did was I said, if I'm going to try my best to not tolerate that at all, did it go away right away? No, but it's like a bully, you have to stand up to the bully. So I was like standing up to the bully. Eventually it left. Took a while, but it's gone now. Does that mean that I'm always in this blissful feeling of who I am all the time? No, I'm a work in progress, but at least I'm not there anymore. I can say, I don't feel like that anymore. Waking up, feeling disappointed by the end of the day. I don't feel that way anymore. I can tell you that for true as truth. I feel like internally I'm a work in progress. I'm trying to get that middle mind to continue to feel peaceful and feel loving and be transformed by this self that's here. So the outside becomes less and less significant. Outside influences me and bothers me less and less. And in terms of disappointment, if you have yourself. I don't really think it's possible to feel disappointment. The disappointment comes because I don't have enough self respect. I don't have enough self esteem. I don't have enough power within myself. So I'll leave it there. I hope that gave something to think about. A little bit different than usual. Like usually we're talking about circumstances and how we deal with circumstances. I'm talking really now about how the mind is. How is your mind and then how can I help that the outside world is not helping the mind. That's for sure. I don't think the outside world is caring at all about what's going on in my mind. At least that's how I feel. But, it's not responsible. Nobody's responsible for my mind, but me. So I'm not working on the outside here. I'm working on the inside. I have a mind and I am the soul. It's the mind that I'm working with and I created everything in here. So now I need to deal with that. The more you do that, the more empowered you will feel. And the experience of disappointment leaves actually. So I'll leave it there. Remember our slogan is heal, empower and serve. And so until next time, take care. You
