How-to: Responding to Disappointment

to peter: Yes! Meditation helped me slow down my reaction time. Though sitting, I learned to see the emotions as they came up for me. Now when I'm at #1, I can more easily get to the #2 breathing part, which slows me even further and then I can get to the rest.

to Angel_C: Agreed. But the more proficient we get at not jumping off at #1 through our practices and understandings, the fewer opportunities we get to practice and the more difficult it becomes to "hold our horses" the next time. What I've found useful is calming practices like meditation, fasting, qi gong, and yoga. These will tell me if I'm getting into an irritable state that could lead to a #1 reaction. These are important because by the time I'm primed for a #1 jumping off reaction, it's too late. The #1-#7 game is already over for me. It's like I'm deaf in that state.

to peter: Haiku and I are friends from Newsvine--in fact, I came here because of her note about this site there! Yes, we do have types that look at processes differently. I don't think I've done the Enneagram yet, but I have done Myers-Briggs. My hurdle was #1 also--just stopping before I jumped into reaction! I've found practice, in all situations, really helps.

Another thought of mine concerns the Enneagram theory of personality. Member haiku is also interested in it. (Note to self: Get the 'messaging' feature working so I can send haiku this Recipe.) I look at the list of Steps above and suspect that different personality types will stumble at different ones -- or at least find those ones residing in our blind spot. For example, my comment below explains that Step 1 is in my blind spot; drLove seems to say that Step 3 is in hers. We're of two different personality types.

Thanks for the Recipe. Looks useful. I look at your Steps and realize that Step 1 is the whole ballgame for me. If I can catch myself at Step 1, the rest of the steps are cake for me. But that's a big "if" -- one that I fail at time and again. It's good to see the whole list. Thanks again.

to drLove: I'm glad this was something you could use! I first learned to do this from some talks by the Buddhist monk, Thich Naht Hanh. He has a lot of good ideas!

Thanks Angel_C. I'm really good at recognizing my feelings. The one thing that caught my attention was Step 3. "Greeting this feeling". It's a space of acceptance and allowing. And that space would make it much easier to feel grateful I'm sure. For me, anger/disappointment/sadness have always been like a person you don't want to be around. But greeting that "person", well that just changes the whole tone and energy of the experience. Funny, this is advice I used to give my patients when they experienced panic attacks. I guess it's time for "physician heal thy self" and get practicing!!