Rewriting the Narrative of Disappointment to get out of All or Nothing

Disappointment shapes our lives in ways we may not fully understand, leading to cycles of all-or-nothing behaviour and hyper-independence. This episode addresses the emotional weight of disappointment, the importance of trust in relationships, and practical steps towards breaking free from these patterns. 

• Exploring the impact of disappointment on our lives 
• Understanding all-or-nothing thinking and hyper-independence 
• The connection between overworking, burnout, and emotional struggle 
• Examining the fear associated with rest and vulnerability 
• Practical strategies to rewire our relationship with disappointment 
• Encouraging self-reflection on personal patterns and connections

If you've enjoyed this episode, please leave me a review and subscribe! And if you want to learn more from me, come and say hello on Instagram @thecompletioncoach or via email at wendy@thecompletioncoach.co.uk or find out more about working with me on my website, thecompletioncoach.co.uk.

Transcript

The Impact of Disappointment in Life

Speaker 1 0:00

Welcome to and what Else , the podcast with me , wendy O'Byrne , also known as the Completion Coach , and today's episode is all around why disappointment has created such an impact in your life , especially for those who can relate to all or nothing behavior . If you've ever felt like life has been one series of disappointments , that you are expecting or waiting for the disappointment in some way , if you are somebody that thinks you can get it but you can't keep it , that something just never seemed to stick for you , even if you work really hard . We're going to dive into something today and that's how disappointment has shaped your entire life , and that's how disappointment has shaped your entire life and how it will keep you stuck in cycles of using those hyper independence traits , avoidance and all or nothing thinking . And if you found yourself swinging between the extremes ie going all in , being all out , overworking , burning out , anxiously attached to completely avoidant and if you feel like you've got to be perfect , you've got to be seen to have all of your shit together all of the time , otherwise you have failed Then I want you to stick with me .

Speaker 1 1:20

Stick with me on this one and see it through to the end , because disappointment isn't something that happens to you . It's something that actually starts to rewire you . And so if you have spent a lifetime thinking about possibilities , having a huge imagination , being somebody with actually big dreams , and life has given you experiences that were continuously tainted with disappointment , when people haven't shown up for you the way that you need it , when success has always seemed to land with the person next to you and not you , when you get a taste of happiness , only to have it squashed with disappointment quite quickly afterwards , for your emotional caretaking to have featured quite heavily around disappointment , and for your early interactions with friendship groups , with adults , with partners being tinged with a disappointment , then what starts to happen in the brain is we start to just register things . Our things will always fall apart , good things don't last and I can get it , but I can't keep it , which is where this all-or-nothing thinking really starts to dig in .

Speaker 1 2:38

Because when you believe stability isn't real , you operate in these ways you try to control everything , you mic-throw , manage everyone , you manage everybody's needs , you're trying to make sure that nobody else is ever disappointed . So you try to manage everything to allow them to avoid disappointment , whilst continuously disappointing yourself , letting yourself down to put them first , or you find yourself completely in and then completely numb and out , and what you might also register that is is feeling completely connected , committed and in and out , being a burnout which feels like complete emotional tiredness and or disassociation , which is why sometimes , when you get to the rest part , when you get to the out part , you feel really guilty because you're not managing the in part of trying to make sure nobody is disappointed . So the reason why you struggle with rest can often be this fear that you are going to allow other people to be disappointed . So even when you take time off work , there might be an underlying fear that somebody's going to find out you really shit at your job . Yeah , they'll be disappointed that you hadn't covered all of the bases . There might be the fear that if you rest or if you're not doing , then somebody else will have to deal with their own disappointment . And there might be the fear , which is again added to this , that you won't be needed in some way , and being needed has allowed you to override the idea that you're disappointing .

Rebuilding Trust After Disappointment

Speaker 1 4:23

I want you to know , first of all , you're not broken . I want you to know that this isn't just you , and I want you to know that this is actually what your entire system , your body and brain have created as a survival strategy to protect you from disappointment , whilst exposing you to it all of the time . But these are big extremes , so you never feel like you actually get attached . You never actually get attached because you don't believe it will stay anyway . You never get attached because you think there will be disappointment , but it's still disappointing to not be attached . So if you are someone who struggles with balance , who struggles with consistency or keeping things going once they've started , then I want you to know that there's patterns where you'll get bursts of motivation and throw yourself into something full force . You'll push yourself really hard because you believe if it's not hard , if it's not something that's consuming you , it won't work . You feel exhausted , overwhelmed and see things slow down . You panic because if you stop even for a second , you're afraid that other people will be disappointed or that everything will be lost . You burn out and quit completely . You beat yourself up for being lazy or inconsistent and the cycle starts again . Notice that through all of this , the thing that is being reinforced is that you are the problem , Because all or nothing thinking is actually deeply rooted in a lack of trust , and a lack of trust of other people , a lack of trust of things lasting and , ultimately , just a lack of trust .

Speaker 1 6:15

And that's where these hyper-independent traits kick in , why we can be so hard and push all of the time and make things harder . Because I want you just to sit with this . Even the people that are successful at one part of their life because the people I work with will be successful on the whole at work in one way or another but I want you to just sit with this on the whole . If you believed you were a success and you believed that stability was possible , would you be forcing it so hard ? And if you believed your relationships were safe , would you have so many thoughts about them ? If you believed your worth wasn't tied to how much you're doing and how much you're proving yourself , would you keep running yourself into the ground ? And I'm asking these because what we need to do is rewire ourselves , repattern ourselves to learn about holding success and holding our connection to ourselves and our relationship with trust . Because here's what I've found that I work with who are using hyperindependence traits .

Speaker 1 7:45

Their brains have been trained to believe that stability is unsafe , because they have never truly experienced safe stability , pleating moments , but not safe , ongoing , consistent stability . So they would have grown up in instances where it just wasn't safe , there were outbursts or there were silences . Maybe they started trusting people only for them to disappoint them . Maybe they worked their backsides off only for things to collapse . Maybe they really opened up to somebody and they were disappointed that that person didn't hear or see them anyway , and so disappointment can really feel like loneliness sometimes , because disappointment can often be deeply rooted to .

Speaker 1 8:33

I was unseen , unheard or misunderstood , and so disappointment and the protection mechanisms you've got around disappointment can start to drive your life . So your system learns not to trust stillness , not to trust silence . It feels unsafe and so it overworks , it micromanages , it tries to be really controlling , because slowing down feels like failure and that it will lead to disappointment , or it shuts down , isolates and avoids because trying feels pointless . So this is why you will struggle with consistency or the idea of consistency , which is not constant , by the way . That's a whole other podcast . But this is why you either go all in or check out completely , and this is why , fundamentally , you can't trust things to last .

Speaker 1 9:37

It's not a lack of discipline in the sense of you need to be doing more , but it is the idea that there's no point doing those small things on repeat that help me daily , because I'm going to lose it all anyway . So the discipline element of doing them is the outcome . You can see , I'm undisciplined . I don't do the things that I know I should be doing . The reason before that , the root cause before that , is because I don't think there's any point . The reason I don't think there's any point is because of my relationship with disappointment . My relationship with disappointment is rooted in all of my behaviors . So now we get to see the pattern and we don't shift it by being hard on ourselves . We don't shift it by bringing in more micromanagement and judgment and we certainly don't deal with it by being disappointed in ourselves .

Speaker 1 10:43

What we need to do is practice and work with our relationship with disappointment , our relationship with safety and loss and our relationship with extremes . Because again , you might have experienced friendships that were extreme , bonding that came with disappointment , parenting that may have offered extreme moments and then came with disappointment , disappointment . And so part of this is to stop expecting loss . Part of this is to start to build real trust with yourself and recognizing that we're not looking for more force , we're looking for you to create more trust . It's not to suddenly become really vulnerable , because that's going to be like ripping a plaster off , but it's just noticing where you're assuming people will let you down . I want you to notice your reaction when somebody does let you down . Instead of assuming success won't last , practice letting it be there , even just 10% more . And instead of pushing people away before they have the chance to leave , experiment with holding connection a little longer , especially connection that feels like intimacy .

Speaker 1 12:10

Because right now your brain is running on old evidence . It's remembering the times things broke , the times people left , the times you were let down , specifically emotionally let down , with disappointment , and your job is to now start looking for new evidence , the new patterning , which is where have things stayed ? Where have people really shown up for you , even if it was imperfect , because that's driving your perfectionism , by the way what success have you had ? And even if it didn't last forever , what was it like ? Because the emotional wounding says I can't trust people to meet my needs and the brain's hyper-independence traits kicks in to to say I'll just do everything myself . The emotional wounding says if I open up , I'll be judged , rejected , abandoned or not truly heard . I'll be lonely . And the hyper independent part in your brain now is saying I'll never let anyone see me struggle . Part in your brain now is saying I'll never let anyone

Overcoming Trust Issues After Disappointment

Speaker 1 13:24

see me struggle .

Speaker 1 13:24

The emotional wounding says don't get too comfortable , nothing lasts and you'll be disappointed . And that part of the brain is saying I need to control everything so I don't lose it . And so you hate feeling dependence on anyone . You instinctively push people away when they get too close . You struggle to believe in anything lasting for a long period , and this programming makes you think it's you , that there's something wrong with you , which is why you had all of these disappointing moments of rejection , because disappointment taught you people aren't reliable , so you became the person who handles everything alone .

Speaker 1 14:05

Disappointment taught you that things always break , so you stopped fully trusting in your own success . And disappointment taught you that vulnerability will lead to rejection , to being alone . So you've learned to keep your emotions locked down , because life has sort of taught you through these experiences whether they were what you've recorded them as or not that people will leave and that people aren't really safe , and that trusting yourself , even when you're brave , means that you still won't be heard properly yourself , even when you're brave , means that you still won't be heard properly , and so everything that your system learns is to just avoid experiencing that pain , so it will do everything to try to keep you away from it , even though you're still experiencing disappointment . So I want you to really just sit with how this might be showing up in your life , where you're attempting to micromanage and really control everything , because there's no trust when in any of your behavior , when you truly think about it , is there because a lack of trust in you being in it for the long game , even as I've said that there's a reaction in my body . What does it mean when you're in it for the long game ? Oof , even as I've said that there's a reaction in my body , what does it mean when you're in it for the long game ? What does it mean when you are staying ?

Speaker 1 15:29

If you were staying , what does the reaction of staying and being in something for the long game bring up in you ? Especially the things and the places and the spaces where there isn't external validation , because quite often people with these traits really high achieving , really dedicated to work , really struggle with rest , really struggle with intimacy , but are really open to helping strangers all of the time that's because we have a problem with trust , that's a problem with trusting people , and so the more we have people that are just work colleagues or strangers that we are assisting and helping , the better it feels , because we're not expecting that to be long-term , we're not expecting that to be long-term , we're not expecting that to be intimate , and that disappointment doesn't feel anywhere near as painful as the disappointment of truly letting people in , anywhere near as painful as really being in other things for the long-term . I'm going to leave this one here , but I would really love you to even just jot down how has disappointment shaped my life and really sit with that , because I think it's a really important piece of work . As always , you can send me a dm at the completion coach or drop me an email , wendy , at the completion coachcouk , and if you think this episode would have been of use to