GROUP AS AN OPPORTUNITY TO DISAPPOINT AND BE DISAPPOINTED

Sarah + Vanessa explore the idea that process groups are a place to practice tolerating being disappointed and, possibly even worse, being disappointing.  

Transcript

0:01

Saying the unsaid. A conversation between a psychologist and a spiritual director who have been friends for over 30 years about process groups, the anticipated discomfort and the surprise intimacy. The inevitability of replication and the possibilities of doing something new. We're guaranteed to get some stuff right and some stuff wrong, but we're doing it anyway. Thanks for listening.

Sarah: 0:26

I wanna talk about group as an opportunity to be disappointed and to disappoint and to stay in the game. The phrase learning how to be disappointed came up pretty organically in one of our. Consultation group meetings about becoming a group leader. And it happened in a real life, moment in the consultation group where someone expressed a wish from our supervisor and, and he didn't give the wish. Just held the wish. And we witnessed it in real time. A bid for something and a non-response while acknowledging the bid. So we witnessed it and then he said something, this is my paraphrase, that. Learning how to remain connected while being disappointed is one of the invitations of group. And I thought it was so profound it stayed in my mind all day, week and it still in my mind, and that was a month or two ago so I think this is one of the sweet spots of what these groups can offer, which is paradoxically not getting what you want.

Vanessa: 2:00

I had this in group as a member. I have a lot of. I don't know what to call it in this setting. I have a lot of feelings towards male leaders. Like I want them to like me or be in love with me. I want their approval. So I've always wanted that from a male group leader and do in this situation as well. So somebody in group said something like, oh, Vanessa, you're on this corner of the screen, and the leaders on this corner of the screen. You're like the mom and dad and, and my heart skipped a beat. Like, oh my gosh, that's what I want. I want to be the partner to whoever the leader is and I'll feel better. So I said that. I said, oh, that feels nice to hear because that's something I know is going on in me is I want the leader to fall in love with me. And the leader said, would that help you or hurt you? Would that help your work here or hurt your work here? If I were to fall in love with you, and immediately I was like, it would hurt and I know it. I know right away the work is actually to not be pacified or soothed in that way, which is what I've been doing my whole life and have succeeded to a certain extent sometimes, and it hasn't helped me.

Sarah: 3:28

I think it's almost like. If you satiate the hunger too quickly, you don't have to sit with the hunger. You dunno what you long for.

Vanessa (2): 3:35

So if you're

Sarah: 3:36

so adept at getting what you want in particular ways, whatever that is, and everyone has different things, then you're not left with understanding what your particular longings are. And what that's about there's an element of it that feels like a child growing, where if you keep stepping in to give the child what they need, what they need, what they need, they don't ever get the capacity to tolerate their own boredom or their own disappointment or their own. And obviously with kids you want to meet their needs to a degree. But also you don't want to meet every single need. Because they don't have the capacity to self. Regularly or self determine. I similarly have a longing to know that I'm doing well. And more I've realized that I want to know that I'm not doing anything bad. So it's more like I wanna be absolved of any badness than I want to Get first place for being the most right. In a way like I want a sticker after every time I open my mouth or something. Like I want affirmation so much.

Vanessa (2): 4:57

And,

Sarah: 4:58

I've learned how to get through life receiving a lot of it. As opposed to sitting with my longing without it being met and needing to figure out like how do I self-regulate? How do I self determine, how do I self evaluate? Am I feeling good about myself? Am I feeling congruent versus trying to get an evaluation from someone else that yes, you are. You're on. I remember with a therapist in the past, I sort of positioned her as a priest, even though she was not a religious person at all, sort of like this confessional stance. Like I want, I want her to absolve me, absolve me, absolve me. And if every time I went in, she absolved me. She's taking away. My job of learning how to sit with my own discomfort and self and determine like do I want to self absolve or do I want to change, but I don't need to have it ricocheted off of a person of authority, which I have an inclination to do.

Vanessa: 6:09

In the beginning you said not being disappointed can keep us from getting to know our longing or desire more, which feels like such a big part of group is the invitation to continually name and face and then deepen into what is it that we actually want. And it kind of short circuits the process to give. What we think we want or need.

Sarah: 6:42

It's like junk food or something. It like satiates a hunger but doesn't actually nourish your body this is not a speech against junk food. I love junk food. I'm just saying that different food, food serves different purposes. I think identifying longing is very instructive, but can be painful and very vulnerable. I don't really want to do that. Because the, the fear of identifying longing is that you might not get it. And that's very scary. So I personally would rather be hyper independent and not need anything from anyone. But that doesn't lead me towards intimacy and connection, which is the goal of groups and of life, I think.

Vanessa: 7:29

And the other side of it, disappointing other people too and tolerating that and learning to stay connected while disappointing someone. I feel like I've tended to disappoint a lot of friends. That's part of my way in the world and it's much easier for me to think, well just. Let's just stop being friends or you can stop being my friend and then I won't disappoint you anymore instead of tolerating. Disappointing that friend because of my communication style, and then hopefully, you know, learning how to become more mutual. But I've disappointed people in group as a member and it's a different kind of hard, but it feels very loving in a way.

Sarah: 8:23

I'm more aware of my aversion to disappointing others than I am aware of my aversion to being disappointed. I think that they're both very painful for me in very, in different ways, but the one that's more. Available to my mind is the fear of disappointing. So I think that I have become very good at not disappointing people. Better than you. A lot better. And I can be very skilled at. Identifying needs and being very productive about meeting them. To avoid the prospect of disappointment, just me disappointing them. But sometimes that's not genuine. And sometimes I will do what I believe will meet the other person's needs, but then have a residual resentment. So that's not really that much of a kindness. It's trying to, push away the bad feeling of not meeting someone's needs. So it's self-serving in that way. But I have residual resentment for them that might not be communicated, but is in now in the world. It's in my, well, Would be more kind to say, I wish I could, but I can't. And I want to tolerate that. I can't do that for you right now. Rather than do what I can't do and then be mad about it silently.

Vanessa (2): 9:45

Yes.

Sarah: 9:48

For my, you know, shadow self. I just, this morning was in a session with a individual patient of mine who. Just experienced a really painful marital crisis where the injury is a very familiar injury that's happened over and over and over again. And every time the injury happens, he promises it will never happen again. And then it does. And then, a period of time goes by and then it happens again. And then he promises it'll never happen again. And time goes on. He also becomes defensive. I'm speaking about this like so generally, because we also all do this, have the same relational pitfall that you just keep stepping in over and over and over again. And the pattern was the pitfall, and then he becomes defensive about it. And then he promise says it won't happen again. And so. I was thinking about this topic probably because I knew we wanted to talk today about this, and it was so relevant that I wish that a marital vow was, are you willing to be disappointed by me and to point me mm-hmm. For the rest of my life? If you want to do that. Are you willing to stick with me while I disappoint you? Probably in the same specific ways. Because I, Sarah am designed for specific disappointments The idea of, I'll never do that again. Especially when it's the more subtle things that we do. For me, I can become cold. That's one of my. Styles of relating. So if I say I promise to never become cold again. That's just factually inaccurate. It's not humanly possible. What I would like to do is try to speed up my warming up, or not become defensive when I become cold. Maybe identify it quicker. Try to do some preemptive things that make that happen less frequently. But knowing my characterological structure, I will probably, I. Be the type that pulls away in conflict and feel cold, that will probably happen again. Are you willing to do that with me? Are you willing to let me be cold to you and hopefully warm up over and over again? That's the only invitation because if the vow is, I will meet all your needs. You fail like the second you walk out of the church or whatever. So preemptively knowing that, and I think I still want it to not be true. Like I want to meet the needs of my family, meet the needs of my friends. Meet the needs of groups that I'm involved in as opposed to I'd like to remain connected with you and I probably won't do everything you need. Do you wanna keep playing with me?

Vanessa: 12:38

One of the parties that gets disappointed in group is I disappoint myself too, and that is so hard for me. That's why a group feels like an anti perfectionism school, because I wanna make cute mistakes or endearing mistakes. What's that word? When you make like a natural mistake. Those are the kind I wanna make. I don't wanna make stupid ones or messy ones. Clumsy ones, boring ones. But by nature of relating for the whole time I have a list of things that I like, kind of cringe at that I said or did. And that is very valuable too, to stay in the rest of the meeting after having done something like that. There was one time I tokenized someone and the leader called me out on it. And I mean, what I wanted to do was just like exit group and just delete my life, you know, and never show up again. But to sit there on Zoom. And just swallow it and metabolize it that, yeah, I did tokenize someone and I got called out on it, and everyone's moving on and I'm still here and I'm gonna come back when the time comes back. That is so valuable, more valuable than me being better and smarter and not ever making those kinds of mistakes. For me, disappointing myself is such a value of group and just being mediocre. I like newer. Relationships and settings because I, I'm more impressive in the beginning. Maybe everyone is, but I feel especially more impressive in the beginning. Like I have higher energy in the beginning and then I, I don't sustain great. And I think I get more boring, more meandering, and more mediocre as time goes on. So just like tolerating the reality of my mediocrity at times, which is just a feature of being me. Is useful in groups. And now that I'm talking about this, I think the word disappoint has a a shaming connotation because it's what parents say I'm just really disappointed in you. And it's just like the final blow. It can make you feel like, I thought you were someone else and you're not. And that's what I'm trying to not be my real self, which is why I go to groups, which is to have a place where I can experiment, quote unquote, being my real self, like saying what I'm thinking and feeling. And surviving it

Sarah: 15:32

I am having a memory of this last year, one of the top two most intimate moments of my year was telling a friend that I was disappointed by her. And it took like 10 months or more. It took, 10 months of awareness. And longer of non awareness to know that there was this hurt. But I didn't want to disrupt the flow of the friendship because I value it so much and it feels like a wrench to say that I'm hurt. So I'd rather just swallow it and keep pretending that I'm not hurt. Which I'm very good at doing. But actually the act of protecting my friend from my disappointment was a way of keeping her distant in that particular domain. It was actually more of an act of love to say I've been hurt because it's saying, I love you so much and need from you. And it pains me when I can't get this thing that I need rather than pretend that I don't have a need I really, really, really, really didn't wanna do it. And then it sort of bubbled up inside of me where I couldn't help but say I feel hurt and it just brought forth. Our closest conversation possibly ever, of acknowledging that a rupture had occurred. It's like so, so, so tender. To, for me to say I've been disappointed, and for her to say, I disappointed you. It's so, so, so powerful. And I feel closer to her than I would if she had never disappointed me. Certainly closer than if she had, but I'm just keeping it zipped up to try to maintain a smooth flow. Can you think of a way I've disappointed you or you've disappointed me?

Vanessa: 17:32

Definitely. I can think of how I've disappointed you.

Sarah: 17:35

Can you think of a way I've disappointed you?

Vanessa: 17:38

I can't, but it's because, because of our puzzle pieces. You do so much to anticipate needs and be a friend. I

Sarah: 17:50

guess one of my goals could be to disappoint you.

Vanessa: 17:54

Yeah. If you didn't reply to one of my voice memos that felt really vulnerable. That would disappoint me if I just like wasn't on your radar. But you've never done that. Fortunately,

Sarah: 18:09

you always

Vanessa: 18:09

are on my radar. Can you think of a way I've disappointed you? That's not just my poor communication skills. That's what I was thinking of.

Sarah: 18:23

You want me to think of a juicier disappointment in decades of poor communication?

Vanessa: 18:28

I thought of one from earlier in our life, but I don't wanna, I. Interrupt your flow If you're thinking of, no,

Sarah: 18:34

let's do yours and then I could do mine.

Vanessa: 18:36

We'll see if we'll take this out or not. But not being honest with you about my. Relationships and I did in them definitely taking this out.

Sarah: 18:54

You know what I'm referring to? I know exactly you're referring to and we should keep it in. We were at like winter camp and we were like in a bed under a cover whispering at night'cause everyone else was asleep And you shared more about your relationship. That I hadn't known before and so I felt like you had been keeping things from me.

Vanessa: 19:13

Yeah.

Sarah: 19:14

I was disappointed because I thought we were open books to each other. Yeah. But there was a part of your life that you weren't sharing with me.

Vanessa: 19:21

Yeah, that was it. Yeah.

Sarah: 19:24

It was like 28 years ago. There was a lot more going on for me than disappointment. But actually I think that one of the things was feeling separate from you. And that is okay. It's okay to feel separate from you, but I didn't want it. I would like to be just a fully merged mm-hmm. In bed together. The, the memory that I had of being disappointed, I think, I don't know if disappointment fully works, but felt hurt was when you moved away. Yeah. And it was a really big decision for you to move and you were moving like 3000 miles and I knew that it was hard for you to do that. So I put most of my energy into supporting your decision to move away. Even though it was like cutting my heart out of my chest and putting it on a little canoe and sending it to the other side of the ocean, but maybe it was easier for me to tolerate focusing on how I wanted to. Release you.

Vanessa (2): 20:32

Since

Sarah: 20:32

that's what I needed to do. But in focusing on that and tending to that, which was important, I under tended to the loss that I was going to experience when you moved away.

Vanessa: 20:45

Yeah.

Sarah: 20:46

And I think that we sort of collectively. I did that. Where I had this image of like putting you in a little canoe with your family and pushing it away from the shore and me being left and being so devastated. It was about we have to get this boat, we have to get this canoe into the water. And then I think it was, I can't remember how much later, like a few months maybe, where I shared with you Hey, I'm on the shore. And that was actually so painful for me. Hmm. I just remembered that this week I was working out with a personal trainer, not to brag at the time, and we were doing this stretch at the end of the workout where I would lay on my back and my feet were up in the air and she was somehow, I don't know what stretch that would be, but. I just know I was laying my back with my legs directly up and she was stretching me and I just burst into tears. She said, what's going on? And I said, Vanessa moved away.

Vanessa (2): 21:44

Mm.

Sarah: 21:46

So that was, that was a time. Yeah. And we survived it. You did. Still here.

21:55

Thank you so much for listening. If there's something you'd like us to talk about or you're interested in trying one of our groups, please email us at saying the unsaid group@gmail.com.