Today I was working internally with the negative emotion of disappointment. It is the feeling inside that lets you know that your expectations or goals are incorrect, but there is a process that you do that is working and needs to be continued. If you hold onto wrong expectations, you end up down and depressed, but if you hold onto the process that works and continue the process, it will produce a lot over the long term. For instance, you can be very inclusive and supportive, but work in an environment where the leadership is selfish and recognition-oriented. Expectations can easily go awry in such an environment because the leadership can act in ways that are destructive to positive outcomes. When you let go of the expectations of leadership to do positive things, then you can keep focusing and doing your own inclusive and supportive behaviors that will eventually lead to the downfall of the selfish leadership.

Disappointment and grief are closely related to each other because they both make you feel really down and take away a lot of your energy. The difference between the two is that grief tells you something is over, whereas disappointment tells you that despite the poor results, you are still in process or in the same arena. Grief wants you to remember all of the positive things you do, but makes you realize that there is a new playing field where you are going to apply what you can do. Disappointment tells you to stay where you are and keep doing the positive. If you get fired, for instance, from a company, then you are in loss, and have to find a new place, whereas if you have a major setback, it means you have to keep doing what works in an up manner despite the setbacks.

The problem with both energies is that they bring your physical energy down. The way to get back to up energy is to remember positive successes using your positive abilities and then acting on them.