Disappointment and loss. Where does it lead?

December 11th, 2016

Disappointment, loss, grief, and, shock (DLGS).  That was my November. Especially on the morning of 11/9, which was especially shocking, as shocking in fact as the events of 9/11 (a numerologist would have a great time with that one).

For me, all of this DLGS on 11/9 was about to be fully sandwiched by two other events, full of disappointment, loss and grief.  First, the somewhat sudden passing of my 42-year old godson, on Halloween.  I had just been in touch with  his mom, one of my oldest, dearest friends, as she was helping him move into hospice, and I was planning on arriving the next day to see them.  Then, within a few hours of getting settled at hospice, he was gone.

The sandwich on the other side was a memorial service on 11/15 for a long-standing coaching client from one of my all-time favorite teams.  He was an incredible inventor (including the Craisin).  A great story teller.  A wonderful family man.  Only 59 years old.  Fine one minute.  Gone the next.

The silver lining, right in the middle of all this loss and grief, was a delightful dinner party, hosted by my old friend Katie, who had been planning on having a dozen of us over to celebrate the election results.  Which as you may have guessed turned into a somber, soul-searching evening. No celebrating for us.

Yet, our hostess had the wisdom, and the will, to lead us on a process of active listening, and  deep sharing.    Each of the dinner guests took turns first introducing ourselves and explaining our connection to our host & hostess.  Then, at the dinner table, Katie asked us to share how we were feeling, what we were thinking.  With rapt intent, we listened as each person made their personal accounting of how deeply troubled and concerned we were by what had just happened, and what may yet come to pass – post-election, mid-shock, still stunned.

Having that unexpectedly yet wonderfully intimate, deeply personal (yet in some ways universal) description of where each person was, right at this exact moment in time, had me feeling better already.  Uplifted beyond belief.  Just knowing that others were in a similar place, and hearing where they might go from here, brought a ray of hope and possibility.

I was particularly struck by our host’s description of how he felt like he has been living in a bubble.  Actually, a bubble within a bubble.  Living on an idyllic, socially responsible, working farm (first bubble), located in the State of VT (bigger bubble; Bernie’s bubble).

The whole experience  left me thinking of David Whyte’s missive on Disappointment:

The measure of our courage is the measure of our willingness to embrace disappointment, to turn towards it rather than away, the understanding that every real conversation of life involves having our hearts broken somewhere along the way and that there is no sincere path we can follow where we will not be fully and immeasurably let down and brought to earth, and where what initially looks like a betrayal, eventually puts real ground under our feet.

The great question in disappointment is whether we allow it to bring us to ground, to a firmer sense of our self, a surer sense of our world, and what is good and possible for us in that world, or whether we experience it only as a wound that makes us retreat from further participation.

Disappointment is a friend to transformation, a call to both accuracy and generosity in the assessment of our self and others, a test of sincerity and a catalyst of resilience. Disappointment is just the initial meeting with the frontier of an evolving life, an invitation to reality, which we expected to be one particular way and turns out to be another, often something more difficult, more overwhelming and strangely, in the end, more rewarding. 

More rewarding if we each commit to behaving as Leaders.  Step out of our bubbles.  Better yet, burst out of our bubbles.  No more sheep.  No more checking out, letting others lead, or just waiting for the world to change (as John Mayer sang once).  Time to step up.  Engage openly, honestly, compassionately with others.  Even if, especially if, they don’t come from our old, safe, self-replicating bubble.  

Lead on my friends!