Dealing with Disappointment

This is my youngest son Zach when he was only three years old, with his highly unimpressed  Mr. Grumpy Pants look, hahaha! As you can see he was quite disappointed with something at that present moment  and clearly showed it.

Everyone feels disappointment and I just want you to know that if you are facing a huge disappointment in your life right now, you're not alone!  I had quite a sucker-punch to the guts today myself. Not gonna lie, I was extremely disappointed about it, I had been planning and preparing for quite some time now and was really choked when things didn't pan out the way I thought they should have.

So like any other normal human being I felt discouraged and frustrated and plain ol" bummed out/. It's hard to know what to do next when all your carefully laid plans get derailed. Expecially when the circumstances are completely beyond your control. So, what next?

Take a deep breath, hold it while you give the hot tears stinging your eyelids a minute to subside, and let that breath out slowly . . . while I congratulate you on this new opportunity!  WHAT??? I can hear you thinking " What the shiitake mushrooms is she talking about?!?!" haha.  It's not easy to see a long-desired door slam in your face as an opportunity, but when doors close on us it's kinda like God's way of saying " Careful there kiddo, you were headed in the wrong direction!".
One door closing means you just have to keep walking till you find an open window.  It does NOT mean we give up our on our dreams. It does NOT mean we slump down in a defeated heap and wait for our goals to be handed to us on a silver platter. It DOES mean that the particular WAY we thought something was supposed to work out, wasn't the best way and so we need to look for the opportunities that an open window will give us instead.  That open window may have a beanstalk growing right outside reaching into the sky, that we might never have noticed if we had wasted our time and energy beating our fists against a closed door or slumped in a corner in defeat,  And if that window doesnt open? Then try another one,.  And another one. I love the quote  "Courage is not always as a loud roar, sometimes it is the quiet voice that says 'I will try again tomorrow". (don't know who it's by, but if you do, comment below so I can give due credit )

I want to encourage amyone who is feeling disappointed right now, whoever has had their hopes deflated and feels like their dreams for the future just won't work out,  to HANG IN THERE., Because as long as you keep trying, keep getting back up, keep hoping, you WILL make it happen!

It's hard to do that,. I"m not gonna lie to ya sometimes hanging in there means gritting your teeth, or tears of frustration streaming down your face. As a single mama of two young children I have had my share of struggles with juggling the demands of raising a family and working 2 (sometimes 3) jobs and trying to pay the bills, run my own business and just keep my sanity through it all.  I remember sitting on the floor in my kitchen at 2 a.m. crying because I couldnt rememher the last time I was able to pay the phone, the electricity and the gas bills in the same month, wondering how on earth I was going to make the rent and being so sick and tired of always feeling like no matter where I was, whether at work or at home with my kids, that I was always supposed to be somewhere else. (Like when I was working, I'd feel guilty about not being with my kids, yet when I was home with them I'd feel guilty that I wasnt working more to provide for them better)  In those times, it seemed that all I was ever doing was struggling to make it from one day to the next, like reaching for any of my own dreams was out of the question, and  and every time I'd get close to being able to actually make ends meet, someone would move the ends! Hahaha

Those times did eventually pass though.  It took alot of hard work and alot of patience and reconfiguring and reconstructing and sorting things out. I made some necessary adjustments (including moving my kids and I into a smaller house that was more affordable, and as it turned out, newer and nicer too!) and things eventurally worked out for the best, and I no longer have to deal with the stress that I once dealt with on a daily basis.. Even then things didnt go entirely smoothly, A week and a half before I moved I wound up getting robbed! Someone broke into my almost-entirely-packed-up house and trashed the place and my computer and camera equipement were all stolen.  And since at the time I didn't have tenants insurance it was a devastating blow to lose such important equipment to my business and personal well-being! Again, it was patience and working even harder to gain back what had been lost ( or in this case, stolen) and eventually I wound up with more than I started out with.  Now I am eagerly looking forward to the future and slowly moving forward with my plans to meet my goals and dreams. One more derailment isn't going to slow me down, it;s just going to challenge me to look for the opportunity I might have missed out on along the way!

 Sometimes it means starting over from scratch, sometimes for the millionth time. Sometimes it means finding a whole new approach, or developing a new strategy or inventing a radical new paradigm.  If eveyone gave up, we would never have things like lightbilbs or telephones! hahaha. This is an opportunity to find out what your're made of! To challenge yourself.  I want to encourage you that you can accomplish whatever goal you"ve set you heart on, DON'T GIVE UP =)  I want you to know in your heart that someone believes in you and that person is me and I"m telling you that you can do it and you can come back and re-read this as many times as you need to in a day to remind yourself of that!

Do things always work out the exact way we think they should ?  No, sometimes they turn out much, much better! And if they haven't yet then it means the journey isn't over yet and the best part is still yet to come!

Hope and encouragement for your heart,
-J