Throughout his life, a person learns from his mistakes. Dealing with disappointment is the same as learning from other people's mistakes - it is very difficult. But everything requires the right approach, and even the most impregnable walls can be crushed!

If you want to get rid of the feeling of disappointment and all the disorders that accompany it, first of all, you need to figure out what or who is the root cause of this feeling. Self-analysis has never harmed a person, and you need to take this quite seriously.

Find unpleasant feelings in yourself and overcome fear

It is not so easy to isolate exactly the feeling that is to blame for everything from the host of sensations and emotions, but it is even harder to admit this feeling to yourself. Unfortunately, this must be done, since only in this way can we overcome the fear that does not allow us to live in peace. Fear is the main cause of disappointment. If you don’t overcome it at the very beginning, then all your life you will have to be afraid to love a person and not let anyone near you.

Before we become passionate about something or fall in love, we always have a fleeting feeling of fear. This feeling comes with experience, mistakes made, and we don’t want to repeat them. This fear and disappointment go hand in hand. And if you defeat it, you will be able to defeat such an unpleasant feeling as the fear of disappointment.

Time as a helper and self-love

As for disappointment itself, you can listen to the well-known wisdom that “time heals,” or you can sort out your feelings, set priorities in life and arm yourself with healthy optimism and a sense of humor. It would seem that with such an arsenal, feelings of disappointment have no chance, but that’s not all. The most important thing to remember is to be kind to yourself. If you doubt yourself, as well as scold yourself, be dissatisfied with yourself, then fear and disappointment find their way to you. If you love yourself by admitting your disappointment, then you will love the whole world and enjoy new and pleasant experiences!

Question for a psychologist:

Hello! My name is Anna, I'm 20 years old, I'm a student. I really want to take an important step in my life, but I don’t know how. I am the only child in the family, so high hopes have always been placed on me: I cannot let my mother down (since she is not for a long time can’t find a job and believes that I, having gotten back on my feet, will help her solve her problems), I can’t disappoint my dad (because he works hard all day and night to earn money for the family), my grandmother, who in her own way, relies on me she did not receive a higher education for a while, and now she wants to brag about her granddaughter who graduated from a university. I have lived my whole life so as not to disappoint my family.

A little over a year ago I met a man who is 17 years older than me, a wealthy man, with higher education and a lot of talent. He is a foreigner, he comes to see me every month. I can’t come to him - all my movements around the country and beyond are strictly controlled by my dad. He asked me many times to come to him, meet his relatives (who already know everything about me inside and out), and finally introduce him to my parents. We quarreled many times over this. But I have a problem - I’m very afraid to tell my parents about him. Because he is older, a foreigner (and there are a lot of prejudices about representatives of his country in Russia), because I am somehow ashamed in front of them for having a man. I'm afraid they will be against the prospect of intermarrying with a citizen Islamic State that they will condemn me, they will turn away from me (even if not forever).

Plus to all this, I began to think about changing universities for a long time. I am not disappointed in the profession I chose. I just don’t like the organization here, the leadership, and I would like to adjust the specialization a little. In addition, I have ceased to withstand the enormous workload of studying, coupled with the fact that teachers do not fulfill their professional features. I complained to my parents about this, they sympathetically agreed, but as soon as I stuttered that I wanted to try to change universities, scandals began.

Now I know exactly what I want: to pick up documents from this university, get married and live with my loved one, enter a new university. My fiancé fully supports me in this (although he never insisted that I quit studying here, and even on the contrary, he asked me to think very seriously about this topic).

But in the end, everything turned out in such a way that for more than a year I couldn’t decide to introduce my man to my family, tell her about my plans, and finally implement them. I cry every day, I react very nervously to my parents’ comments or any of their harmless actions. To stop this condition at least for some time, I take tranquilizers. I feel very bad because, due to fear of my parents, nothing in life makes me happy, my dreams don’t come true and in my 20s I spend every day within 4 walls (with breaks for a few days when my man arrives ). How to overcome this fear and not be afraid of decisive action?

Psychologist Olesya Anatolyevna Bogutskaya answers the question.

Anna, hello!

It seems that the internal boiling of this issue has reached its peak. highest point. And you really are standing on the line. Not even in front of her, but already on her. And if you cross this line...what will happen? Try to answer for yourself the questions of what exactly you are afraid of. Yes, I saw that you wrote about the fear of disappointing all the people close to you. But this is a generalized fear. And you try to be more specific. So you talk about your intention, introduce your man to your parents. So what's going on? What's the worst that can happen? Okay, disappointing. How will it manifest itself? Specifically, point by point. The more specifically you imagine your worst fears, the more he will let go little by little... Because we are afraid of the unknown. And once fear takes shape, color, taste and smell, it is often not so scary. And in general...if you think very carefully, you will see that there is nothing to be afraid of. And all that this whole story “threatens” you with is that you will gain freedom and independence. Yes, you will grow up. Yes, you will have more responsibility for your actions. Yes, perhaps everyone around you will no longer be happy with you. But this is the fate of adults - to have their own opinion, their own life and live it as they see fit. So you will start doing this. Yes, change is always difficult for other people, especially parents. But they can handle it. Sooner or later, this awaits all parents and this is not called disappointment. This is called “our child has grown up and nothing can be done about it.”

How to take this step?.. Just take your man by the hand and lead him to meet his parents. Warn in advance that you will not come alone. There is no other way) And don’t look for it. And no one will tell you how to do this in a cunning way! There are no tricks. Try to realize that this is just one step forward. Just close your eyes and do it. Crying every day and sitting within 4 walls is not an option or a solution. For some reason you are torturing yourself very much. I think that any parents and grandmothers, first of all, would not want to see a child diagnosed with depression in hospital treatment... And you are already taking tranquilizers. I'm not scaring you, but let's face it. Even if your action and decision are not made with great joy and understanding, your happy eyes will put everything in its place after some time. And no one needs your tears now, right? So. So look at what you put on the scales, by and large.

It is impossible to get rid of fears and become interested in other people through willpower. Serious dependence on the opinions and approval of other people and conclusions about one’s own imperfections made in childhood live in the unconscious and create a serious internal conflict...

Every time people treat me with sympathy, anxiety settles in my soul: what if they get to know me better and their opinion of me changes for the worse? The tension and fear are so strong that it is easier to completely avoid contact than to experience this pain from the thought that I have disappointed someone.

Surprisingly, sometimes it seems that being liked by another person is even worse than not being liked by him.

After all, after the first feeling of joy that sympathy has arisen, a tense question arises: "What to do next? How can you justify your favor and trust in yourself?” I just want to hide and never communicate again.

Because of the fear of disappointing another, we may refuse something very interesting and desirable.

After a pleasant acquaintance, the man avoids new meeting, fearing that this time something will go wrong. And if a meeting does take place, then intense attention to how the girl will react to his words, actions or appearance does not allow her to relax and kills all possible joy from communication.

A girl can correspond for a long time on the Internet with a man she really likes, but every time she finds some excuse to refuse to meet with him. “What if I’m better in the photo than in real life? What if he doesn't like my facial expressions? Manner of speaking? Scary. And how painful it is to imagine the disappointment on his face.

Unlived lives, failed relationships, or simply communicating with other people in constant physical and mental tension - this is what we are doomed to by soul-crushing fear, behind which lies the pain of the thought that we may not live up to other people’s expectations.

Let us consider the unconscious reasons for the formation of this fear with the help of the knowledge of the “System-Vector Psychology” training.

They praise me - that means I exist

The fear of disappointing others can arise in people who have anal-visual vectors in their psyche. Such people strive to be good from childhood and are very sensitive to the opinions and assessments of other people.

Proofreader: Natalya Konovalova

Incredible facts

Fear is an emotion that protects us from danger from our environment. As humanity has evolved, our fears have become more complex, strange, and sometimes downright absurd. However, there are fears that most people share and that we face throughout our lives.

Fear of losing freedom

While precise definition freedom and its value in society is the subject of many debates, the fear of losing one’s freedom has always been present in the human soul, since, even though we do not think about it all the time, people have often thought about what would happen if He lost power and control over my life. This fear starts with everyday things where you were not allowed to leave the room until you did homework, or when you were afraid of commitment in marriage. However, the question arises here: is absolute freedom the best option for us? We've probably come across people more than once who didn't make the best decisions and wondered if it wouldn't be better if someone made the decision for them.

Fear of the unknown

The fear of the unknown is easy to explain: our mind tells us that in order to move on, we need to know what awaits us, since “if a person knows, he controls the situation, and if he does not know, then he does not control it.” This is precisely what scares us the most, since control is the dimension that we use to manage the outcome of our actions. And when we don't like something that's different from others, it's because we either can't understand it or don't know how to control it.

This fear has existed for thousands of years and is part of what helped us survive as a species. Many of us were afraid of the dark as children, mostly because we didn't know what might be hiding there. However, fear of the unknown often inhibits our development and makes it difficult to discover and understand new things, encouraging rejection and narrow-mindedness.

Fear of pain

Since the intensity of physical pain is a purely subjective experience that is experienced differently by each person, it is quite difficult to generalize what causes pain in people. However physical pain can be described as an unpleasant sensation that is the result of some damage in the body.

Apart from a few exceptions, most of us are intolerant or afraid of physical pain, as evidenced by the vast number of pain medications available with different strengths pain relief and different types pain. Pain aversion occurs because we associate physical pain with illness and poor health. This fear is also associated with the fear of losing one's freedom, as is the case with people who suffer from chronic pain and whose physical freedom is limited.

Let's face it, pain is not a pleasant feeling, and just like animals, we avoid pain, and this fear is one of key elements survival instinct. Pain itself signals that we need to stop doing something to avoid further damage to our body.

Fear of disappointment

This fear is difficult to explain, since two fears are associated with it at once - the fear of disappointing others and the fear of being disappointed.

We have all had unpleasant experiences as children when we behaved inappropriately and expected punishment and yelling from our parents. But in response they often received a sad look that said: " I'm disappointed in you"And this was sometimes the biggest punishment.

Fear of disappointment is partly the reason we avoid the unknown. Disappointment is a feeling of dissatisfaction when our expectations do not meet what happened. It is quite obvious that we are trying to avoid this, and like pain, disappointment is a negative experience, followed by regret when a person begins to look for what reasons led to the result.

Fear of poverty

Poverty is a situation in which there is a lack of resources to meet human needs. But we view poverty as the extreme case of poverty. This is the inability to cover basic personal needs. No one likes to see or feel poverty because we know that Man's worst actions are the result of desperation caused by poverty.

Nobody wants to feel the lack of things and the media takes advantage of this in advertising, convincing us that we need more things than we need. And even if we know how destructive the habit of hoarding is, it allows us to recognize that it would be much more difficult if we did not have the basic things that support us in life.

Fear of loneliness

Fear of loneliness is an unbearable feeling of emptiness caused by a lack of interaction with other people. This fear has evolved from the earliest survival instincts: we are afraid of loneliness because We are more likely to survive if we are in a group.

Fear of loneliness is also associated with actions that no one notices. We often feel that our actions become meaningful when someone notices them. So in one philosophical quote it was said: " If a tree falls in the forest and no one hears it, is it really making a sound?".

Fear of being ridiculed

Fear of ridicule is related to the fear of being criticized, and is a result of the social fear that we will not be able to produce enough. good impression about yourself to others. This fear is most often experienced as " stage fright"We have all had to perform or speak in public at some point in our lives. We are afraid that we will not perform at our best and the audience will respond negatively, either by ridiculing us or, in the worst case, booing us.

Even though many of us try not to experience stage fright or have developed the confidence to deal with ridicule and criticism, the fear of being laughed at never really leaves us because we don't like being the center of attention, being at the mercy of someone else's opinion.

Fear of Rejection

Social fear is one of the main reasons why people act in certain ways. Often we, sometimes blindly, follow the actions of others, as this helps us avoid social rejection. We fear rejection because, as with the fear of loneliness, many of us may justify one's existence only through recognition and acceptance of others. There are people who argue that social acceptance is just an illusion and there is no such thing as normal human behavior in society. If so, why are so many afraid of doing wrong and not in accordance with cultural norms?

Fear of death

This fear is not in the first position because even though it is the main reason for our actions, everyone knows that in the end we will all die. However, this does not mean that death is our constant worry, since we avoid thinking about it as a near future.

Fear of death closely related to fear of the unknown, since we don’t know exactly what will happen to us when we leave this world. In fact, man is so interested in the question of death that entire cultures and religions have been created that try to explain death. Even though ancient civilizations had somewhat pious forms and methods of worshiping death, you have all learned to respect and ultimately accept death.

Fear of failure

This fear deserves first place because it controls all our actions and decisions. We all do or don't do certain things to avoid failure. Failure can be many things, including realizing that we are not living the way we would like, not succeeding in our intentions, or feeling helpless.

Failure is a controversial and subjective matter, and what may seem like a failure to one may be a lesson to another to learn and try again. The main fear of failure comes from the disappointment that follows, the feeling that despite all your efforts, nothing has turned out the way you wanted it, and this makes many of us simply give up trying.

This is a very confusing story, the details of which are sometimes difficult for me to understand.

We met a year ago, on one rainy and cloudy day. Passions from previous relationships were still raging in my heart, so I didn’t give much importance to a new acquaintance. Despite this, we still met the next day. On the way to the cafe, where we were going to have a cup, we didn’t say a word. There was only one thought in my head: “Why do I need this?”

Having ordered coffee, a conversation began between us (hurray - I thought). And he told his story, he lives and works in another neighboring country A, and what is hidden in country A from the authorities of country B. In country B, he worked for one political leader, and when he was overthrown, he also had to leave. He said that he came here to visit a friend and has been living here for several months. During the whole evening I said only a few phrases, so I smiled for a long time when I heard from him - you are a delightful conversationalist!

Literally on the third day I received a letter from him by e-mail. ex-girlfriend, who lives in country A. She wrote in the letter that they broke up six months ago, but she, knowing the password to his mailbox, periodically checks his mail, that’s how she found out about me. This letter said that he is a gigolo, owes her a large amount of money, and in general, in order to achieve his goals, he can even talk about the death of his parents, who, by the way, live in country B.

Naturally, at the end of the letter she asked not to tell him anything. When I showed this letter to him, he explained who she was, and that this was not the first time she had said such nasty things about him. There were several more such letters, and then there were calls from her, in general, there was no peace. My head is a mess, I don’t know anything about the person, and the information that comes in is not pleasant. Further - more, the friend to whom he came, and his entourage showed themselves, and this, it must be said, is a typical redneck.

We were together, and something unreal was happening around us. 3 weeks after we met, he proposed, I said I’ll think about it. It's time to meet the parents. We met, mom was shocked, but dad seemed pleased. His “friends” were plotting, telling him tall tales about me, saying that I was laying claim to his “fortune”, but more on that later!

Since the world is a small place, my relative also learned about it, and not from me. She lives in another city. I understand that it’s difficult to understand what was happening right now, I’m confused myself. And then it began - the parents contacted the service through friends to find out whether such a person even existed, whether it was him, and who he was. It turned out that such a person exists, and this situation with “friends” was also resolved.

The next six months were not easy, although I was happy. The calls from his ex-girlfriend continued, who was now apologizing for her behavior, and his “friend” got into trouble, and only my boyfriend could help (financially), the amount was tidy. By that time, we were living together, and financial difficulties began in our common-law family. Therefore, for some time I brought money to our family.

I was worried about several questions: why hasn’t he been going to country A for six months now, because he has a job and a home there, and why aren’t his parents going? My relationship with my parents improved, and sometimes we spent weekends together. Everyone was happy, although some feeling of mistrust did not leave me, or, as it turned out later, my parents!

And then a terrible period came in my life. The pain, which became stronger every day, then the hospital and the first operation. After the hospital, a period of treatment began. It took me a long time to come to my senses, he was nearby. I constantly asked questions about his passport from country A, and he replied that he had given it to renew his registration, time passed, and still there was no passport.

He loved me, cared about me - it really was sincere, and I loved him and, despite the questions that arose, I felt very good. He talked about his family, it turned out that his mother was sick with cancer. Therefore, the arrival was constantly postponed. I tried to believe. And things were moving towards the wedding.

Then again to the hospital, in 7 days two operations, as a result of which I had my the fallopian tubes, at 24, I learned that I would never be able to have children naturally. Hard. Over time, the first shock passed, I found out about IVF, and in 2 months the first attempt to get pregnant was supposed to take place.

I forgot to say that his mother finally came in between operations, a very nice woman. She told me a lot about his life during the period when he lived in country B. But about country A - almost not a word. And I felt uncomfortable asking: “Is it true that you have cancer? That your son has an apartment and a job in country A?” In short, something became clear, but everything else remained a mystery, just as before. Our mothers also met, the feeling was the same as mine.

Before the IVF procedure, I decided that it was necessary to clarify all the issues that worried me; there were several useless attempts.

In the end everything became clear. It turned out that he was kicked out of country A by the authorities for whom he worked, and to whom he left country B. They also deprived him of the citizenship of country A, so he was forced to leave somewhere, that’s why he couldn’t go to your home and to your work.

It turned out that everything he said about the passport was also a lie, and it also turned out that he took money from my father, although he spent it on a business that we were doing together, although he told me that it was from my dad didn't take...

Many questions became clear... I was shocked, I couldn’t help but tell my parents about it. The decision was made, I am moving home to my parents. I no longer understood where the lie was and where the truth was. And everything started to turn around, I’m at home, my parents insist that he is a scoundrel, and not the person I need in life.

He asks for help and advice from our mutual friends. He begs to forgive him, says that he was confused, and lied like that because he was afraid that if I found out everything at the beginning, I wouldn’t want to communicate. He's probably right about this.

It turned out that I had no friends - at this convenient moment they said the same thing about me as in nightmare I couldn’t dream it, but my best friend I suggested that he find a girl, relax and forget about me being so unfair.

Then there was a trip to the doctor, with a conversation about how I couldn’t go for IVF, again tears!! Pressure from all sides - parents are categorically against it, he begs to forgive and give a chance, and friends who said: “Just think, what kind of normal man would steam with you, when there are a bunch of healthy women who don’t have the same problems as you.” "

Then his father arrived, whom he had not seen for 5 years. I still don’t understand why I didn’t meet him. But my father met him. After this meeting, he became even more entrenched in his beliefs, although it seems to me that dad was initially very critical, and took the conversation, which lasted about 15 minutes, very differently. His father promised to help solve his problems!

I know that I want to be with him, and I feel that he wants the same. I'm just so afraid of being disappointed. And probably most of all I’m afraid that my parents are right.

I don’t know what to do now...