Week 6: Disappointment

This past week my Tuesday afternoon trip to the gym was excruciating. My knees started to ache halfway through my training routine, and while I worked through the pain and finished my workout, I still had to come to terms with the fact that my body was trying to tell me something. Up until that point I’d been running and walking six days a week, but my knees were telling me that something needed to change. Ten minutes later I’d come to the conclusion that I needed to add another rest day to my week. And the disappointment came rushing in.

Disappointment is an emotion that I experience a lot on this journey. This past Sunday I felt it when I weighed in, only to discover that the scales hadn’t moved at all. I feel it whenever I pull my favorite pair of jeans out of the closet and discover I’m not quite small enough yet to get back into them. I feel it when I flip over that box of cookies I really, really want only to discover that the calorie count on even half a serving is far greater than what I’m willing to allow.

Sometimes I have no problem shaking it off. I shrug and think “Oh well, there’s always tomorrow”, and life goes on. Other times I allow regret to ride the disappointment’s coat-tails, and then dealing with the emotion is much more difficult. I start to second-guess my choices and wonder what I could have done differently to make things turn out the way I wanted them to, and then I feel more disappointment as I think about what could have been if only I’d done that one thing differently. It turns into a vicious cycle that can be dangerous for an emotional eater like me. In the past moments like this would have completely derailed me and I would have thrown in the proverbial towel and followed it up with a 1000 calorie bowl of ice cream.

Thankfully, I’ve learned to remind myself that I am human and that I don’t need to regret every mistake I make on this journey. I’ve learned that for every disappointment I face there are dozens of other things that turn out okay and bring joy to my life. I know it sounds cliché, but there really is something to be said for finding silver linings in every cloud. If I focus on my accomplishments rather than my disappointments I begin to understand that my victories far outweigh my failures, and I can shake that disappointment off and journey on.