How to Recover From Disappointment

Regardless of whether it is misplacing your favorite sweater, failing a test, losing a relationship or encountering death, everyone experiences disappointment at one time or another. Although the little disappointments are usually easy enough to cope with, moving on after a large disappointment can be difficult. There are many things that you can do to facilitate your recovery, but the most important thing to do is maintain hope and remember that your life will eventually improve and return to normal.

Instructions

• 1

  Allow yourself to grieve. During the grieving process, you will go through five emotional stages. These are: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and finally acceptance. Everyone moves through these stages at different rates and not necessarily in the same order. You may reach acceptance after several months only find yourself angry again a few weeks later. Your feelings are normal and you should embrace them.

• 2

  Share your feelings. Isolating yourself will prolong the grieving process and could adversely affect your mental health. Even though you might not want to, force yourself to share your feelings with at least one other person. If there is nobody that you trust enough to do this with, consider seeing a counselor.

• 3

  Focus on the positive. Look for the positive things that exist in your life and do your best to be grateful. Although everything can seem meaningless after a large disappointment, cultivating gratitude for what you have will help to relieve the pain of your loss.

• 4

  Evaluate what went wrong. After a major disappointment, you may feel confused by what happened. As you think it through, you will probably identify some things that you could have done differently to help prevent the disappointment. However, it is just as important to identify and accept the things that you did well or that were outside of your control.

• 5

  Take care of yourself. A healthy diet, exercise and normal sleeping schedule will help your body to handle the stress that is created and being generated by your grief. Staying healthy will ensure that you have enough emotional and physical energy to recover from the disappointment and move on with your life.

• 6

  Take regular breaks from your grief. Immediately after the disappointment, you may want nothing more than to curl up in your bed and spend the whole day crying. However, it is important to give yourself permission to take a break from grieving and spend some time doing something you enjoy. As your healing progresses, you will naturally spend more time enjoying life. Eventually, you may find that you need to schedule time for grieving rather than enjoying yourself.

• 7

  Force yourself to be social. Although it may sound unappealing, a night out with friends can be very healing. After disappointment or loss, social support is one of the most important resources that you have.

• 8

  Focus on the future. It is important not to spend too much time dwelling the past or even the present. Doing so will only make you feel hopeless and depressed. Instead, think about all the wonderful things you will get to experience in the future. Make plans to achieve future goals and move on with your life.

• 9

  Speak to a counselor or spiritual adviser if your disappointment turns into depression, hopelessness, persists for over a year, leads to suicidal thoughts or seriously impedes your life.