Welcoming the disappointments in our lives with the right attitude is an essential skill, to live a happy and content life. We invest our time, energy and interest in our wishes, hoping for things to turn out the way we want, expecting to receive full returns. But our plans do not always work out as expected.

Desires and disappointments are a regular feature of our lives. We project the arms of our desires to eagerly grab what we want and reject the rest, living in constant conflict between our hopes and the actual turn of events. Our wishes are not always fulfilled and a sequence of inevitable disappointments becomes a frequent occurrence for us.

Children learn early on, that disappointments do not feel good. They often face it with an involved, and absolute response. When there is a disappointment, they open their whole being to it, allowing the feeling of dismay to completely fill them. It floods them and quickly recedes, without leaving any residue behind. They are over it and soon move on to the next exciting thing around!

Welcoming disappointments with this attitude is relatively easy for children because they are open and trust life. They have not yet acquired the strong influences and conditioning that colour and constrict our worldviews as adults.

As adults, we have a difficult time letting go. We do not open our being to anything. We are too cautious protecting our feelings, not allowing anything to penetrate us deeply, for the fear of being hurt.

We have become experienced, stubborn and hard set in our patterns of thinking. Having a conditioned approach to everything, we have lost our innocent simplicity of naturally trusting and accepting whatever comes our way.

We rarely open our hearts to the unknown. We approach all new things with a lingering caution, instead of the trusting innocence and excitement of a child. We are afraid of disappointments. We often face them with a weariness of dejection, even dread.

We tend to over analyze everything in our lives, not accepting anything without dissecting all its features, investigating every situation and event in detail. We do not accept whatever happens, without critically and thoroughly evaluating it first. Even then, we are always suspicious.

Our desires are rigid and our disappointments unyielding. When something does not go our way, we brood, sulk and moan. We remain upset for long, wallowing in our displeasure or regret.

Our biological instinct for safety and survival goes on an overdrive and we build a psychological wall around us, with all our accumulated disappointments. We hold their experience close to our hearts, to extract out their full worth, in the form of valuable life lessons.

Stowing all the disappointments in our memory vaults, we refer back to them frequently, and steer all our future attitudes and behavior through their restrictive screen.

This may protect us from some impulsive absurdities or frequent heartaches in our lives, but it also blocks our open welcoming presence, to the freely flowing current of the nuances of existence in this world.

How to handle our disappointments?

We are vulnerable to disappointments, because our body-mind has limits. We could accept our limitations and recognize that we do not know everything. We may not know the best course of action in every situation.

We do not have access to all relevant facts, having a limited perspective, a view confined by the boundaries of our personal memories, imagination or ideas. We may sincerely want something to happen, based on all we think and know. But we still could have missed a few crucial variables, that end up determining the sequence and flow of events.

Every disappointment may be seen as an outcome of a mistake, that we need to learn from. Either by moving in another direction, or by doing something in a different way. It therefore, brings us a step closer to where we need to go. That may not always align with where we want to go.

We may look back at our past and notice many disappointments and regrets. But if we sincerely allow ourselves to recognize the absolute value in our immediate situation, we may realize, that there was no other way to reach where we are now.

Even if we are not happy with our present condition, we may still not know all the relevant factors and what the future holds for us. We are always somewhere on a learning curve! Through all our perceived heart aches and disappointments, we have been rinsed and purified.

When we place our trust in the wisdom of life, we open ourselves to the cleansing by its flow. Welcoming our disappointments then becomes an act of aligning our expectations with the sagacity of the whole. With our trust in the compassionate intelligence of life, we could surrender our limited self-centered perspective, to the movements of the totality.

Totality with its infinite wisdom and access to all that is, chooses and decides the best course for its flow. We, as tiny ripples in its current, may look around and feel hope or disappointment with the unfolding scene. But that is only because we do not have the complete view of the whole. We do not see the direction of movement of the totality. Insisting on being an isolated separate ripple, we resist being one with the whole current.

Unless we come to terms with the reality as is and learn to let go of all our concepts and ideas, about how things should be, we shall never be content for long. Until we genuinely welcome and wholeheartedly trust whatever comes, we may continue moving in the repeating cycles of hope and disappointments.

When we live with a natural trust in the course of life, there are no disappointments, because whatever happens, is already aligned with the flow!

We may continue to have desires, but we learn to accept them as part of the natural course of life. If we have personal wishes that do not align with the direction of the whole, we learn to recognize that. This recognition in the moment, frees us of such desires, by gently letting them go.

In the thick of our wishes and desires, we could try to remember that we are on the train of destiny. It goes in its own rhythm, and does not consult our opinions. But it operates with absolute compassion for us, it shows us what we need to see, it teaches us what we need to learn, it takes us where we need to go.

This inherent compassion of life becomes evident, when we open our hearts to receive everything with a welcoming attitude. We steadily grow in our appreciation for what is, and slowly all the complaints and disappointments are effortlessly dropped. We naturally align with the reality of things, as they are.

We meet each disappointment with a certain conviction, that whatever happened was perhaps best for us in the context of that situation, considering all the variables, known and unknown to us.

We trust life, and the flow of totality. Welcoming our disappointments with an attitude of trust, blunts their sharp edges, easing our discomfort, helping us to remain calm, patient, to accept our situation and to move on.

This is true for all that comes our way, whether they are uninvited thoughts, unpleasant sensations or unwanted perceptions. We receive all of these into our open awareness, with no hesitation, no reservation. Their turbulence dissolves into the calmness of our alert attentive presence.

We may work out a practical strategy, for effortlessly welcoming disappointments, where we lower our expectations consciously. It is difficult, but we could try to carefully avoid spinning elaborate webs of imaginary projections around our desires. Specially, being more aware, in the situations when we desperately want something to happen in a particular way.

Often, this may prepare us to be more alert and help us to eventually accept our disappointments with more dignity and poise. Then, receiving what we had hoped for, would just be an extra bonus of joy!

Through our trusting acceptance, we consciously align our body-minds with the flow of oneness, which is our reality, our true nature and the source of our causeless happiness.

Trusting that everything is balanced in the movement of totality, we can be free of the suffering from disappointments. The freedom does not come, from never missing our desired goals, but from welcoming all our disappointments, every hit and miss, with the same grace and equanimity!