Well 2020 is in the jammed into the rear view mirror as a year I am sure we will all agree was perhaps the ultimate teacher in surrender. A crazy ride.
2021 so far looks a little similar too… and from peering out over the horizon I don’t think any of us would be confident to say this things going away. So we have to ensure we focus on that which we can control of which there is only ever one thing. Ourselves (and yes I know even that is a terribly hard task for some of us!).
So onto the topic for this month: Dealing with disappointments
This topic for me is very close to home. As over the last 4 weeks of building I have been dealt with some major setbacks. Picture house falling off of a hill kinda setbacks. And while that is a slight exaggeration, if it kept raining the way it was it just might have.
You see we were up to the roofing stage, floors and framing up. Next stage roof, but the roofer put has back a few weeks and then the rains hit.
With no roof to catch and direct the rain, it fell on the flooring and ran over the edge and started to undermine the footings. We turned up to go and take a look over our seasonal creeks in the midst of the rain and Anna goes “does it look like the house is tilting?” Nah, it’s fine…
Next day with more rain went back for another look and on second thoughts, yes the house is definitely tilting. The front of our house goes out over a 5 metre drop and it had actually dropped by 15cms.
Turns out the footings were not adequate!
I called on a friend for some advice which went a little like this: “you’ve got no worries mate this is the builders responsibility.” To which I replied “ah I am the builder”, his reply “oh shit”. Yep, an invitation to freak out…
Just imagine the scene for a moment. The sub floors are in, the flooring and the frames are all up and your house is sliding towards the dam and you are the builder. And this was 2 weeks from when we were originally expecting to be at lock up. And with the voice in the back of my mind of my wife echoing a previous conversation “You really sure you can handle this, I’d rather we get a builder.” “phh of course I can handle this….”.
A word comes to mind “heartbreaking” and then another “Shiiiiiiiit”. Followed by this could cost a bucket load. And that extra bucket we do not have.
Now I could have crawled into my shell and cried, and for a moment I honored that emotion, jumped in my car and gave a primal moan. Rather than ignoring any energy that was arising in my body and pretending to be zen, I rather allow it to be honoured but not hold on to it. So release and move on, recalibrate on the disappointment and take steps to get this sorted out.
After all, what is disappointment? Well for most parts it’s reality not meeting our expectations. In this situation on a fairly grand level.
In the past I would have for sure been blowing up, but I now know doing that is only making the situation worse and from a science perspective if I stress out, I get stupid and less creative as I shut off the access to our smart, more intelligent creative self. Just the guy I need to handle such a situation.
But how do we do that in those moments? Good question.
That’s often the challenge as our past patterns can really dictate how we play out in these moments. We just have to make sure we remain as conscious as possible.
So here’s a few steps I aim for:
Assess what is really happening in the moment. Breathe Do not future pace and get lost in all the potential negative scenarios (anxiety pattern). Breathe Bring yourself into the moment Breathe Allow a few curse words and emotions to run through and then shake the shit off Breathe Decide on what is the next step that is required.
Rinse and repeat. One foot after the next keeping consciously aware of what is happening. Staying mindful and present.
Also put it into perspective, how bad is it really.
Nature gave me a little reminder on this day, there was a cicada that was not in a great way sitting on a machine near the house. I picked it up and he clung to my finger and it seemed that his journey was coming to an end. The beautiful reminder of the nature of life, birth, life and death. All playing out in this cosmos.
All things pass, and so to will the negative situation. So sure a house sliding off the hill is a pretty serious challenge, its very much a first world drama though and by no means the end of the world. Yet at the same time we do not want to belittle our emotions or situations. We just want to make sure we are not being governed by them unconsciously.
So what happened to the house? Well the good news is that the engineers had signed off on the footing design quickly realised that the issue was with their design and came to the party straight away and within a few days organised to get it sorted. And while I am a month behind it is a blessing in disguise, as now the house is going nowhere…. which may have happened down the track with all the extra weight on it, could have been a bigger disaster. So there often is a silver lining and sometimes we just have to open ourselves to that shift in perspective. And perhaps ask, what good can come of this? Where is the opportunity? And then follow the charm!
Related Tags: Meditation for Stress