Last week I came across the question “How do you bounce back when you are let down?” at work. It’s a struggle and I am sure most of you will agree with me on this. Our resilience mostly depends on the day, our hormones and life circumstances. Yet, if I need to exercise some conscious practice to step back when I feel triggered and disappointed, here are the two questions I ask myself:
1) Am I viewing this from the lens of my past experiences?
2) Did the other person really wrong me in some way?
If it’s the former, then I try to sit with my emotions and ground myself in some way, being curious about which experience in the past had made me feel like this and why I am still holding onto those feelings. Sitting with the emotions and processing them isn’t easy for me, some days I succeed, some days I end up avoiding facing my uncomfortable feelings.
If the other person was at fault, I try to communicate it to them. The communication is often imperfect and ends up being a reaction or outburst but I keep trying to get better at processing my emotions and expressing myself better. One small step every day is to step back and regulate myself better.
Do you struggle with bouncing back from being disappointed too? How do you deal with disappointments from your close ones? Do share in comments with me.
