Navigating Disappointment and Forgiveness in Relationships

Speaker 1 0:01

Hello Andy , here I went from depressed and suicidal to living a life of abundance and joy . If I can do it , you sure as hell can too . A woman in my coaching program recently . We had a big discussion and she slept through a date , right , and she felt really bad about letting this guy down . So she planned a date that we're going to meet up and she had a big night and she slept through and missed the date , and so myself and everybody else in the group and her we had a big discussion about you know , you didn't mean to let the person down , it's okay , blah , blah , blah . We told her all that sort of stuff . But we ended up having this big discussion where I basically said , like , look , you didn't intend to let him down , you did your best , sent him an apology message and he'll either see you or he won't see you . You know , blah , blah , blah .

Speaker 1 0:56

But a mindset that's really helped me in situations like this is a mindset that comes from Buddhism , which is eventually everybody lets you down , and that might sound a little bit nihilistic on the surface , right ? Like oh wow , everybody's eventually going to let me down , everybody in the world's going to disappoint me . But if you think about it a little bit and let it sort of marinate in your mind , it might bring a little bit of peace or you might be able to spot some beauty in the quote . Because , if you think about it , if everybody is eventually going to let you down and obviously people don't mean to let us down , but eventually everybody in the world if you spend enough time with them , they might accidentally or they're probably going to accidentally disappoint you or let you down . If it's inevitable , then you can kind of forgive them when it happens or step outside of that and realize that there was nothing even to forgive in the first place , because they're just acting in their nature , they're human . And you can kind of dig deep in there and go well , have I ever let anybody down in my entire life ? Yes , we all have . We're all human and there can be some peace and beauty in that , there can be some acceptance of that , because you don't take it quite so personally , because it's probably something that's going to happen sooner or later . Right , we're all going to disappoint each other . That's kind of the nature of the human condition .

Speaker 1 2:20

And so I said to her you know if you can forgive yourself for the times , because I told her to think of sometimes in her life where maybe she's let other people down , and this is obviously one of them . You know she might feel like she's let this guy down by missing the date , by sleeping in . But I said , think of sometimes other people have disappointed you . Think of sometimes you've disappointed people . It's kind of just a thing that happens and so if you can forgive yourself or , sorry , you can forgive yourself for letting somebody else down , you're human , you didn't mean to , you were trying to do your best . You didn't intentionally waste somebody's time or screw them over , and I can say the same to all of you listening there's been times where you might disappoint someone , you might upset someone , you might make them feel scared , you might intimidate someone without really meaning to , and you can sort of forgive yourself by realizing that , yeah , everybody lets each other down . That's kind of the human condition or a better way of phrasing . That is , we tell a story that somebody disappointed us , we tell a story that this person let me down , and we'll talk about that in a second . But another quote that really helps me in those moments where I'm feeling a little bit guilty , like this woman in my coaching group was . You know she was feeling really bad about it . So in those moments , if I'm ever feeling some guilt or , you know , not feeling good about something that I did , a quote that really helps me is everybody is just doing their best , including you .

Speaker 1 3:46

Another mindset this one comes from Byron Katie , and the mindset is nobody can disappoint me . I tell a story of how they disappointed me and then I disappoint myself . In other words , and I said this to her if this particular guy that she missed the date with , if he or anyone else in the future feels let down by something that she has done , something that you know I said to her something you've done or they disappointed in you , then that's because they had expectations . Like , what is a disappointment ? Have a little think right now as you listen to this . What does disappointment mean ? A disappointment can only occur if you had an expectation . That's what disappointment is .

Speaker 1 4:30

Disappointment is when someone doesn't do something that you expected them to do , or disappointment comes when life doesn't do what you expected to do , or when you yourself don't do something that you expected yourself to do , and so , without any expectations , there is no disappointment . It is impossible to be disappointed if you don't have any expectations . But as soon as you start having expectations , you're setting yourself up for disappointment . And this is why I don't use words like should ? I never say I should do this or he should do that or you shouldn't do this , because as soon as I do , I'm setting myself up for disappointment because I have an expectation and I've just found in life that people do whatever they're going to do . Life does whatever life wants to do . The universe has its own plan and if I sit there and say it should do this or it should go like this , I just set myself up for disappointment . There's an idea that I've been it's been bouncing around in my head and at some point I might do some content on it .

The Impact of Expectations and Disappointment

Speaker 1 5:42

I've , through my own sort of self discovery , I've come to see that the only time we suffer , it all boils down to one of three stories , and every single piece of suffering is a variation on one of these three stories . And the first story is I shouldn't , the second story is they shouldn't and the third story is it shouldn't , and every single bit of suffering comes down to one of those three stories . You can also rewrite those three stories as a should statement . You know I should , he should , or they should , it should . And every single time that I've ever suffered in my life it's because I was believing one of those three stories . You know , I was believing that I should , I should know better , I should be better , I should be stronger , I should blah , blah , blah , like some sort of should about myself or I should about someone else . He should respect me more . That person shouldn't write that comment . They should do this . My boss should be nicer to me . You know , blah , blah , blah or an it should . You know , like it should rain . It should be sunny today . It shouldn't rain today . It shouldn't be this difficult to do this thing . It should be . The universe should be more fair , like it , it should . So all suffering I have come to see is either I should or they should or it should , and a variation on one of those three things .

Speaker 1 7:15

But if you remove the shoulds , if you remove the expectations , if you have a little bit of humility when it comes to other people and yourself and life , there's no disappointment Because you didn't expect anything . You were just happy to go along for the ride and see what happens . You didn't expect anything from yourself , which is why I say statements like give yourself permission to suck . There's a great book by Brene Brown called the Gift of Imperfection and it's basically a book on that . It's a book on not having any shoulds or expectations on yourself .

Speaker 1 7:47

There's other stories that come up that mean that I suffer . You know like it should do that , this person should do that , they should do that . If I can let go of all of that and say other people are going to do whatever they want to do , the universe is going to go the way that the universe wants to go , life is going to go however life goes . If I can embrace that and just let go and be a bit more humble and say life doesn't have to go according to my plans , then I'm actually happier . And so , without expectations , without stories , we can't ever feel disappointed .

Speaker 1 8:20

And so all of this comes full circle to what I said to her , which was if somebody is disappointed in you like if this guy that you missed the date , if he's disappointed in you or he hates you or he doesn't want to speak to you again or whatever , that's his story . That's just because he was believing she should have shown up for that . She should have texted me and said that she was going to sleep in or she shouldn't have missed the date . It's his story and if he didn't have that story he wouldn't feel disappointed . It would literally be impossible to feel disappointed if he expected this woman to do whatever it is that she's going to do , including flaking , or if he just didn't have any expectations in the first place . He can't be disappointed . There's no disappointment .

Speaker 1 9:07

And so I said to her look , it's not the fact that you didn't show up that might feel disappointing for him , it's the story of she should show up or she shouldn't flake . That's what leads to the disappointment . And without any expectation there , if you're just going along with life and seeing what happens and obviously you know you have can you have some agency in that ? You don't have . That's not a passive statement , but like if you drop all the expectations and Whatever happens in life happens and then you roll with the punches and you know you make some adjustments , you do what you want , all of that kind of stuff , but if you don't have the expectations in the first place , they can't be disappointment . You know what I mean . People are just gonna do whatever they're gonna do and if that involves them flaking on you , then they're gonna flake on you If that involves them showing up , and they're gonna show up and so if you take away the expectations , there's no disappointment .

Speaker 1 9:56

So you know , I said to her , like , basically , it's not your job to control whether or not he's disappointed in you . All you can really ever do is do your best . And if it's important to you not to flake , then yeah , do your best not to flake . But If , in the moments where you're not perfect , somebody is disappointed in you , you don't have any control over that . That's their thoughts , that's their feelings , that's what they're believing in , what they're thinking and what they're attaching to , and that's not good or bad or right or wrong or any of that . But it's not your business if they're disappointed in you .

Speaker 1 10:29

A lot of the time we tell a story that if somebody is disappointed in us , that that's our fault or we're bad or we shouldn't have done that , and we attached to it very strongly and obviously counter this with . You know , I counted this with trying to be as kind as I can and trying not to deliberately set out to disappoint people . You know I don't deliberately try to let people down . I try and be as kind as I can , I try and be as honest as I can . I try and show up to my commitments . But it's still inevitable that people will be disappointed in me , and so I can be okay with that because I can go well , I tried my best and if they're disappointed in me , that's their story and they're allowed to be disappointed in me . You know , we can zoom out and think about that a little bit .

Speaker 1 11:12

If somebody is disappointed in me , that's their right . I don't have the right to take away their disappointment . Now I might do something to say would you like to talk to me , would you like me to help with this ? But I'm not gonna force it on them . I'm certainly not gonna feel uncomfortable because somebody else is disappointed in me . That's their God given right . They have the right to be disappointed in me . They have the right to expect me to do things that maybe I don't end up doing , and then they feel disappointed . They have the right to have expectations of me . I'm not trying to take that . I would never try to take their expectations away , but it certainly isn't my business if they then get disappointed . If they have an expectation and reality doesn't match up with that or I don't live excuse me , live up to that standard that they have set for me in their mind . They have imagined .

Speaker 1 11:59

If they are then disappointed , that's their story , that's their journey , that's their thing . That they're going through has zero to do with me . It's got nothing to do with me . All I did was not show up for a date . They can tell whatever story they would like to tell about that and that's their right . They can tell a story that I'm a flaker , that I'm lazy , that I'm stupid , that I'm bad , that I'm a bad person , all of that . They can tell those stories and I love that for them . Tell whichever stories they want to tell . But that isn't my Business , that isn't my thing to control . It's not up to me to get in their head and say don't be disappointed , blah , blah , blah . And that's what I was sort of Getting out here with her .

Speaker 1 12:39

I was saying you know , if he's going to be disappointed , then hey , that's beautiful , that's what's in his head , that's what's in . You know , that's what he's thinking and believing in that moment and it's not your right to take that away from him . It's not your right to defend or take it away or say , hey , don't feel disappointed , hey , I'm so sorry , I'm so sorry , obviously , still apologize , if you wish to , I would . I would , in that moment , apologize . I'd say I'm really sorry that I let you down . Would you like to Try again for another day or would you like to just leave it there and go separate ways and still make the apology ? But whatever the person does after that , that's their right and it's not up to me to take that away .

Speaker 1 13:15

So yeah , further on the concept of People feeling disappointed , I guess is and I pointed this out to her like people , when we get disappointed , it's because we had an expectation of someone or something , or of ourselves . You know there's those three statements should you know they should , or I should , or it should , and when we have those expectations , basically within we've made those expectations up , right , like that's what an expectation is . An expectation is imagination . You've literally just invented the future . You don't know if it's going to turn out like that , but you're expecting it to . So it is a fantasy . Essentially , it's a fairy tale , and this happens a lot .

Speaker 1 14:02

Right , we tell fairy tales about other people , like of them living up to our fantasy , or living up to our ideals or living up to the stories that we tell about them . You know like you might have a friend who's always there for you and then you find yourself very disappointed the one day that they let you down . I would question that and examine that . And you have likely been telling yourself a fairy tale of my friend is always there for me and they always care about me , and the one time they want that for me , see something's changed , like he's supposed to always care about me . You were telling a fairy tale that your friend is perfect and can always be there for you 24 , seven , all the time , and will never , ever disappoint you . That was a fairy tale . They didn't disappoint you , disappointed yourself . You told a fairy tale and fair enough , that's .

Speaker 1 14:47

You know what we do as human beings . We tell stories in our head . It's how we relate to the future . Because what is the future other than a fairy tale or a story ? The future hasn't happened yet and it almost always doesn't turn out exactly the way you envisioned it in your mind . We're very bad at predicting the future , like we're basically awful at it and we're doing our best , but we we almost never get it correct , especially if you think far enough ahead .

Speaker 1 15:10

I'm gonna do a video on my YouTube channel in the next , I don't know a couple of weeks or so about like my five year plan , my five year vision for the future , because someone asked me that question recently , like Andy , what do you see yourself in five years ? And essentially what I'm gonna say in this video is like I don't fucking know anything I would say about where I'm gonna be in five years is just me telling a fucking story . It's me telling a fairy tale . I'm just making shit up Like how the hell could I know where I'm gonna be in five years ? And so we're very . We just don't have a very high percentage like accuracy rate when we predict the future . And yet we do it all the time , we do it constantly .

Speaker 1 15:45

Like some people just live in the future , other people will live in the past and the trick or it's not really a trick , but the awakening , the realization of happiness is happiness is just living in the moment , right now , and going , you know what ? The past that's already over the future . I don't fucking know what's gonna happen in the future . I'm just gonna focus on right now . That's a secret to happiness . Like all of the content that I'm ever gonna do in my entire life boils down to that statement I just said . You're making up the past is already fucking happened and you retroactively retell the story of the past .

Speaker 1 16:19

Anyway , the past isn't the way that most of us remember it . We're not objective about the past . Right , we tell stories , we have emotions , all of that . We look black , sometimes with rose tinted glasses , or other times will look back like what we I don't know that we're , I don't know that it's possible to be completely objective . I just don't know if that's possible . And so the past is just a retelling of events . The future is just made up , events that usually don't come to fruition , at least not exactly the way that we envision them .

Speaker 1 16:50

What else do you have other than this moment right now ? And so if you can just do that , if you can get that concept that I just said , congratulations . You don't need to listen to anything else that I will ever say for the rest of my life , ever . If you can just go , you know what man . I'm going to let go of the past and I'm not going to worry about the future . I'm just going to focus on right now .

Speaker 1 17:08

Congratulations , you're enlightened , literally , congratulations . That is literally Buddhism to a T Buddha . You know the founder of Buddhism , I guess you could say Buddha literally talked about like each one of us has something that he called a Buddha nature , and I can sort of summarize all of it by saying if you want to get in touch with your Buddha nature like in other words , if you want to become enlightened , literally just realize that all you have is right now , this moment , and don't even worry about enlightenment , like that was kind of . His big teaching was like don't fucking worry about enlightenment , just focus on right now . Byron Katie says the same shit , david Hawkins says the same shit . All of these people talk about the same fucking concept . Mother Teresa talked about this shit . It's like focus on right now . Congratulations , good job . You do want a great job , that's it , that's all the fucking matters . So , yeah , anyway , a little bit of a side

Letting Go of Fairy Tales

Speaker 1 17:58

tangent there .

Speaker 1 17:58

But when we tell a fairy tale of what the future is going to be like , or when we tell this , you know , made up story of how we expect someone to behave , you know , like my friend is always going to be there for me when reality doesn't match up with that , which it rarely ever does , like reality is doing its own shit , you know , the universe has other plans , it doesn't need your adorable , cute little fairy tale of how you think it should run . You know , byron Katie has this quote that I love . She says who needs God ? When we have your opinion and it's like , yeah , and most of the time our opinion is complete , not a horse shit . Anyway , we're doing our best but our opinion is , let's be honest , like complete fucking dog shit . Like my opinion is complete dog shit .

Speaker 1 18:38

I'm sitting here on this podcast telling you that right now my opinion on most things is like just , I don't know , it's like a fucking childlike , naive little opinion . Even this podcast right now is me just , in my childlike attempts to understand and explain the universe , me clumsily stumbling through language to try and get something across to you which I'm going to miss , say you're going to misunderstand and miss here . Like we're clumsy , we're cute , adorable , beautiful little children trying to just stumble our way through life with our cute little opinions . And when we put those opinions on someone else and say , ok , this is how this person is going to behave in the future , my friend's always going to be there for me . This girl better not flake on me . I'm going to be really disappointed if my boss doesn't give me a pay rise . You know I better lose weight because I'm trying really hard . My body better respond . You know it should respond .

Speaker 1 19:26

These should statements , these cute , childlike , naive , beautiful little stories and fairy tales that we tell of what the future is going to be like . We're setting ourselves up for disappointment . We're basically guaranteeing fucking disappointment , right ? We're like literally ensuring that we're going to be disappointed when we try and predict the future . That's why I say fuck the future . Like the future is beautiful and obviously you can set goals and work towards them and all of that beautiful stuff . But don't tell yourself some gay ass fucking fairy tale Excuse my non PC fucking language there . Don't tell yourself some dumb ass fairy tale of how , in the future , you know you're going to be happy . It's like that's a load of bullshit . You just made that up . Why don't you be happy right now ? Like how the fuck do you know that when you know I saw some YouTube comment yesterday a couple of guys were talking on my YouTube channel and you know they were having this discussion and one of them said you know , sometimes I feel like if I have sex with 50 women , that I'll be happy , I'll be happy , and I read that and you know I was gentle and nice in my reply , but I read that and I'm like fuck off , you don't know that you're going to be happy when you have sex with 50 women .

Speaker 1 20:27

I'll tell you right now if you're not happy right now , you're not going to be happy when you have sex with 50 women . Having sex with 50 women is not the key that just unlocks happiness . No , the way that you're happy is you focus on the journey to get towards 50 women . If you want to have sex with 50 women amazing , beautiful , what a great goal Go for it , but be happy on that journey . Don't just , like , think that you get to show up at the destination , not having practiced being happy . You'll show up at the destination and just suddenly , like God or the universe or something , will come down from the clouds and hand you happiness on a silver platter and go there , you go , here , you go . Here's happiness .

Speaker 1 21:04

Even if that did happen , you will clumsily fumble it and fuck it up because you don't know how to be happy , and what you will do is you will just set the next goal . That's called moving the goalposts , by the way , you'll just you'll find yourself unhappy or you'll find yourself not fully satisfied , like you thought that having sex with 50 women was like the meaning of fucking life or something . You thought that that shit was going to bring you deep satisfaction for the rest of your life . Oh , my goodness , like what a lie , what a beautiful fairy tale to tell yourself . And then that's not going to make you happy , unless you focus on the journey and enjoy the journey , like , in other words , focus on the present moment .

Speaker 1 21:39

But if you don't do that , if you just think that having sex with 50 women is somehow like a little tick in a checkbox , that's gonna make you little fucking . You know you're gonna get a little pat on the head from the universe or something . No , like you get they . You have sex with those 50 women . You go . Why do I still feel unhappy ? That didn't work . Okay , fuck , maybe I need more money . You go make more money , shit . Why don't I feel happy ? Fuck , maybe I'll be happy when I go and go to the gym and build an elite body and you spend your entire life like a dog chasing a car or something and by the time the dog catches the car , it catches it and it doesn't know what the hell to do now . It doesn't know what to do with the car that it just caught . That's you . Well , that's that , that is us , if we don't Enjoy the goddamn present while we're doing those things .

Speaker 1 22:24

And so , again , to really , you know , make it clear having a goal of having sex with 50 partners . I mean , if that's important to you , that's absolutely beautiful . I got a lot of joy and beauty and connection and self improvement , self development , a lot of happiness from having sex with as many women as I've had at this point in time , which is , you know , I've lost count , but I only was happy doing all of that because I enjoyed the process and because I didn't tell myself the lie of I'll be happy when I do those things . I told myself I'll be Ultra excited , like I'll have a big smile on my face . You'll be happy when I achieve them . But that doesn't mean that I'm not happy right now . I'll be just as happy right now While working on these goals and then when I achieve them and I'll be so excited , I'll be so joyful . I'll be it . Man , I can't wait , I'm so excited and I'm gonna enjoy the present moment . So , you know , maybe all of that makes sense . If it doesn't , that's cool .

Speaker 1 23:23

I talk more about this stuff in the video course that I just released , played a win , how I built a winners mindset , so I'll leave a link in the description below to that . I talk a lot more about these , the kind of nuances with these conversations . But , yeah , if we can let go of the expectations of the future and how life should go or our goal should go , or how other people should treat us , and everybody should let us down , blah , blah , blah , we're actually a lot happier and if we can fully embrace that . But is a mindset that I said at the start of like you know , eventually everybody lets you down maybe a rewriting of that Like I would reframe that or rewrite that slightly to say like you know , eventually you're probably gonna tell a story of how everybody has let you down , something like that . The Buddhism quote is obviously more eloquent and elegant and shorter and concise . So that is the way that it is .

Speaker 1 24:15

But you know you can kind of think of it like that . It's not that everyone's going to disappoint you , it's that everyone in the world is going to do something that you didn't expect them to , and so the issue isn't with other people not doing what you want . You know , good luck trying to control the entire rest of the universe , right , the universe and everybody else in it doesn't really give a fuck about your opinion . You know , like , who needs God . When we have your opinion , everybody is going to do whatever they're going to do . And if you can try your best to let go of a lot of those expectations and that's a process that took me quite a few years but if you can do it , man , happiness and peace is waiting for you on the other side of that , like , there's something absolutely so amazingly beautiful .

Speaker 1 24:53

If you can just not have expectations or try your best to have as few expectations as possible of other people and of yourself and of the universe , so if you can really embrace that mindset that I talk about , a lot of like , give yourself permission to suck , and then , if you can take it one step further and say I'm going to give other people permission to suck . And then if you can take it one step further and say , wait , how do I even know that they're sucking ? How do I even know that I'm sucking ? I'm just doing my best and they're just doing their best . You know , like everybody's doing the best that they possibly can , and who am I to say that they did a bad job or that they shouldn't have done that thing and that I shouldn't have done this thing and that I should have been better and they should have been better ? Like , who needs God when we have my shitty opinion ?

Letting Go of Expectations for Peace

Speaker 1 25:36

My little child , like beautiful , innocent , naive opinion yeah , if you can just let go of opinions and expectations , man , my God , is life just a beautiful fucking gift . And you wake up every day and you just watch , you just notice and you just observe yourself and people and the universe doing what they were going to do anyway , regardless of what your beautiful child , like naive , little , innocent opinion wanted them to do or thought they should do . You're filled with this sense of , or I'm filled with this sense of beauty and peace and I just watch people doing whatever the hell that they want to do , whether that's disappointing me not that I feel disappointed , but whether that's them doing something that maybe I didn't want them to do , whether it's people going to war with each other and , you know , people killing each other and people murdering and raping , like they're just doing what they are going to do . And if I don't have an opinion on what they should do or what they shouldn't do .

Speaker 1 26:35

I don't suffer anymore . You know , I don't suffer watching the news going they shouldn't do this . I don't suffer watching the government do whatever they're going to do and going they shouldn't do that . I don't suffer watching people leave negative comments on my YouTube channel going they shouldn't have written that . They should have been nicer to me . Like there's just no suffering if I lack of expectations and lack of those stories of like they should do this or I should do this or it should be like this .

Speaker 1 27:01

So if you want a little more about these sort of mindset shifts towards peace and letting go and you know , I guess surrendering and it's not so much surrendering but I like that word but like letting go of some of the stress and disappointment in lives and stuff , like I said , my video course covers this a lot and pay whatever price that you would like for it , even if that's literally just $1 . I don't want the thoughts and the philosophies and stuff in it to be locked behind a paywall , so I've made it pay whatever you want , even if that's literally a dollar . Just pay a dollar , but I really recommend that . I also offer coaching If you would like that . There is a link in the description below to that .

Speaker 1 27:44

As always , ladies and gentlemen , go out there , crush those goals , but enjoy the process . You know what I mean Like enjoy the right now , because that's all there really is . There is no future . At least okay , it's probably not going to turn out the way that you think it will . The past is your weird interpretation , or innocent interpretation of it . The present is really all we have . So crush those goals , work towards them , but have a giant , beautiful , big smile on your face while you do . And if you don't have a big smile on your face , that's okay too .