Disappointment: A Sneaky Cause of Baffling Behaviors {EP 137}

This is a podcast for the parents and professionals who are out there loving on, supporting, helping kids with vulnerable nervous systems and big, baffling behaviors. And yes, so many of those kids do have a history of trauma. My primary area of expertise has come from working with kids with a history of complex trauma, attachment trauma, developmental trauma, many of those kids have been adopted. And what we've discovered over the last many years is there's a lot of families who aren't resonating with the word trauma, but are resonating with all the other pieces of the baffling behavior, the vulnerability in the nervous system. And there is something unique that emerges from a nervous system that has these vulnerabilities and these baffling behaviors. And yeah, many of them have a history of trauma. And I wanted to create a space where everybody could feel really seen and really heard. And thought I would, in a way, kind of experiment with what happens if I take the word trauma out of the title? Is that going to invite more folks to catch the show, and then get more tools that they need in order to help their kids and just more validation that there's nothing wrong with them or their kids? And there are some unique ways we can approach these kids, support these kids, and ourselves, that are really aligned with and attuned to their nervous system. That's my hope, that we just open up who finds the podcast and gives it a chance, because they think it might be for them. It definitely doesn't change the fact that my area of expertise is a vulnerability in the nervous system and big baffling behaviors primarily that emerges from traumatic experiences. But also, so many of the kids and families I know who identify with the idea of vulnerability in the nervous system, some neurodiversity maybe, ADHD, autistic, gifted, sensory processing, neuro immune disorders. That these nervous system experiences, these ways of being in the world, which is perfectly wonderful, is unfortunately not met by our world and seen in a way that they're experiencing themselves as perfectly wonderful, and that does cause traumatic experiences. 

What we're going to talk about today is the feeling, the experience of disappointment and how disappointment can be underneath so many of our kids’ and yes, even ourselves’, baffling behaviors in a way that is very easy to overlook. That actually the real problem is the feeling of disappointment. Well, and what you'll learn and hear me say is that disappointment is not the problem. The problem is the way that we have learned to be afraid of the feeling of disappointment. But hold on to that we'll get to that. 

Before I dive into talking all about the feeling of disappointment. Can we talk for a second, just a second about that music? The podcast has never had music before. And in some ways, I’ve sort of prided myself on that, like, we don't got time for that music thing. Like we're here to get a job done, to get information to you as fast as possible, and not messing around with silly things like music, right? But I've also noticed on some of the podcasts that I've listened to most regularly, that I've begun to have, like an emotional connection to the music. And as part of shifting to The Baffling Behavior Show, I was like, you know what, I think I want to try out some music. 

Now, I just happened to be super lucky in that my husband is a wildly talented musician, including composer, arranger, and performer. So getting somebody to write me a theme song was as simple as saying, “hey, honey, would you write me a theme song”? So he did! We started with a simple little ditty that then expanded to the full depth of the song that you're hearing now, hired a vocalist, and voila! We have a theme song composed, not performed by, but composed by my husband, which I think just makes this all so extra special. I hope you're loving it. If you are, send me a note, let us know, and I'll pass that on to him. 

Alrighty, let's get down to what you really pressed play for here today. And that is getting underneath and exploring how the feeling, the experience of disappointment is underneath so many of our kids. And like I said, like ours too. Our baffling behaviors. I know I had a kind of an aha moment, maybe about a decade ago in my own personal therapy where I suddenly became aware of how I orchestrate so many parts of my life to avoid ever feeling the feeling of disappointment. And I used to think this was so smart of me, you know? I would talk about how I like to have low expectations, and I like to really just go with the flow, and not expect much of anyone or anything that helps me, you know? Not get disappointed, helps me not get too mad, helps, you know, really preserve relationships. And I do think that checking our expectations is always important in that we want to make sure our expectations are based in reality and I think that's a lot of what this show is about is helping us understand what is happening right in our kids neurobiology so that we can shift our expectations to be more aligned with what like more aligned with who their real person is. Because it's not fair for our kids to keep not meeting our expectations if those expectations aren't based in the reality of who our child is. 

So that said, you know, I think it is wise to be aware of having appropriate expectations. And I think it is also wise to be curious about when are we sort of like relinquishing our right to have hope or anticipation of something because we are protecting ourselves against the feeling of disappointment. So many of us, when we were young, didn't get disappointment co-regulated by our grown ups very well. Generally speaking in Western culture, and I've seen this pretty pervasively across the board in my clinical work, but also my personal life. Disappointment is a feeling that is very much minimized and approached with this thought that we should all just get over it. That disappointment isn't like a worthy or valid emotion to give attention to. And I think a lot of us, then, when we were very small, didn't have our unique experiences of disappointed- disappointment co-regulated very well. We were given, sometimes very overt messages of just get over it. It's not a big deal. Or sometimes those messages were a little bit more covert, and that maybe we had caregivers who ignored that feeling, or caregivers who also tried to have really low expectations and therefore, to never feel disappointment. Like in their own personal lives, not necessarily with us as- as humans. And so we learned in all of these subtle and not so subtle ways, that disappointment is an emotion to be avoided. Learning that a certain emotion is to be avoided means we didn't get a lot of experience with that emotion being seen, and validated, and co-regulated, and not shamed or judged. And then what will happen is, we become afraid of that emotion, or when the emotion does inevitably bubble up, that we don't have the regulatory circuits to be okay with the sensation of disappointment. And some of us even have the experience of like, if I feel this feeling, and the feeling we're talking about specifically now is disappointment. Though this is not unique to disappointment, this cycle can happen with any feeling. But there can be- again, there's this kind of sense that like, if I feel this feeling, it will never stop. I will get stuck here. Something really bad will happen. Other people will then have a feeling that's bad or dangerous, right? There's a sense of if I feel this feeling, what happens next is going to be very bad and tolerably bad, maybe even felt as like, dangerously bad. So then again, we either just work really hard to avoid feeling that feeling or, because we have no regulatory circuits to help us lean into that feeling, we have protective parts of us that kind of like jump in the way to- to the rescue us. To be like “no, no disappointment here, I'm not going to feel disappointment, not going to feel disappointment”. And it's that, then, that is what's leading to some of these like head scratching, baffling behaviors. 

Now let's talk just a little bit about the neurobiology of the sensation of disappointment. So I think that's really relevant, especially if you have kids who do have other nervous system vulnerabilities and/or a history of trauma. So imagine anticipating, or longing for something, or desiring something. There's this sensation in our bodies and our nervous systems that has this forward movement, energy, right? It's like a seeking energy. And it could be seeking energy that we actually feel in our body, like in our arms or legs. Like energy that moves our body towards this thing that we're desiring. Or it could be emotional like energy, right? There's this hope for this thing. There's this desire for this thing and this anticipatory energy, if you pause for a moment, many people would say that like, even though it's not something I would physically reach or physically move my legs to go towards, there's still this energetic sensation of reach that is associated with it. Generally speaking, now nothing is ever absolute, but generally speaking, there's this tiny bit of sympathetic activation, right? There's-, again, there's an increase in energy, as we like desire for something, or long for something, or want something because it's that energy that propels us into motion to kind of get or achieve that thing. Right?

If, unfortunately, we make an attempt, we make the reach, but then our hopes, or our desires, our expectations are not met. We don't get what we want. Okay? That reach is often followed up with this physiological sensation in our nervous system that feels like a big crash, it feels like a big break. So there's this energy that was propelling us forward, even just energetically, then what we wanted wasn't received. We couldn't get it. And the next sensation then, is like our nervous system threw the emergency brakes on that sensation of desire. And there's this kind of dropping sensation. If you speak polyvagal theory, there's a bit of a dorsal vagal drop here with the feeling of disappointment. 

Now, again, for many folks, it's just really as simple as, well, that sensation never was seen, or known, or met, or co-regulated. And so instead, what we learned was, this is an intolerable sensation, I'll do anything to avoid it. And if I do start to feel it, I'll have some interesting or maybe even intense protective parts kind of jump in. The other element of this is that for kids who have some vulnerability in their nervous systems, maybe just genetically or temperamentally, that's just sort of how they've always been wired. This drop in the nervous system, this like emergency brake experience, can feel absolutely just intolerable. And then the other piece of this is that for kids who have had some experiences that we would call toxic stress, maybe they've had a lot of other kinds of experiences that haven't been co-regulated, they've spent a lot of time not getting their needs met, or they've experienced trauma, or abuse, or neglect. Their nervous system has kind of worked overdrive to help them stay safe. And part of that is these regular collapses onto the possum pathway, which, again, in polyvagal language, if you use polyvagal language, it's a like a dorsal vagal dive. If you don't speak polyvagal just forget I said anything, and just think about this as the possum pathway, which can get really over exercised, over utilized, when the developing nervous system experiences trauma or toxic stress, okay? 

So then later, that child gets older, and reaches for a toy that they can't have, or they reach for something that's dangerous, that they, of course, then a boundary is put into place because they can't have it. Well, little developing brains don't know, “oh, you have my best interests in mind. Thank you so much for protecting me from that”. No! All their experience is, I wanted that and you didn't let me have it. And so there's that- that drop in their nervous system physiologically, and then that drop in their nervous system reminds them of, or too closely resembles their experiences of trauma and toxic stress. And then that's when that sensation of disappointment can become absolutely intolerable. 

Now, I'm going to add one more little wrench to this, which is, what will happen is the individual will do two things. Work really hard to avoid their own disappointment, but they'll also work really hard to avoid other people's disappointment or disappointing other people. Now, not every single thing I talk about happens in every single child who experiences these things. Of course. These are just potential ways that you might see this manifest in your child. While they'll do anything to avoid being disappointed, which could look like giving up easily, or believing they can't do things, not taking a lot of risks. This child can look lazy, because they're kind of refusing to do much. But what's actually underneath it is they're refusing to try and fail because they don't want to feel disappointed. 

These are also kids who can kind of look the opposite. They can look a little grandiose about their abilities. They can look what we might call arrogant and have some kind of energy around to them, that they're giving the message of their people of like, “I think I'm perfect”, or “I can do everything better than anyone else”. Right? That is often- that kind of attitude or energy is again, often a protector against feeling the truth, which is that life is actually pretty disappointing. Like, there's all sorts of things we want to do, but can't do. And so a way to protect themselves from feeling that truth is to pretend, and then in many ways believe, that they're almost sort of indestructible, or they're like just better or superior to everyone else. 

Another way this can manifest is these kids become people pleasing, and very driven towards perfectionism. So, of course, our perfectionist tendencies are preventing themselves from dealing- feeling disappointment, but there's also a hope that their perfectionistic tendencies, if they can just get it right, if they can just be perfect, they can just please everybody, that will cause other folks to be disappointed in them less frequently. And so these kids, and of course, many adults too, behave in ways that are really focused on how do I keep this other person happy? How do I keep you happy? How do I keep you from being disappointed? If you never feel disappointed, I'll never resonate with your disappointment, I'll never feel like I am a disappointment, and that will be better. 

Now, unfortunately, none of these protective behaviors are completely foolproof. And we can't avoid the sensation of disappointment. We can't avoid being with other people who are feeling disappointed. And honestly, we can't avoid other people feeling disappointed. in us. One of my colleagues, mentors, Juliane Taylor Shore, who's been on the show previously, talks about how one of the kindest things we can do is allow other folks to have their own emotional experience. And one of my hardest journeys as an adult, well probably my whole life, but I didn't know I was doing this until I was an adult and therefore I didn't take steps to try to change it until I was an adult. One of the hardest stickiest things that I've worked on in my own personal work is allowing other folks to have the feeling of disappointment. And that comes up in my personal life, that I can see lots of ways that I try to make sure people in my personal life are never disappointed in me. Which by the way, never works, because people have their own feelings. And sometimes I do things that disappoint people, and sometimes I don't do things that disappoint people, but they're still disappointed in something, right? So I can see how I try really hard to get other people to never feel the super scary emotion of disappointment. And how that happens in my professional life too, right? That there are times where I have to pause and really get centered. And think, Am I making this decision in my business, it- professionally, and the work that I'm doing with, like members in The Club or with students in Being With. Am I making this choice right now because it really is the best choice? And is in alignment with my values, and my theory, and I think it's best for me and for this student or this, you know, participant? Or is there anything about this decision that I'm about to make because I don't want to disappoint somebody? I don't want to cause disappointment in someone. I don't want to have to sit with somebody else who's feeling disappointed, because I will inevitably feel that disappointment in my own body and that's intolerable. And so it is just this constant assessment of what's happening for me because I can get so tripped up by the feeling of disappointment. 

Disappointment can also result in our kids or ourselves acting in really confusing and incongruent ways. Like have you ever been with somebody who swears everything's fine, but you can tell that they're seething underneath, right? That incongruence is very confusing and it's really hard to be in a relationship with somebody who is regularly incongruent. It really trips up our own neuroception and leaves us feeling unsafe in the relationship. And- not- there's a lot of reasons incongruence can become a person's unique protective strategy. And one of the reasons is it can protect us from the feeling of disappointment. 

I also have watched kids get aggressive physically or verbally aggressive. I have watched kids completely collapse and go crashing down their possum pathway. I have watched kids move into that part of their nervous system, that protective watchdoggy part of their nervous system that's super duper silly. You know, when your kid all of a sudden just starts acting maniacally silly? And you're like, “umm, I think that's cute, but it doesn't feel cute at all. In fact, it feels really bad”. That's how we know that that energy is coming from the protective part of the nervous system, not the connective safe part of the nervous system. And I have seen countless, probably hundreds, of kids that really lean into like their jokester parts of self or their super duper silly parts of self as a way to protect from the feeling of disappointment. 

Now, because the sensation of the neurobiology of- of disappointment has a little bit of overlap with a feeling of shame, if you have a kid who you think is working really hard to keep themselves from feeling disappointed, you might go back and check out the toxic shame series. So I don't want to imply that if your kid struggles with disappointment, they also struggle with toxic shame. There's just a lot of overlap in the physiology. I mean, it could be that they struggle with both, but I'm not making that assessment right now. There's just some similarity in the physiology. And so if you went and listened to those episodes, and as I'm talking about toxic shame, if you kind of just swap out the words toxic shame for disappointment, or disappointment that hasn't been co-regulated, a lot of the rest of those episodes is going to be really helpful when thinking about what do I do to support my kid with a feeling of disappointment? 

So let's wrap up our episode today talking about that. How do I help my kid, if I suspect that they're working really hard to try to avoid experiencing the sensation of disappointment? So the very first thing I want you to do is just kind of take an inventory of yourself, and how you handle the feeling of disappointment. So often, because of our own experiences, it's not our fault, we are working really hard to avoid the feeling of disappointment in ourselves and in our kids. And so we've developed a lot of behavior patterns that really, at their core, are intended to avoid that uncomfortable sensation. And so we do things to keep our kids from ever feeling disappointed or feeling uncomfortable in any way. And it's okay for our kids to feel disappointed, and it's even okay for them to feel it in a huge way. The reason it's okay is because we can be with them in that feeling. 

So that's why the first step is also check in with yourself and ask yourself, how do I handle the feeling of disappointment for myself? How do I handle it when my kid is disappointed? And maybe don't even use the word disappointed. How do I handle it when my kid doesn't get what they want? How do I handle it when my kid is hoping for something and that thing isn't possible? Or I have to give my kid bad news, or I can't give them what they're asking for? That's disappointment. And if you notice that you do things that aren't leaning into it, or saying things like, “oh, I know it's so hard. You really wanted that thing. It's so disappointing”. If you're not leaning into that with co-regulation, then it's possible that there are parts of you that are avoiding that feeling of disappointment and then therefore having a hard time co-regulating your child through their disappointment. And it's gonna be really hard to open up your kids' experience to disappointment if you have a hard time co-regulating that feeling of disappointment. 

The other thing that I think we have to do as parents is to be okay with different kinds of expressions of disappointment. I mean, certainly some kids express disappointment with sadness, but some express it with madness. And if they're mad, for a lot of parents, that's a harder emotion to be okay with, because a lot of times mad comes with like mouthy or disrespectful behavior. 

So here's a just simple, quick example. Like, your kid has to do a chore that they don't want to do. And typically, they don't want to do it because they're doing something else that they'd rather do. So underneath that feeling of “I don't want to do this thing”, really is, in some ways, this feeling of disappointment, right? And so they might express “I don't want to”, or even, like, “all you people do is make me do chores around here”. So at my house, we work really hard, now, we're not perfect at this by any means and we get tripped up just as much as any other parents do. But at my house I work really hard to allow my kid to express his feelings, even when they're not pleasant. Like I don't expect him to joyfully do his chores, joyfully, you know, turn off the television, joyfully end video games, joyfully come home at curfew when he really has things he wants to keep doing. He's allowed to be disappointed, and that means he's allowed to even express that disappointment in a mad way. Now, he's not- it's not okay for him to like hurt people. So I'm not suggesting that like, if you have a kid who's expressing the feeling of disappointment with intense like back off or attack watchdog energy, and people are getting hurt. That's a different story, but what that means is you have a kid who has a bit of a sensitized stress response system with regards to the feeling of disappointment. The stressor of disappointment is leading to like a back off or an attack watchdog response. That's not something I'm going to punish or consequence. That's something I'm going to take as a cue or a clue that my child needs help co-regulating the experience of disappointment. My child needs help, kind of quote unquote, growing their owl brain so that when they have the sensation of disappointment, it can be followed up with a behavior that matches that situation, matches that disappointment. Which could be some grumbling, which could be some lamenting about how nothing's fair, I never get what I want, right? That's a response to disappointment that matches. So in our family, we work really hard to allow for safe, appropriate expressions of disappointment so that disappointment becomes a feeling that feels tolerable and therefore doesn't invite, like, a back off or a terror level watchdog response, or like a super shutdown possum response. 

Now, as I was prepping for this episode, in fact, disappointment has been on my list of topics to tackle for a very long time. And probably about two weeks ago, I received a book and in the mail from an author that I know, a colleague, and she said, “would you mind reading this book and telling me what you think of it?”. And the book is called Gorilla's Muscles: A Story for Managing Big Emotions. And the big emotion that Gorilla is practicing is the big emotion of disappointment. So it is just the sweetest little book with little Gorilla and his dad, as little Gorilla practices exercising his disappointment, and really learning how to what I would say live in the both and. Like, it's okay to be grateful for dinner and also disappointed in what we're having for dinner. Like both feelings can be true at the same time, and that is such an important part of I have the feeling of disappointment. I think that so many of us learned that two emotions don't exist at the same time and so if you're disappointed, it also means you're ungrateful, or kind of bratty, right? That you can be grateful for all of the wonderful things in your life. And also be disappointed that this one thing wasn't what you wanted. So I was thrilled to read through this book, by Danielle Jones, Gorilla's Muscles: A Story for Managing Big Emotions. And y’all know that I'm pretty selective about, kind of, what kinds of things I recommend or refer people to. And I wasn't really sure what I was gonna think when I got this book in the mail. And I was so happy with the fact that a children's book tackled this big feeling that I think is underneath so much of challenging behaviors, and almost no one ever talks about the feeling of disappointment and gives it like the respect it deserves. Disappointment is a huge, yucky feeling. Slamming on those brakes in our nervous systems feels bad. And when it isn't regularly co-regulated, we work really hard to avoid that feeling and then all sorts of baffling behaviors emerge. 

So here's what I want you to do next. Just do a little inventory of yourself, how am I with the feeling of disappointment? Pay attention to it, like really use your owl brain in the next like week or so, to notice when you're feeling anticipatory, or excited about something, or a desire for something, or you want something. Notice how that sensation lands in your nervous system. Notice- notice if you feel comfortable with that sensation. Notice what happens if you don't get what you wanted. Notice if you're doing things to avoid having expectations or desires. And then notice what happens when your child is disappointed. Disappointed they didn't get something when they wanted. Disappointed they have to do something they don't want to do. If you have younger kids or you work with younger kids, I highly recommend, if you have young kids or you work with younger kids, and by young I mean like picture age picture book kids, check out the book Gorilla’s Muscles by Danielle Jones. And even if you have a kid who's maybe not going to sit with you while you read them a picture book, you might consider snagging the sweet little book anyway, because I think it teaches us grownups how to talk about disappointment, how to co-regulate disappointment, and how to teach our kids that it's okay to be disappointed. So I think even the grown ups will learn a lot from Gorilla’s Muscles. 

Alright, y'all, like I said, I've had the topic of disappointment on my list of things to tackle here on the podcast for a long time, so happy to finally get to it. Thank you for coming back to the podcast for joining us on this- this new, yet same adventure as we shift from the Parenting After Trauma podcast to The Baffling Behavior Show. We would love to hear what you think of the little jingle that my husband created for the beginning of the show. He's- I think he did an awesome job. I really intentionally wanted music that was light and playful and even kind of moving a little bit toward silly, because I think that is such a good representation of how I do this really, really hard work of supporting parents of kids with vulnerable nervous systems. It's so hard. And the lives of y'all are just so chronically very, very hard. And I work to really honor that truth without creating more hard. And one way to do that is to bring in appropriate small little doses of play and delight. So that was my intention in creating this music for the beginning of the podcast that has that kind of feel to it. Because y'all know sometimes we tackle really tough topics here on the podcast, and I just kind of love the idea that it gets to be supported by, almost like hugged by a little bit of lightness, a little bit of playfulness, a little reminder that we have that playfulness still somewhere inside of us. Even if we haven't excavated it in a long time. 

So drop me a note. Let me know what you think. As always, we're super grateful if you'll take a second to rate or review The Baffling Behavior Show in whatever app you listen to a podcast on. It is one of the best ways to get the podcast seen by a family who needs it. The more ratings and reviews the podcast has, the more the podcast app is going to recommend it to folks. That means more families are going to discover it and they're going to get this lifeline that so many of you write in and tell me about as your experience with the podcast. So rate and review that right in your podcast app. It's really easy and makes a big, huge impact. Thank you, as always, for showing up, showing up for yourselves, showing up for your kids, joining me here for another podcast episode, and I will be back with you again next week.