Be free! Get excited! How to look forward without the disappointment

The other day I was chatting to a friend and sharing with her how we were really excited about planning a future weekend away with our children (post covid!). It’s a place that we had gone to when the kids were small so we are excited to revisit some old memories and make some new ones too. Whilst she was pleased for us, her response saddened me in that she shared how she felt there was no point getting excited about anything anymore, as in these times it was likely that it would be postponed, changed or even cancelled so she would only be setting herself up to be disappointed.

Whilst I could relate to this, when we had booked it, we did so in the full knowledge that there is a reasonable chance that it won’t happen as we had planned. However, her curiosity at my excitement had been piqued, how could I still look forward to something when the future was so unknown and the likelihood of it turning out was so small?

Years ago, before I had more understanding and even under relatively normal circumstances, I had got to a point where I too saw little point in looking forward to things. I was invariably disappointed with how things turned out, so in a bid to curb these negative feelings my strategy was to avoid looking forward to anything at all or to tell myself that the future was probably going to be disappointing and focus more on a worst case scenario, so it if actually turned out better than that it was a win. In my mind it was a strategy of being pleasantly surprised rather than bitterly disappointed, so it made sense to me.

The impact of this was that for a lot of my time I lived in a rather negative frame of mind, and also in fear that if I did inadvertently look forward to something, I may just jinx it because then it would probably be nailed on that it would not go well.

I have found that this is not an uncommon approach when I’ve shared this with others and especially so now when our future appears particularly precarious when plans can seemingly go awry at a moment’s notice. What is the point of looking forward to something if it isn’t going to go to plan? Surely we will always be disappointed if we do? So it is better to err on the side of caution so life won’t let us down!

But what if these two experiences, i.e. looking forward and the actual event weren’t so co-dependant? What if one didn’t impact the other as much as we thought it did? As humans we tend to conflate looking forward to something with how it turns out, but what if these were two discrete experiences that we could enjoy independently of each other? Where one does not detract or impact the other?

We have a wonderful gift of imagination; in my mind it is one of our most beautiful gifts that we have. When we look forward to something it is this gift that really brings that experience of looking forward to to life, it makes it real for us. We can feel excited, exhilarated, joyful and a whole host of other feelings to boot, almost as though the event we are looking forward to is really happening. However, sometimes we forget that it is our imagination that is creating this and fall into the trap of believing that it is somehow predicting what will happen, this is how the event will be. In my mind it is this innocent misunderstanding that is the source of our disappointment when things don’t go as we have imagined.

When our much looked forward to event arrives, we then start to compare it to our imagined event that we have been living in our own minds in the preceding weeks. Unless we are fortune tellers, our reality will rarely match what we have imagined leaving us potentially disappointed or frustrated and more importantly distracting us from the moment we are actually in.

However, when we notice that our 'looking forward to' is simply the work of our imagination, it enables us to separate it from the event itself when it arrives.

When we see that it is simply for our pleasure and entertainment in the weeks before, an experience all of its own, a way of passing the time, occupying our mind, one that we can simply enjoy for what it is, an imagined experience, like watching a glorious film.

Then when we are at our much looked forward to event, we are then freer to start to notice that now we are in a new moment, a new experience, the event itself! We are then able to simply let go of that old imagined experience, seeing that it was simply a work of our imagination, we no longer need to compare it to the experience we are now in, because it now makes less sense to do that. We can simply allow the moment to simply unfold, allow it to be whatever it needs to be and for us to enjoy it unhindered by what we thought it should be.

So, the reality of this is that not only are we really excited about our planned weekend away we are having lots of fun imagining it too, what we will do, what do we need to take, how we will occupy our time together, what games we can play or what take out shall we order! We’re also fondly remembering our memories from being there before, sharing our stories and even looking at photographs and watching some old videos! We’ve really enjoyed this part. If we don’t get to go away because of the restrictions, we’ve still had this experience of looking forward, it’s been really fun and we’ve enjoyed that excitement, it’s lightened these past few weeks and will continue to do so until the date arrives. In my mind that is a beautiful gift to have and one that I am so grateful that I have found again.

love, Andrea x

Andrea Morrison is a Transformational Coach, Tedx Speaker, Writer and Columnist for The Yorkshire Post. Find out more about her forthcoming events and programmes on her website: www.andreamorrison.co.uk