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Nobody talks about disappointment long enough to actually help you with it. Most advice amounts to "lower your expectations" — which, as a life strategy, sounds a lot like choosing to feel nothing.

This week's episode is a follow-up to EP211 (you asked for it, literally — thank you), and we're going deeper. Sami admits she does not want to talk about this one. Angela shares that she's spent most of her life trying to outrun it, and that the bus metaphor she uses to describe finally sitting with disappointment might be the most accurate description of what this emotion actually feels like to live with. We also get into something that doesn't get said enough out loud: disappointment, when it gets weaponized, is one of the least effective persuasion tools that exists — and most people doing it don't even realize that's what they're doing.

In this episode, we dig into:

• Why "just lower your expectations" is terrible advice and what actually helps
• The difference between expectations that shrink your life and ones that protect your relationships
• What it looks like when disappointment gets used as a control tactic (and why it never works long-term)
• A real moment from the first Family Business Forum where disappointment and perspective collided in the same afternoon
• A practical reset you can use when big feelings show up right before you have to perform

Sami walks through what she's learned about season-appropriate expectations, using her own experience of going to the beach with three small kids and actually not being disappointed about it. Angela gets honest about a relationship situation where the disappointment she keeps sitting with hasn't resolved itself neatly, and what she's learning about the difference between communicating a need and weaponizing a feeling.

If you've been using disappointment to try to get someone to do something different, this episode might be a little uncomfortable. That's okay. If you've been on the receiving end of someone else's disappointment and you're exhausted by it, there's something here for you too. Mostly this episode is permission to feel the thing without letting it run the show.

Hit play. The disappointment will still be there when you're done, but you'll have a few more things to do with it.

Mentioned in this episode:

• EP211 — When You Get What You Wanted and It's Not What You Expected (the episode that started this conversation)
• EP80 — Feeling your feelings and emotional cycles
• EP98 — More on emotional cycles and processing hard emotions
• The TV show Shrinking (the 15-minute timer for feelings — look it up, it's a great scene)
• Connect with us: bfreakingawesome.com
• Instagram: @bfreakingawesome

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