We make, keep, break, and change appointments every day. If you are half way in the flow of modern life, you may forget a basic and really important factor. You may be accumulating disappointments by daily doing and being what you do not love? Do you really know what your appointment is?
The word appointment carries a dual meaning. One is an arrangement to meet someone at a particular time and place. The other, and the one that I am referring to here, is an act of appointing; assigning a job or position to someone. We seem to act as if we are appointed to do certain things, fulfill certain contracts, some of them conscious, and others not…….as if we are here in this life to show up a certain pre-ordained way. These are the shoulds, the have to’s that fill our minds with lists of things to do, do, do, so that we fulfill our appointments. This way of living causes us to be chronically disappointed, because deep inside the quiet core of each if us is the pure desire of our souls to express the simple and beautiful essence of itself, as itself. When we are always tending to the appointments, we can lose sight of the real reason we wake up every day. Then we wonder why relationships blow up, businesses go under, and health declines—-because if we are not fully behind what we are doing and how we are living, it shows up eventually. It always does.
Disappointment is a state of being where you carry accumulated grief over losses, and anger turned inward to become bitterness. It is a very heavy state of being that causes you to block the flow of love and abundance in your life. To be disappointed is human, to remain so is suffering, and a strong resistance to life—a “NO, I am not open to hurt more.”
Though it is so seemingly natural to defend against hurt and further disappointment, when you realize that you also defend against the support and connection you desire, it can motivate you to reconsider your appointments and be open to the ones that make your heart sing. I have found disappointment to be at the root of so much struggle with my clients, and in my own life when I have accumulated many without releasing them.
It is wise to take a look and see if you are carrying the emotional energy of disappointment in your life or business. Some of the signs of this are:
o You are taking less than stellar care of some aspect of your life or business, by not paying attention to it (money, health, relationship)
o You find yourself not feeling fully relevant, and lacking a sense of meaning you once felt
o You find yourself complaining and waxing hopeless about things “out there,” which are a mirror to what you don’t like about your own life
o The gap between your dreams and reality is becoming greater, and you are losing touch with those dreams
o You know you are holding back something really powerful about yourself, and this causes you sadness
I recently came upon this eloquent “manifesto” by Thomas Leonard, the father of modern coaching. It speaks to a way of being that is free of appointments and filled with meaning.
The Zen of Attraction
By Thomas J. Leonard
1. Promise nothing. Just do what you most enjoy doing.
2. Sign nothing. Just do what doesn't require a signature of any kind.
3. Offer nothing. Just share what you have with those who express an interest.
4. Expect nothing. Just enjoy what you already have; it's plenty.
5. Need nothing. Just build up your reserves and your needs will disappear.
6. Create nothing. Just respond well to what comes to you.
7. Seduce no one. Just enjoy them.
8. Adrenalize nothing. Just add value and get excited about that.
9. Hype nothing. Just let quality sell by itself.
10. Fix nothing. Just heal yourself.
11. Plan nothing. Just take the path of least resistance.
12. Learn nothing. Just let your body absorb it all on your behalf.
13. Become no one. Just be more of yourself.
14. Change nothing. Just tell the truth and things will change by themselves.
Promise nothing, yet deliver much. Disappointments imply expectations, which hinge on promises. How can you run a business according Leonard’s philosophy? Don’t we promise things in business and lead our clients to have expectations? And then, of course, we lead them to have disappointments if we do not fulfill those expectations. Whose responsibility is the fulfillment? What is your appointment? Stop and ask that question. What has been assigned to me in this situation? What is mine to own, no more no less?
How to Release Disappointments and Rewire for What You Want:
Stop to think for a moment how many appointments you have set for yourself right now—–in other words, how many expectations. Then ask yourself how many expectations do others have of you right now? If you run your own business, you will be amazed at how many appointments or expectations are running you at this moment.
1. Write down as many as you can think right now. Include things you think you must do. You know that list of items that keeps showing up month after month.
2. Take a sheet of note paper and make 2 lines so that there are 3 columns on the page. At the top of the first, write YES, the second NO, and the third Question Mark (?)
3. Stop, slow down, and connect to your body
4. Identify the signal that is YES for you (this can be done using muscle testing, and other ways that are unique to the person)
5. Empty yourself of resistance as best you can, and set an intention for clarity and truth.
6. Use your inner guidance via the signal to state what you believe is true, and then test, test, test the items on your list, and put your answers in the YES, NO or ? Column.
7. Use your own proven method for surrendering what is no longer serving. This can be a ritual, such as writing and burning something, writing a letter to yourself, painting, praying—-something intentional that says “I release this now.”
This method using the body will tell you where you carry disappointment, and where you need to let it go. Learning to use it in business to determine which programs are truly a “green light” and which need to be let go is one of the best ways to clear out the debris of disappointments that are holding you back. You cannot possibly continue moving forward in your life and have any sort of momentum if you are carrying around your own disappointments or those of others.
When you free yourself of disappointments, you open the door to discover your own appointment with yourself, and with your own destiny. It is so often not what you might have imagined, and most often far more wonderful and more vast. This is the wonder of transformation when something that no longer serves is shed.
This reminds me of the story of the two zen monks who were walking silently along the river toward their destination. They had taken an appointment or vow of silence, and could only speak after the sun went down. One of the monks saw a woman in distress attempting to cross the very full river, which had water spilling over the bridge. He quickly went ahead of the other monk and lifted the woman onto his shoulders so that she would not get wet, and walked through the water carrying her to the other side. He gently put her down, bowed, and waited for the other monk.
Well, there was a chilly silence between then until the end of the day when the other monk finally spoke, saying he was disappointed in his friend for breaking the vow of chastity which prohibits carrying women. The monk who carried the woman responded with, “My friend, I put her down on the other side of the river, but you have been carrying that disappointment all day. “
This picture of two monks walking along the river was on the front page of a magazine I had many years ago. The quote by Rumi aptly applies to a life that is free from disappointment: “Let yourself be silently drawn by the pull of what you really love.”
