Embracing Our Unplanned Setbacks: Why You Can't Simply Press 'Undo'

I trust your a pleasant summer: I did not. On the day we were supposed to be travel for leisure, I was sitting in A&E with my husband, expecting him to have prompt but common surgery, which meant our travel plans were forced to be cancelled.

From this episode I learned something important, all over again, about how hard it is for me to feel bad when things don't work out. I’m not talking about profound crises, but the more routine, gently heartbreaking disappointments that – unless we can actually acknowledge them – will really weigh us down.

When we were supposed to be on holiday but were not, I kept sensing an urge towards looking for silver linings: “I can {book a replacement trip|schedule another vacation|arrange a different getaway”; “At least we have {travel insurance|coverage for trips|protection for journeys”; “This’ll give me {something to write about|material for an article|content for a story”. But I remained low, just a bit down. And then I would face the reality that this holiday was permanently lost: my husband’s surgery required frequent agonising dressing changes, and there is a short period for an pleasant vacation on the shores of Belgium. So, no getaway. Just discontent and annoyance, suffering and attention.

I know worse things can happen, it’s only a holiday, what a privileged problem to have – I know because I tried that line too. But what I wanted was to be truthful to myself. In those times when I was able to halt battling the disappointment and we discussed it instead, it felt like we were facing it as a team. Instead of experiencing sadness and trying to appear happy, I’ve given myself permission all sorts of difficult sentiments, including but not limited to bitterness and resentment and loathing and fury, which at least felt real. At times, it even was feasible to appreciate our moments at home together.

This brought to mind of a desire I sometimes observe in my psychotherapy patients, and that I have also seen in myself as a individual in analysis: that therapy could somehow erase our difficult moments, like pressing a reset button. But that arrow only goes in reverse. Facing the reality that this is unattainable and allowing the sorrow and anger for things not working out how we anticipated, rather than a false optimism, can enable a shift: from rejection and low mood, to progress and potential. Over time – and, of course, it requires patience – this can be transformative.

We think of depression as being sad – but to my mind it’s a kind of deadening of all emotions, a suppressing of frustration and sorrow and disappointment and joy and life force, and all the rest. The opposite of depression is not happiness, but experiencing all emotions, a kind of genuine feeling freedom and release.

I have repeatedly found myself trapped in this wish to reverse things, but my young child is supporting my evolution. As a recent parent, I was at times overwhelmed by the amazing requirements of my baby. Not only the feeding – sometimes for over an hour at a time, and then again soon after after that – and not only the outfit alterations, and then the doing it once more before you’ve even finished the task you were handling. These day-to-day precious tasks among so many others – functionality combined with nurturing – are a solace and a great honor. Though they’re also, at moments, relentless and draining. What shocked me the most – aside from the exhaustion – were the psychological needs.

I had believed my most key role as a mother was to satisfy my child's demands. But I soon understood that it was unfeasible to satisfy every my baby’s needs at the time she demanded it. Her craving could seem unmeetable; my nourishment could not arrive quickly, or it was too abundant. And then we needed to alter her clothes – but she disliked being changed, and cried as if she were falling into a shadowy pit of misery. And while sometimes she seemed consoled by the cuddles we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were distant from us, that nothing we had to offer could help.

I soon realized that my most crucial role as a mother was first to endure, and then to assist her process the overwhelming feelings triggered by the infeasibility of my protecting her from all discomfort. As she developed her capacity to take in and digest milk, she also had to build an ability to process her feelings and her distress when the milk didn’t come, or when she was hurting, or any other challenging and perplexing experience – and I had to develop alongside her (and my) irritation, anger, hopelessness, loathing, discontent, need. My job was not to ensure everything was perfect, but to support in creating understanding to her sentimental path of things not working out ideally.

This was the difference, for her, between having someone who was attempting to provide her only good feelings, and instead being supported in building a ability to acknowledge all sentiments. It was the difference, for me, between wanting to feel wonderful about doing a perfect job as a perfect mother, and instead developing the capacity to accept my own far-from-ideal-ness in order to do a sufficiently well – and understand my daughter’s letdown and frustration with me. The contrast between my attempting to halt her crying, and comprehending when she had to sob.

Now that we have developed beyond this together, I feel not as strongly the urge to hit “undo” and rewrite our story into one where everything goes well. I find faith in my awareness of a skill evolving internally to recognise that this is not possible, and to understand that, when I’m occupied with attempting to rebook a holiday, what I truly require is to sob.