Emotional Pro

Expectations. Disappointments. Who hasn’t had the difficult experience of eagerly anticipating something we expect to happen, only to be bitterly disappointed when it doesn’t? How do we maintain balance, go on with life, and feel okay after our expectations are dashed? Elayne Savage makes a return appearance to tell us what we can do to recover from disappointments.

Segment 1: Generating Expectations and Encountering Disappointment
Dr. Savage explores the issues of how we can live a life–which includes having desires, needs and expectations–without having an undue or unnecessary amount of disappointments. People who frequently get disappointed may have a history of feeling disappointed, so current disappointments bring up their whole history of disappointments, adding to the pain. Dr. Savage asserts we get disappointed because we don’t ask for what we want–usually because we don’t know what we want–and gives an easy exercise to offset this often-painful circumstance.

Segment 2: Disappointments in Intimate Relationships and in the Bedroom
How can we communicate effectively in our own intimate relationships when we may not have been able to see such modeled when we were growing up? This is one of the biggest hurdles to sharing needs, feedback on what feels good, or what we might like when we are in our most intimate moments. Six things many people do that set us up for disappointments in relationships, such as holding hidden agendas or awaiting certain actions as "proof" of being loved, are detailed, along with what we need to do to avoid creating disappointments for ourselves and for those we love.

Segment 3: Avoiding and Recovering: Healing Our Disappointments
Now you have done or said something that created disappointment for someone you care about! How did you do that? What can you do to make amends, or more importantly, make sure you don’t do it again? Dr. Savage addresses this and the question of who bears responsibility if a promise, desire, need or fantasy is dashed and disappointment results. Don’t miss her discussion of "loss," as well as the two big things she has learned to do differently in her own life to reduce the possibility of experiencing dashed expectations.