You Can Disappoint Someone and Still Be Okay.
Lessons With the Heart: Inward Validation for Homeostasis, Agency and Self-Worth
Original painting by B. Littleton
Here’s a lesson from teaching this morning’s class: Lessons With the Heart. Perhaps something here wants to land with you, today.
By Bren Littleton
You Can Disappoint Someone and Still Be Okay.
For some of us, childhood taught us that safety depended on someone else’s mood. We learned to read the room, anticipate disappointment, soften our words, and manage another person’s anger before it became dangerous. What began as protection eventually became a way of life.
A frightened two-year-old can grow into a tentative forty-year-old who still believes that someone else’s displeasure means something is wrong with them.
The monumental shift begins when we discover that another person’s emotional response does not have to determine our inner peace, self-worth, or belonging.
Here are three ways to begin reclaiming that freedom.
1. Notice the old alarm without obeying it.
When someone close to you becomes angry, disappointed, or distant, notice what happens in your body. Does your stomach tighten? Do you rush to explain, apologize, or make things right? Recognize the familiar protective response. Ground your feet, breathe, and remind yourself that discomfort does not automatically mean danger.
2. Practice allowing disappointment.
Someone you love can be disappointed in your decision, and you can remain okay. Their feelings belong to them. Your responsibility is to communicate with kindness and integrity, not to sacrifice yourself to secure their approval.
3. Return authority to yourself.
Ask, “What do I believe? What do I need? What choice honors my values?” Begin developing an internal locus of agency rather than outsourcing your worth to someone else’s reactions.
Healing includes discovering that you can remain connected to yourself even when someone withholds kindness.
You can love someone without managing their emotions. You can disappoint someone without abandoning yourself.
Your belonging is not theirs to withdraw.
Tin Flea Press, c. 2026
Original painting by B. Littleton