Recently, one of my girls had a disappointing experience. She had planned and worked hard to succeed at a particular event, and things just sort of fell apart. Nothing went the way she imagined or expected despite her attempts to do her very best.

Recently, I had a disappointing experience. I thought I had picked the best way forward for my family and our schedules, and at the last minute, things just sort of fell apart. Nothing went the way I imagined or expected, and my decision left everyone scrambling at the last minute to make adjustments and chart a new path forward. 

Up until I turned 40, I thought that the goal in life was to plan, think, and act in such a way that disappointing and rejecting experiences could be bypassed. I thought if I could read the Bible and pray consistently enough, change my personality to be joyful enough, and control my temper for long enough, difficult emotions of shame, loneliness, anger, and fear could be traded for continual and consistent joy, peace, and happiness. I thought if I could be nice enough to other people, other people would be nice to me. And more than that, I thought if I could be kind enough, other people would be kind not only to me but my kids. 

The older I become, the more I realize how disappointments, rejecting experiences, personal failures, and unkind people are just a normal part of life that I will continue to experience until the day I die. My goal had to change from circumventing difficult people, emotions, and circumstances, to walking through difficult emotions, circumstances, and seasons with people in a healthy way. And not only did I have to change that goal for myself, I had to change it for my kids as well.

As we start to transition from summer into the school year, we do such a good job as parents preparing our kids to have the right school clothes, supplies, schedules, and after-school activities, events, and tutors. But so often, we fail at preparing them for one of their very greatest needs for what lies ahead: failure and disappointment.

Let’s face facts for a moment: our kids are going to fail at something this year. They are going to be left out of a sleep-over, a get together, or a group. They are not going to make a certain team, get a specific award, be given a certain role, make a certain grade, or get into their college of choice. They are going to have lonely days, sad days, grumpy days, exhausting days, and days that are just not so fun. 

Some of the most important work we can do as parents is to teach our kids how to walk through the hard days and emerge whole-hearted on the other side. 

You want to know how this teaching begins? It begins with us modeling it first. It begins with us showing them what emotional health, vulnerability, and authenticity looks like. 

Because if you can’t tolerate the emotion of rejection, chances are your kids aren’t going to be able to either.

If you can’t tolerate anxiety about the unknown, your kids aren’t going to be able to tolerate it either.

If you can’t handle a disappointing day, a personal failure, an oversight, or an unfair circumstance with an emotionally healthy response, chances are your kids won’t be able to either.

Can I suggest something? Put your parenting books down, and don’t sign yourself or your kids up for one more activity until you start doing the hard but necessary work of paying attention to your own story. Because this is where emotional health for all of us begins.

We have to start paying attention to the places where we can’t tolerate shame, failure, rejection, disappointment, fear, or loneliness, and then begin to ask ourselves why? 

• When is the first time I remember ever feeling this way?
• Was I given the permission to grieve and be sad or angry?
• Did I have a parent or caregiver in my life who provided appropriate comfort?
• Was I able to receive comfort and see my story through a different lens once the difficult wave of emotion passed? 

If not, my friend, you and I have some work to do. This is because the definition of emotional health is feeling the appropriate emotion at the appropriate level and walking through it in a healthy and appropriate way.

Emotional health is not denying the emotion, stuffing the emotion, or exploding angrily over the emotion. It is being vulnerable, honest, and open enough to name the emotion, tolerate feeling the pain and discomfort of the emotion, and then receiving comfort from a safe and secure person. 

That person can always be the Lord (in fact, I would argue as a Christian, the Lord should always be the first and foremost person we turn to for comfort), and there are times it can even be ourselves. Part of the work of learning to be an adult is learning how to give and receive comfort to ourselves. Research shows that our self-talk stems from our attachment patterns; in other words, the way you were (or were not) talked to as a child by your parents determines the way you talk to yourself as an adult. 

But we also need to give and receive comfort from others as well. Again, for many years, I thought this was a bad thing. I thought the goal was to learn how to be fine with Jesus, my Bible, and me. But over the last year, slowly but surely, my perspective has been changing. God made us to need other people, and that need is a good thing. We are not to need others more than we need God, but our need to receive comfort, friendship, joy, and help from others is a God-given need.

Learning to tolerate our painful and difficult emotions involves three things:

1. Naming the emotion.

When you feel embarrassed, ashamed, or afraid about something, say it out loud, under your breath. Or lock your door and scream it at the top of your lungs. But shame does its dirtiest, most damaging work in the dark, unnamed places we are either too busy to notice or too embarrassed to name. Emotional health begins by turning the light on and naming exactly what is lurking in the shadows.

2. Feeling the emotion.

If something really embarrassing or disappointing has happened, be vulnerable enough and courageous enough to actually feel the emotion. Set a timer for 60-90 seconds, and then risk feeling the pain. Rejection can be such a painful emotion for me, I have had to build up tolerance to even allowing myself to feel it. Sometimes I pat my arms or my legs just to help stay present to the moment, and once the timer goes off, I can focus on feeling or thinking about something else. We do this because when you feel a difficult emotion, most of the time, you are experiencing it as a very little person. Even if your cognitive brain isn’t thinking, I feel ten years old right now, your body remembers the emotion at the age when you first experienced it or experienced it in a traumatic way. Here’s the thing: as a ten-year-old, you didn’t have any resources to help yourself or comfort yourself or maybe even ask for the help you needed. But as an adult, you do. You have different resources, a different voice, and different boundaries to ask for and get the comfort and help that you need.

3. Receiving the comfort you need. 

This is probably the hardest part for me. In order to receive comfort, I have to ask safe and secure people for comfort. I’ve had to learn the hard way that not everyone is equipped to give comfort. This is because you can’t give what you don’t have. If someone has never been honest or vulnerable enough to name their emotions, failures, and disappointments, feel their emotions, failures, and disappointments, and receive the comfort that can only come from naming and feeling, they can’t give you the comfort you need. This means you have to do the hard work of finding safe and secure people instead of going to the same comfortless people or places you are used to going.

Here is the amazing thing – as you begin to do this work, your kids will start to do this work too. You often don’t have to say anything; they will simply begin to practice and mirror the emotionally healthy behavior you are holding up. 

And more than the right after school schedule, or invitations to the right friend group, or reception of the right awards, this is what your kids need. 

This is what will determine a successful or unsuccessful school year and life. Because you and I can’t shield our kids from experiencing the difficult emotions. But we can show them how to walk through the difficult emotions to the healing, life, joy, peace, and comfort on the other side.