Your Hope-Filled Perspective with Dr. Michelle Ben... - How Disappointment Affects Your Mental Health, and How to Move Forward

0:00What happens when faith and mental health meet for real? What's up? I'm Grace Graber. Welcome to Breaking Through with Grace Graber, a podcast for honest conversations about anxiety, trauma, healing, hope, and the God who never backs away when life gets heavy. We are going to talk about everything mental health. No pretending, no perfect answers, just real stories, real faith, and a reminder that you're not alone. Get ready. You're going to be absolutely obsessed. Breaking through with Grace Graber, available now, wherever you get your podcasts. Life audio. Have you ever found yourself asking God, what happened? Not because you've stopped believing, not because you've lost your faith, but because life unfolded so differently than you expected that you're still trying to make sense of it. Perhaps you prayed faithfully for healing, but the diagnosis remained. Perhaps you believed a relationship with last, only to watch it fall apart. Perhaps you worked diligently toward a goal,

1:02only to have the opportunity slip through your fingers, maybe a cure to dream for years, something you genuinely believed God had placed on your heart, and yet the dream never materialized. One of the hardest realities of life is that sometimes our greatest pain comes not from what happened, but from what didn't happen. Disappointment has a unique kind of grief attached to it. It's the grief of unmet expectations. It's the grief of unanswered questions. It's the grief of looking at your life and realizing it doesn't resemble the picture you once carried in your heart. When many people don't realize is that disappointment affects far more than our emotions, it affects our thinking, it affects our stress levels, it affects our motivation and our relationships, it affects our faith and it even affects our brains. So in honor of the National Day of Encouragement, today we're talking about what happens when expectations are shattered, why disappointment can become so emotionally heavy and how we can move

2:05forward without becoming stuck in discouragement or cynicism. If you've wrestled with a dream that didn't happen, a prayer that seemed unanswered or a season that didn't unfold the way you hoped, this conversation is for you. Welcome to your Hopefield perspective where it's always our goal to restore hope, renew minds and empower listeners and viewers to live in your God-given identity. We offer biblical encouragement, practical tools and mental health insights to help you renew your mind and discover hope in every season. I'm your host Dr. Michelle Banks and board certified clinical neuropsychologist author and companion on the journey of faith, mental, emotional and spiritual wellness. And I'm your co-host Jessica Vanrokel. We are so glad you've joined us today. Michelle, I think today's topic touches every single listener because disappointment is one of those universal human experiences. We may experience different disappointments, but every one of us knows what

3:08it feels like to hope for something and then watch that hope collide with reality. No, that's exactly right. I don't know anyone who has lived long enough to avoid disappointment. It's a part of living in a broken world. And what I've noticed, both professionally and personally is the disappointment often goes unrecognized. People come to me talking about anxiety, discouragement, sadness, irritability, emotional exhaustion or even hopelessness. Yet when we begin exploring what's underneath those emotions, we often discover disappointment, sitting quietly at the root. They're disappointed in how our relationship turned out. They're disappointed in their circumstances. They're disappointed in themselves. And sometimes they're even disappointed with God, although they may not feel comfortable saying that out loud. I heard myself and everything that you just said. And I think many Christians especially struggle to admit disappointment

4:11because they fear it somehow reflects poorly on their faith. There's almost like this internal pressure that says, well, if I trusted God enough, I wouldn't feel disappointed. And yet we know that simply not true disappointment is an evidence of weak faith is evidence that you're human. And the Bible is filled with faithful people who experience disappointment. And what I appreciate is that scripture doesn't hide their struggles. In fact, God preserved their stories precisely because, well, frankly, he knew we'd need them. When we read about Sarah waiting decades for a child or Joseph spending years in prison after receiving God's promises or David hiding in caves after being anointed king or Martha and Mary grieving because Jesus didn't arrive when they thought he should. We're actually seeing real people wrestling with real disappointment. And God never can den them for their pain. Instead, he met them in it.

5:13Oh, I'm so glad he kept those stories sacred for us today. Michelle, let's start with a question. I think many listeners are asking why does disappointment hurt so much? Because frankly, on the surface, it sounds relatively minor compared to other forms of suffering. That's a great question. I think one reason disappointment hurts so deeply is because it almost always involves loss of some kind. The challenges that we're often grieving something intangible. When someone dies, we recognize the loss immediately. When a relationship ends, we recognize the loss. When a job disappears, we recognize that loss. But disappointment often involves grieving and anticipated future. We're grieving what we thought would happen. We're grieving what we expected. We're grieving the story we imagined. And because the future never actually existed in tangible form.

6:16People often don't realize they're grieving yet grief is exactly what's taking place. Such an important distinction you pointed out. I know that I've experienced seasons where I wasn't grieving a person or an event. I was actually grieving an expectation. I was grieving the life I thought I'd have. And that grief felt confusing because there was nothing visible to point to. Exactly. And that's one reason disappointment can linger for years. People don't buy large, give themselves permission to grieve it. They tell themselves, I shouldn't feel the spate. It wasn't that big of a deal. Look at all the blessings I do have or other people have it worse. But minimizing pain doesn't heal pain is simply buries it. And buried disappointment has a way of resurfacing later. Sometimes it resurfaces like we're talking about today is discouragement. And sometimes as resentment, sometimes it resurfaces as anxiety or emotional numbness.

7:22But it rarely disappears on its own. So let's talk about what happens in the brain when expectations are shattered because I think understanding the neuroscience helps us stop judging ourselves for our reactions. One of the primary functions of the brain is prediction. Our brains are constantly trying to anticipate what will come next. Though every experience, every memory, every pattern we've observed helps the brain create expectations about the future. This process is actually designed to help us survive. The brain loves predictability because predictability can create a sense of safety. And when things happen as expected, the brain feels safe and stable. But when reality dramatically differs from what we expected, the brain experiences disruption. Researchers sometimes refer to this as prediction error.

8:23The brain essentially says, wait a minute, that wasn't supposed to happen. And the larger the gap between expectation and reality, the more emotionally significant that disruption becomes. Which really explains then why disappointment can feel so destabilizing. Exactly. Yes, many people assume they're overreacting when they're disappointed, but neurologically disappointment requires the brain to recognize and reorganize its understanding of reality. So think about someone who expected to remain married for life or someone who expected their child to follow the Lord, or someone who expected retirement to look a certain way. Their brains weren't simply anticipating those outcomes. They were actively building future plans around those outcomes. And when those expectations collapse, the brain has to revise the entire picture.

9:26And that's mentally exhausting. It's emotionally exhausting. And often then it activates the brain's stress response system. One of the reasons disappointment affects mental health so significantly is because the brain often interprets major disappointment as a form of threat. Now, we're not talking about physical danger. We're talking about emotional threat. The brain's alarm system doesn't always distinguish between physical and emotional pain as clearly as we might think. Research has shown that emotional pain activates many of the same neural pathways involved in physical pain. And that's that's one reason why disappointment can literally hurt. Many people say things like my heart aches or I feel crushed or I feel broken. And those descriptions aren't merely poetic. They're describing genuine emotional distress that the brain is processing very seriously.

10:29When disappointment isn't significant enough, stress hormones increase. Sleep is disrupted. Concentration becomes more difficult. Motivation decreases and people may become more emotionally reactive. All of those responses are normal because their signs that the brain is trying to adjust to a reality. It wasn't expecting. Michelle, why do some disappointments seem to fade relatively quickly? While others stay with us for years because some disappointments touch our identity. That's where disappointment becomes particularly painful. If I expect a package to arrive and it's delayed, I'm disappointed. I'm used to my Amazon two day prime delivery sometimes overnight, right? So when it's not there, I'm disappointed because I was expecting it. But if I expect my marriage to thrive, my ministry to flourish, my child to recover or my calling to unfold in a certain way,

11:32those disappointments strike much deeper because they're connected to my sense of purpose, meaning identity and belonging. The more personally significant the expectation, the more profound the disappointment tends to be. And if we're not careful, we begin drawing conclusions about ourselves based on those disappointments. So we started asking questions like, what did I do wrong? What's wrong with me? Why did God allow this? And even more significant, can I trust him? I think I've said every single one of those questions before me too. And what I'm hearing from you though is that those questions aren't merely emotional questions. Those are identity questions. There's spiritual questions and they require careful attention. One thing I love about scripture and I suspect this is true of you to Jessica is that it refuses to sanitize human emotion.

12:36We often celebrate the victories of biblical figures while forgiving the disappointments they also endured. Right? Consider Joseph. We know the ending of the story. We know he becomes second and command over Egypt. We know God redeems his suffering. Yay. But Joseph didn't know any of that while sitting in prison. Imagine the disappointment. He had received dreams from God. Yet everything happening around him seemed to contradict to those dreams. So true. I suspect many listeners can relate to that feeling. I know I can. They probably sense God leading them. They believe God was working. And yet their circumstances seem to tell a completely different story. And sometimes that story seems to last a really long time. I agree with you. 100%. The we do have the benefit of knowing the end of the story. And people like Joseph, I sometimes want to know the end of my story.

13:40Me too. God is like, let's just consider David today. You know, we read about David quickly. We go through that. We can read his whole life in two or three chapters, 30 minutes. We read through his life of decades. And yet years pass between his anointing and his coronation. Years of hiding living in caves, Mally with other outlaws and outcasts. He had years of uncertainty, years of wondering. Did that really happen? Is this going to come true? What? Where? Where are you? God? That type of a thing I imagine must have come through his mind. And I think when we're in a place of disappointment, I'm going through my own sense of disappointment right now. And when we're there, we want that season of disappointment to end in the same two or three chapters in the same 30 minutes.

14:41Yeah. And perhaps one of the most powerful examples is found in Martha and Mary. And I can relate to this. They sent word to Jesus that Lazarus was sick. And Lazarus was a friend of Jesus. But from the perspective of Martha and Mary, Jesus delayed. Imagine what they must have been thinking. Surely he would come. Surely he would heal. Surely he wouldn't let his friend and our brother Lazarus die. And yet Lazarus died. Their expectations were shattered. And when Jesus finally arrived, Martha's first words reveal her disappointment. Lord, if you had been there, my brother would not have died. That's disappointment. That's grief. That's confusion. And I'm grateful that Jesus didn't rebuke her. He met her in her sorrow. He listened, he comforted, and then he revealed a larger story that she couldn't yet see.

15:48And for me, that's an important reminder. And I hope it is for our listeners and viewers as well. Sometimes we're living in the middle of a story who's ending. We can't yet see. I think if we were to ask everyone out there to raise their hands, if they're living in part of a story that has disappointment. And I'm going to assume that everybody's out there nodding their heads and saying, yeah, that's me. Friends, after a brief break, we're going to talk about what happens when disappointments remained unresolved, why it often turns into discouragement and cynicism, and how disappointment can quietly shape our view of ourselves, others, and even God. And we're also going to discuss dreams that never happened, prayers that seem unanswered, and why unresolved disappointment may be affecting your mental health more than you realize. Stay with us. This is going to be an important segment.

16:49We'll be right back after this brief word from our sponsor. If you're looking for a proven, biblically based, premarital resource, your couples will actually enjoy. Prepare to last combines the trusted, prepare, and rich assessment with engaging online teaching from national marriage experts, giving couples practical tools they'll use long after the wedding day. It fits easily into your church's premarital process, whether you meet one-on-one in small groups or in a class. And when the course ends, the support continues through our online community and trusted marriage mentors. Prepare to last helping churches prepare couples for a Christ-centered marriage. Learn more at preparetolast.com. Welcome back to your Hopefield perspective. In honor of the National Day of Encouragement, we've been talking about how disappointment affects our mental health, our faith, and even our brains. Before the break, we discussed how unresolved disappointment can slowly transform into discouragement, cynicism, emotional exhaustion,

17:51and even a distorted view of God. We also talked about dreams that didn't happen in prayers that seem unanswered. Jessica, I think one of the reasons this conversation resonates so deeply is because, like you mentioned before the break, I think every listener and an viewer can identify at least one disappointment that still feels tender. For some, it's recent and fresh. And for others, it may be decades old, yet regardless of how long ago it occurred, disappointment has a way of convincing us that our future will look exactly like our past. And that's one of the greatest dangers of disappointment. It doesn't just affect how we view yesterday. It affects how we imagine tomorrow. I think that's exactly right. I'm sitting here thinking, yeah. Yeah, it's impacting how I think about what comes next because one of the things disappointment tends to steal first is anticipation.

18:55When we've been hurt repeatedly, when we've prayed prayers that seem unanswered or when we've watched important dreams fall apart, we often stop expecting good things. We may continue functioning, we may continue serving, we may continue going through the motions of faith, but inwardly, we've stopped anticipating God's goodness. We begin approaching life with caution rather than expectancy. Instead of wondering what God might do, we find ourselves bracing for what might go wrong. And over time, that posture becomes emotionally exhausting because we were never created to live in a constant state of self-protection. That's such an important observation because from a neuroscience perspective, the brain learns from experience. So if disappointment occurs repeatedly, the brain begins creating what we might call protective predictions.

19:57Rather than anticipating positive outcomes, it starts preparing for negative ones. And this isn't because the brain is defective. It's because the brain is trying to keep us safe. The challenge is that what protects us from disappointment can also prevent us from embracing hope. We become reluctant to trust, reluctant to dream, reluctant to risk, and sometimes even reluctant to pray boldly because we're trying to avoid experiencing that same pain again. One of the things that I often explain to patients is that the brain's primary goal is not happiness. Its primary goal is survival, safety, predictability, certainty, yet faith often requires us to move forward without certainty. Faith requires us to trust God's character even when outcomes remain unknown.

20:58That's where disappointment creates such tension. Our brains crave certainty, but our faith requires trust. Learning to navigate that tension an important part of both emotional and spiritual maturity. Michelle, if someone listening today realizes they're carrying unresolved disappointment, where does healing actually begin? I believe healing begins with honesty. And that may sound simplistic, and I don't mean it too, because it's remarkably important. Many believers have become skilled at minimizing disappointment. They tell themselves they should just be over it by now. They tell themselves they should be stronger. They tell themselves they should simply move on. When my father died and I was a young girl, he was a strong believer. He was a strong evangelist. Everybody loved him. And I remember being at the funeral and thinking to myself,

21:59not wow, I'm so sad or I'm so disappointed. I no longer have my daddy. I remember thinking I have to put a smile on my face because we all know he's in heaven. So even back then, I felt like I had to deny as a believer my disappointment. But healing doesn't occur through denial. Healing occurs through acknowledgement. We cannot surrender something to God that we're unwilling to admit exists. And one of the most powerful truths I landed on years ago is that God never asks us to pretend. He never asks us to call pain something other than pain. Throughout scripture, as you and I were talking about Jessica before the break, we see individuals bringing disappointment honestly before God. You mentioned David. David did not hide his discouragement. Jeremiah did not hide his confusion. Hebacchek didn't hide his questions. Even Jesus expressed anguish in Gisemini.

23:00Honest emotion is not the enemy of faith. In many ways, honest emotion becomes the doorway through which deeper faith develops. But I think some of our listeners and viewers have spent years trying to outrun their disappointment. They've stayed busy. They've immersed themselves in work. They've focused on caring for everyone else. But perhaps what they haven't done is grief. And grief is often the first step towards healing. But I started by answering your question by saying, we have to be honest. And that's what's required to grieve. Whether the disappointment involves a broken relationship, a lost opportunity, a health challenge, an unanswered prayer or a dream that never materialized, we have to acknowledge the loss before we can move on from it. And I think that's especially important because many disappointments involve invisible losses. No one sees them. No one attends a funeral or memorial for them,

24:02yet there's still losses. A woman who hoped for children and never became a mother experiences loss. A man whose career ended unexpectedly experiences loss. Someone who dreamed of a thriving marriage now finds themselves alone is experiencing loss. These losses may not be visible to others, but they're very real to the person carrying them. Oh, exactly. And one of the reasons invisible losses can linger so long is because they're often unacknowledged. When grief isn't expressed, it tends to settle deeper. It influences our emotions, our relationships, and our expectations. Which is why giving language to disappointment can be still healing. Sometimes this emotional healing begins with a simple prayer. Lord, this hurt more than I've admitted. I'm disappointed, I'm confused. I'm grieving what I thought would be because that kind of honesty creates space for God to meet us.

25:06Another critical aspect of healing involves renewing our minds. Disappointment doesn't merely affect our emotions. It also affects our thought patterns. And after significant disappointment, people often begin adopting beliefs that feel true, but aren't actually true. They may conclude that God has forgotten them. They may believe that nothing good will ever happen again. They might assume that every future opportunity will end the same way the previous opportunities ended. And these conclusions feel convincing because they're rooted in deep pain. Your pain is not always inaccurate and insurperator of reality. If you're wondering what to give your son or daughter as they prepare for marriage, give them something that lasts longer than anything on a wedding registry. Prepare to last is a biblically based online marriage preparation experience, featuring a proven relationship assessment, trusted teaching, and practical tools for a strong start. And when the course ends, the support continues through our online community and experienced marriage mentors.

26:09Give them more than a wedding gift. Give them Prepare to last. Visit preparetolast.com. That's preparetolast.com. See. So what does neuroscience teach us in this regard? This is where neuroscience and scripture beautifully intersect. Neuroscience teaches us that the brain remains capable of change throughout life. That's what we've referred to as neuroplasticity. The brain is constantly forming, strengthening, and modifying neural pathways based on repeated thoughts and experiences. Scripture communicates a remarkably similar principle long before neuroscience ever came to be. Oh, and scripture talks about renewing the mind. Romans 12, two reminds us to not be conformed to the patterns of the world, but to be transformed through the renewing of our minds. In other words, transformation involves changing how we think, but that doesn't mean ignoring disappointment.

27:11It doesn't mean pretending everything is wonderful. It means refusing to allow disappointment to become the lens through which we interpret everything else. And it means learning to recognize when disappointment is speaking louder than truth. And that can be a process. Sometimes we think renewing the mind means repeating a Bible verse a few times and immediately feeling better. But in reality, it's more often a daily decision to challenge thoughts that aren't aligned with God's truth. Exactly. Healing rarely happens instantaneously. More often, it happens gradually. Every time we choose truth over fear, every time we choose trust over cynicism, every time we choose hope over despair, we're strengthening new pathways. We're teaching our minds to focus on God's faithfulness rather than solely on our disappointments. That's good food for thought right there.

28:11Let's talk specifically about hope. Because I think many listeners are wondering whether hope is even possible after repeated disappointment. And I understand that question. In fact, I think many people secretly wonder if hope is worth the risk because they've become disappointed so many times that hope feels dangerous. Yet biblical hope is very different from wishful thinking. Hope is not confidence that everything will unfold exactly as we want. Hope is confidence that God remains faithful, regardless of how circumstances unfold. And you and I have talked about that many times on this podcast and you frequently talk about God's faithfulness. But one of the reasons disappointment becomes so devastating is because we often place our hope in specific outcomes. We hope a prayer will be answered in a particular way. And when that outcome doesn't occur, hope feels shattered. But biblical hope was never intended to rest on outcomes.

29:13It was intended to rest on God's character. That's why scripture repeatedly points us back to God and who he is rather than merely what God does because his character remains constant. His goodness remains constant. His presence remains constant. His love remains constant and because those things remain unchanged, hope remains possible even when circumstances disappointness. I think that this is such an important distinction because many of us assume hope means expecting a particular result. The biblical hope is deeper than that. It's trusting God even when we don't know what the result will be. Exactly. Hope isn't certainty about the future. It's confidence in the one who holds the future. As we begin wrapping up today's conversation, I wanna speak directly to the listener or viewer

30:14who feels disappointed. Maybe you're disappointed by circumstances. Maybe you're disappointed by people. Maybe you're disappointed by yourself or perhaps you're even wrestling with disappointment toward God. Friend, disappointment may be part of your story, but it's not the end of your story. Yeah. And one of the beautiful truths, woven throughout scripture is that God consistently works in situations that appear hopeless. He works through delays. He works through detours. He works through disappointments, believe it or not. And he works through circumstances that make no sense from a human perspective. Again and again, over and over. We see him bringing redemption out of situations that initially looked like failure. Joseph thought prison was the end of the story. It wasn't. David thought the cave might be the end of the story. It wasn't. Mary and Martha thought death was the end of the story.

31:16It was not. And whatever disappointment you're facing today may not be the end of your story either. You may not understand what God is doing. You may not see the purpose yet. You may not have all the answers to all your questions, but the absence of understanding does not mean the absence of God's activity. He is often working in ways we can't yet see. Friend, if today's conversation resonated with you, we encourage you to spend some time with the Lord this week and honestly bring your disappointments to him. Don't minimize them, don't hide them, don't assume they don't matter. If they matter to you, they matter to him. And remember this disappointment doesn't have to become despair. God is able to meet you in your disappointment. Heal what has been wounded, renew what has become weary, and restore hope where hope feels lost. Friends, thank you for spending time with us today

32:16on your hope-filled perspective. If this episode encouraged you, please subscribe, leave a review and consider sharing it with someone who may need hope in the middle of their disappointment. Until next time, we want you to remember that God has not forgotten you, your story is not over, and as long as God is on his throne, hope prevails. Friends, I look forward to being with you again next week for another episode of your hope-filled perspective. But until then, it's my prayer for you that you have a hope-filled week. Everyone experiences pain at times. It can manifest physically, emotionally, relationally, or spiritually. It can follow tragic accidents, great loss, sudden betrayal, or unexpected and unwanted change. Often, pain is temporary, but what do you do when it isn't? When pain won't go away, healing does not come, and grief and hurt settle in to stay.

33:19Growing on her experience of chronic pain in her years as a board-certified clinical neuropsychologist, Dr. Michelle Bankson, provides a counter-cultural perspective on pain, offering hope without any false promises or empty platitudes, Dr. Bankson unwraps the complex emotional aspects of dealing with pain. She gives you permission to question God, helps you identify the lies you've believed about your pain, and re-orients your perspective based on the truth of God's word. Each chapter ends with a recommended playlist, reflection, questions, and a prayer. Your pain may not change, but your experience with it can. Dr. Sandra Dalton Smith, physician, best-selling author, and a host of the I Choose My Best Life podcast had this to say about the hem of his garment. Dr. Michelle Bankson is honest and transparent,

34:19and she gives the reader permission to ask hard questions and practical guidance on how to seek God during times when you feel the most wounded, a beautiful gift for every person living with pain. Pauli Guth, best-selling author of, what your mind needs for anxious moments says, pain is inevitable, but enduring it alone is optional. Dr. Michelle Bankson is a voice of hope who will speak into your struggles, a helping hand who will point you to Jesus, and a wise guy who will lead you through what you're facing so you can embrace more of what our good God has for you. Pick up a copy of the hem of his garment for you and a friend wherever books are sold. The you appreciate the physically-based hope-filled perspective offered each week by Dr. Bankson. Why don't you join the conversation? Take a moment and leave us a review.

35:19It's easy to scroll down on whatever after listening on. Click on review until it's who you are, why do you love to have the program, and let us get to know you a little bit too. And while you're at it, why not hit subscribe, so you'll be the first to know each time a new episode is aired. I'd like to take just a second to thank the team at Life Audio for their partnership with us on this podcast. If you got a LifeAudio.com, you'll find dozens of other faith-centered podcasts in their network. They've got shows about prayer, Bible study, parenting, and more. Are you seeking a deeper connection with God but just can't seem to find time to make prayer a priority? Introducing mindful Christian prayers, whether starting your day or winding down at night, this show is your resource for spiritual renewal. Each episode features short guided prayers, scripture readings, and moments of silence to help you reflect and connect with the Lord no matter how busy your schedule might be. Tune in now at LifeAudio.com or your favorite podcasting app to embrace the power of prayer and deepen your faith

36:22with mindful Christian prayers.