well, that’s a bummer

I had a set-back this week.  I made a request for a bank loan for my business, to try to take it to the next level, replace some stuff, do some advertising, you know, grow and maintain the business.  I’d prepped for the request, looked for and followed advice, put some effort into not freaking out over taking on a debt – a lot of work went into this.

After I submitted the application, I spent time relaxing into the process.  I didn’t obsess on how much I wanted/needed the loan.  In fact, I pretty much forgot about it, and only occasionally had flashes of visualizing the loan officer handing me a check with a big smile on his face.  And, ok, a couple of moments of anxiety – only a couple.

And then… they turned me down.

Very nicely, with a good explanation – and they gave me some information I needed to have to go forward in my business.  But still, they said no.

In the first bit of time after walking out of the bank, an old, old tape kicked in:  ‘I didn’t know what I was doing as a business owner – or as anything, really.  No one believed in me enough to help me out.  I was a failure in my life.  This happens all the time, and it’s because the world was, at best, indifferent to me, and at worst, was really, evilly trying to make my life hard, But really, it wasn’t the world, it was me.  I wasn’t good enough’.

By the time I got home, I was trying to figure out how I could keep myself from getting sucked into this agonizing place.  I started telling myself I wasn’t going to die, or go broke and end up living under a bridge, a source of pain and humiliation for my children and a lesson to my neighbors.  I was… disappointed.

What I was feeling was disappointed.  The mental gyrations that followed were resonances of past experiences that I’d never quite resolved, and every single one of them wanted to dance in my head.

The good news is, if I’d gone on a bit longer they would have gotten so absurd I would have ended up kinda sorta laughing at myself and beginning to move on.  The really good news is that, once I named what I was feeling ‘disappointment’ and held to that, I stopped trying to make it the end of my world as I knew it.  The best news was it all took me a matter of minutes, rather than the days it used to take me.

In fact, I ended up feeling liberated, which is weird – and wonderful.  I’m back to trying to do things my way, rather than the way others (say they) have done it.  I still want to raise that money, I still have to figure it out, but I’m disappointed, not depressed.  Dang, I’m good.