The art of disappointing people

Being easy to love should never require disappearing.

There will be moments in your healing when doing the right thing for your nervous system feels like doing the wrong thing as a person.

You say no and feel like a traitor.
You don’t reply and feel like a fraud.
You set a boundary and feel like a bad friend, a bad daughter, a bad professional, a bad something.

Not because what you did was wrong. But because your body still associates being approved of with being safe. Disappointing people isn’t dangerous. But for many of us, it still feels that way.

Why it feels like a threat to disappoint someone

From a nervous system perspective, disappointment can register in the body as a social threat.

Stephen Porges’ polyvagal theory explains this well: your body is constantly scanning for cues of safety or danger - especially in relationships. If love or acceptance ever felt conditional, even a small rupture can feel like risk. And that risk isn’t just cognitive. It’s physiological.

The urge to stay likable isn’t always about ego. Sometimes, it’s about survival.

If you grew up in an environment where connection came with conditions, such as your mood, your helpfulness, your success, your silence, then disappointing someone didn’t just feel uncomfortable. It felt unsafe.

So your body adapted.

You learned to fawn - a lesser-known trauma response marked by appeasement and self-abandonment. You internalised external expectations - a process psychologists call introjection. You became agreeable, capable, calm. You made yourself easy to need and easier to love.

And it worked. But over time, it cost you something you didn’t realise you were trading away: Your right to take up space without performing for it.

The betrayal of finally listening to yourself

There comes a point in healing where you realise:
You’re not burning out from doing too much. You’re burning out from constantly performing a version of yourself that won’t upset anyone.

And the first time you stop, really stop, something strange happens.

You say “I don’t have capacity right now.”
You don’t explain. You don’t apologise.
You feel clear. Grounded.
And… awful.

You feel like a bad person. Not because you are, but because your body’s internal script equates being liked with being safe. This is what healing often feels like: guilt where there should be relief. Shame where there should be self-trust.

Letting people be disappointed and survive it

Here’s the truth no one tells you: You will disappoint people on this path. Especially the ones who benefited most from your lack of boundaries.

And that’s not a failure. That’s data.

You’ll notice who gets angry when you say no. Who pulls back when you stop over-functioning. Who hears your boundary as betrayal instead of a request for connection.

It will sting. But it will also free you. Because if you’re always trying to be the one who never lets anyone down, you’ll eventually abandon yourself just to maintain that image.

And the body keeps score.
Literally.

As physician and trauma expert Gabor Maté notes, long-term self-suppression - especially among high-achieving, care-oriented individuals - is linked to everything from anxiety and autoimmune conditions to chronic fatigue and burnout. Not because we’re fragile. But because we’ve been too strong for too long.

Rewriting the script

There is a quieter, kinder truth underneath the guilt: Disappointment isn’t cruelty. Discomfort isn’t harm. And choosing yourself isn’t selfish - it’s sacred.

You don’t have to be rude. You don’t have to be harsh. You just have to be clear and willing to let people feel what they feel without managing it for them.

This is the nervous system practice.

Not the boundary itself, but what you do with the noise that follows.

Your inner noise will say:
They won’t like me.
They’ll think I’m selfish.
I’ve let them down.
I’m too much. Too distant. Too cold.

And the quiet truth that should respond: Or maybe… I’ve just stopped shrinking.

Even now, there are moments when I catch myself softening a boundary mid-sentence, just to avoid a shift in tone or mood. It’s automatic. And then I have to remind myself - their disappointment doesn’t mean I did something wrong. It just means I did something different.

That’s the unglamorous truth of healing: sometimes it still feels bad even when it’s good for you.

Some reminders for the days you need them:

• People can feel disappointed and still love you.

• You can take up space without earning it.

• Not everything tender has to be available.

• You are not responsible for how others process your boundaries.

• Self-respect often feels like discomfort before it feels like peace.

Disappointing someone doesn’t make you dangerous. If being honest makes you hard to love, maybe it’s the conditions that need changing. Not you.

If this found you at the right moment, then pass it on to someone still learning that saying no isn’t selfish. Or someone who’s tired of being the dependable one, always holding everything together.

And if you’d like more slow truths like this - the kind that feel like exhale - please subscribe to receive them once a week.