Dissatisfaction is one of those emotions that we generally consider undesirable. It may sometimes live in the background. Often it creeps up on us when life seems to be going swimmingly.
Declaring our dissatisfaction challenges some people. They remain silent because they believe that admitting it means they aren't successful or because they believe it will be interpreted as whining or blaming. We should be happy and we interpret that dissatisfaction is the opposite of happiness. The problem with denying our dissatisfaction is that it persists.
Reframing of dissatisfaction might begin with asking what it is.
Dissatisfaction would be tension somewhere in the body, a sense that something is incomplete or out of alignment. In our attempt to make sense of disappointment we take these cues and label them as bad emotions due to the discomfort we would rather avoid.
And often that is what we do. We try to convince ourselves that we are not dissatisfied (denial), we distract ourselves with some form of excitement (shopping, television, food), or we simply blame our dissatisfaction on what we believe is the source (partner, job, money) and never face it. But what if we considered that dissatisfaction (and every emotion) is there to inform us about our interactions with the world? What might dissatisfaction be trying to tell us?
