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I trust your a pleasant summer: I did not. The very day we were supposed to be travel for leisure, I was sitting in A&E with my husband, expecting him to have necessary yet standard surgery, which meant our getaway ideas had to be cancelled.

From this situation I learned something important, all over again, about how hard it is for me to experience sadness when things don't work out. I’m not talking about major catastrophes, but the more routine, gently heartbreaking disappointments that – without the ability to actually feel them – will truly burden us.

When we were supposed to be on holiday but weren't, I kept experiencing a pull towards finding the positive: “I can {book a replacement trip|schedule another vacation|arrange a different getaway”; “At least we have {travel insurance|coverage for trips|protection for journeys”; “This’ll give me {something to write about|material for an article|content for a story”. But I never felt better, just a bit down. And then I would bump up against the reality that this holiday had truly vanished: my husband’s surgery required frequent painful bandage replacements, and there is a limited time window for an enjoyable break on the Belgium's beaches. So, no holiday. Just letdown and irritation, hurt and nurturing.

I know worse things can happen, it's just a trip, an enviable dilemma to have – I know because I tried that line too. But what I required was to be truthful to myself. In those moments when I was able to halt battling the disappointment and we addressed it instead, it felt like we were going through something together. Instead of being down and trying to smile, I’ve given myself permission all sorts of difficult sentiments, including but not limited to bitterness and resentment and hatred and rage, which at least seemed authentic. At times, it even was feasible to value our days at home together.

This recalled of a wish I sometimes observe in my counseling individuals, and that I have also seen in myself as a client in therapy: that therapy could perhaps undo our negative events, like hitting a reverse switch. But that arrow only points backwards. Confronting the reality that this is impossible and allowing the sorrow and anger for things not turning out how we expected, rather than a insincere positive spin, can facilitate a change of current: from rejection and low mood, to development and opportunity. Over time – and, of course, it requires patience – this can be profoundly impactful.

We view depression as feeling bad – but to my mind it’s a kind of deadening of all emotions, a suppressing of frustration and sorrow and disappointment and joy and life force, and all the rest. The substitute for depression is not happiness, but experiencing all emotions, a kind of truthful emotional spontaneity and release.

I have repeatedly found myself caught in this wish to click “undo”, but my young child is supporting my evolution. As a new mother, I was at times swamped by the amazing requirements of my baby. Not only the feeding – sometimes for more than 60 minutes at a time, and then again under 60 minutes after that – and not only the changing, and then the repeating the process before you’ve even ended the task you were handling. These day-to-day precious tasks among so many others – functionality combined with nurturing – are a comfort and a significant blessing. Though they’re also, at moments, persistent and tiring. What shocked me the most – aside from the lack of rest – were the emotional demands.

I had believed my most primary duty as a mother was to meet my baby’s needs. But I soon understood that it was unfeasible to satisfy every my baby’s needs at the time she required it. Her appetite could seem endless; my nourishment could not be produced rapidly, or it flowed excessively. And then we needed to change her – but she hated being changed, and wept as if she were descending into a dark vortex of doom. And while sometimes she seemed soothed by the cuddles we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were separated from us, that no solution we provided could assist.

I soon discovered that my most important job as a mother was first to survive, and then to assist her process the overwhelming feelings caused by the unattainability of my guarding her from all unease. As she grew her ability to ingest and absorb milk, she also had to develop a capacity to manage her sentiments and her suffering when the supply was insufficient, or when she was hurting, or any other difficult and confusing experience – and I had to develop alongside her (and my) frustration, rage, despair, loathing, discontent, need. My job was not to ensure everything was perfect, but to help bring meaning to her emotional experience of things not going so well.

This was the contrast, for her, between being with someone who was attempting to provide her only positive emotions, and instead being assisted in developing a capacity to feel every emotion. It was the distinction, for me, between desiring to experience wonderful about executing ideally as a perfect mother, and instead cultivating the skill to tolerate my own shortcomings in order to do a good enough job – and grasp my daughter’s letdown and frustration with me. The difference between my seeking to prevent her crying, and understanding when she had to sob.

Now that we have evolved past this together, I feel reduced the urge to hit “undo” and change our narrative into one where things are ideal. I find hope in my awareness of a skill evolving internally to acknowledge that this is impossible, and to understand that, when I’m occupied with attempting to rearrange a trip, what I actually want is to weep.