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I wish you enjoyed a good summer: mine was not. On the day we were planning to go on holiday, I was waiting at A&E with my husband, expecting him to have necessary yet standard surgery, which caused our vacation arrangements needed to be cancelled.

From this situation I learned something important, all over again, about how difficult it is for me to feel bad when things don't work out. I’m not talking about major catastrophes, but the more common, subtly crushing disappointments that – if we don't actually experience them – will really weigh us down.

When we were meant to be on holiday but were not, I kept feeling a tug towards looking for silver linings: “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 didn't improve, just a bit depressed. And then I would confront the reality that this holiday really was gone: my husband’s surgery required frequent uncomfortable wound care, and there is a limited time window for an pleasant vacation on the shores of Belgium. So, no vacation. Just discontent and annoyance, pain and care.

I know more serious issues can happen, it's just a trip, such a fortunate concern to have – I know because I tried that line too. But what I required was to be sincere with my feelings. In those instances when I was able to halt battling the disappointment and we addressed it instead, it felt like we were facing it as a team. Instead of experiencing sadness and trying to put on a brave face, I’ve granted myself all sorts of unpleasant emotions, including but not limited to hostility and displeasure and aversion and wrath, which at least appeared genuine. At times, it even was feasible to appreciate our moments at home together.

This brought to mind of a wish I sometimes notice in my counseling individuals, and that I have also experienced in myself as a client in therapy: that therapy could somehow reverse our unwanted experiences, like hitting a reverse switch. But that option only points backwards. Facing the reality that this is impossible and accepting the grief and rage for things not happening how we expected, rather than a insincere positive spin, can facilitate a change of current: from rejection and low mood, to progress and potential. Over time – and, of course, it needs duration – this can be transformative.

We think of depression as experiencing negativity – but to my mind it’s a kind of deadening of all emotions, a suppressing of anger and sadness and letdown and happiness and vitality, and all the rest. The opposite of depression is not happiness, but acknowledging every sentiment, a kind of honest emotional expression and freedom.

I have repeatedly found myself stuck in this urge to reverse things, but my little one is assisting me in moving past it. As a recent parent, I was at times swamped by the amazing requirements of my infant. Not only the feeding – sometimes for more than 60 minutes at a time, and then again less than an hour after that – and not only the changing, and then the changing again before you’ve even ended the change you were doing. These routine valuable duties among so many others – efficiency blended with affection – are a solace and a great honor. Though they’re also, at moments, unceasing and exhausting. What shocked me the most – aside from the exhaustion – were the feelings requirements.

I had believed my most primary duty as a mother was to fulfill my infant's requirements. But I soon realized that it was impossible to fulfill each of my baby’s needs at the time she needed it. Her craving could seem unmeetable; my nourishment could not come fast enough, or it flowed excessively. And then we needed to alter her clothes – but she hated being changed, and wept as if she were falling into a gloomy abyss of despair. And while sometimes she seemed consoled by the hugs we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were separated from us, that nothing we had to offer could assist.

I soon realized that my most key responsibility as a mother was first to survive, and then to assist her process the powerful sentiments caused by the impossibility of my guarding her from all discomfort. As she grew her ability to consume and process milk, she also had to develop a capacity to manage her sentiments and her suffering when the nourishment was delayed, or when she was suffering, or any other hard and bewildering experience – and I had to develop alongside her (and my) annoyance, fury, despondency, aversion, letdown, craving. My job was not to ensure everything was perfect, but to assist in finding significance to her sentimental path of things being less than perfect.

This was the difference, for her, between being with someone who was seeking to offer her only good feelings, and instead being helped to grow a skill to experience all feelings. It was the contrast, for me, between desiring to experience excellent about performing flawlessly as a ideal parent, and instead developing the capacity to tolerate my own shortcomings in order to do a sufficiently well – and grasp my daughter’s disappointment and anger with me. The distinction between my attempting to halt her crying, and comprehending when she had to sob.

Now that we have developed beyond this together, I feel less keenly the desire to press reverse and alter our history into one where everything goes well. I find faith in my awareness of a skill developing within to understand that this is unattainable, and to realize that, when I’m busy trying to rebook a holiday, what I actually want is to cry.