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I trust your a enjoyable summer: mine was not. On the day we were planning to travel for leisure, I was sitting in A&E with my husband, anticipating him to have prompt but common surgery, which resulted in our vacation arrangements were forced to be cancelled.

From this experience I gained insight important, all over again, about how difficult it is for me to feel bad when things go wrong. I’m not talking about life-altering traumas, but the more routine, quietly devastating disappointments that – if we don't actually acknowledge them – will truly burden us.

When we were expected to be on holiday but could not be, I kept experiencing a pull 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 down. And then I would face the reality that this holiday had truly vanished: my husband’s surgery necessitated frequent agonising dressing changes, and there is a short period for an enjoyable break on the shores of Belgium. So, no vacation. Just discontent and annoyance, suffering and attention.

I know worse things can happen, it’s only a holiday, an enviable dilemma to have – I know because I tested that argument too. But what I wanted was to be truthful to myself. In those moments when I was able to stop fighting off the disappointment and we discussed it instead, it felt like we were going through something together. Instead of being down and trying to smile, I’ve allowed myself all sorts of unpleasant emotions, including but not limited to bitterness and resentment and aversion and wrath, which at least appeared genuine. At times, it even turned out to enjoy our time at home together.

This brought to mind of a desire I sometimes see in my therapy clients, and that I have also experienced in myself as a patient in psychoanalysis: that therapy could perhaps erase our difficult moments, like clicking “undo”. But that button only looks to the past. Acknowledging the reality that this is unattainable and embracing the sorrow and anger for things not working out how we expected, rather than a false optimism, can enable a shift: from denial and depression, to development and opportunity. Over time – and, of course, it does take time – this can be life-changing.

We consider depression as being sad – but to my mind it’s a kind of deadening of all emotions, a repressing of rage and grief and letdown and happiness and life force, and all the rest. The substitute for depression is not happiness, but acknowledging every sentiment, a kind of genuine feeling freedom and release.

I have often found myself trapped in this urge to reverse things, but my little one is supporting my evolution. As a recent parent, I was at times overwhelmed by the incredible needs of my infant. Not only the nourishing – sometimes for over an hour at a time, and then again soon after after that – and not only the changing, and then the changing again before you’ve even ended the change you were doing. These day-to-day precious tasks among so many others – efficiency blended with affection – are a solace and a great honor. Though they’re also, at moments, relentless and draining. What surprised me the most – aside from the sleep deprivation – were the psychological needs.

I had believed my most important job as a mother was to meet my baby’s needs. But I soon understood that it was unfeasible to meet all of my baby’s needs at the time she demanded it. Her craving could seem endless; my supply could not come fast enough, or it was too abundant. And then we needed to change her – but she disliked being changed, and wept as if she were descending into a shadowy pit of misery. And while sometimes she seemed soothed by the embraces we gave her, at other times it felt as if she were separated from us, that no comfort we gave could help.

I soon discovered that my most crucial role as a mother was first to persevere, and then to assist her process the overwhelming feelings triggered by the impossibility of my protecting her from all unease. As she enhanced her skill to ingest and absorb milk, she also had to build an ability to process her feelings and her suffering when the nourishment was delayed, or when she was in pain, or any other challenging and perplexing experience – and I had to evolve with her (and my) frustration, rage, despair, aversion, letdown, craving. My job was not to ensure everything was perfect, but to support in creating understanding to her sentimental path of things being less than perfect.

This was the contrast, for her, between experiencing someone who was seeking to offer her only good feelings, and instead being helped to grow a ability to acknowledge all sentiments. It was the difference, for me, between desiring to experience great about performing flawlessly as a ideal parent, and instead cultivating the skill to accept my own far-from-ideal-ness in order to do a sufficiently well – and comprehend my daughter’s disappointment and anger with me. The distinction between my attempting to halt her crying, and understanding when she needed to cry.

Now that we have evolved past this together, I feel reduced the desire to hit “undo” and rewrite our story into one where everything goes well. I find faith in my awareness of a ability growing inside me to recognise that this is not possible, and to realize that, when I’m busy trying to rebook a holiday, what I truly require is to sob.