Recently I find myself thinking about rejection, how painful and personal it feels, how triggering and inevitable it is.
Your head can tell you a million reassuring things which all make sense:
- that it’s not personal
- that is says more about the other person
- that you can’t make everybody happy
- that you aren’t going to like everyone you come across and vice versa
-that in the grand scheme of things it doesn’t matter if nobody likes your posts on social media
And yet.
And yet your heart still cracks and tears sting your eyes.
Rejection hurts.
It sucks.
Whether it’s in the dating world or in your working life or within your friendship group or on social media, it can be difficult to bounce back. I sometimes wonder if rejection is so difficult to deal with because it claws at our self esteem, at the very essence of who we are.
You might want to call it our ego but often we look to others for a sense of validation and acceptance which means we are on shaky ground to start with. And we all know that we need to find those things within ourselves and not rely solely on others to provide them.
And yet.
And yet it can be so difficult to believe in ourselves, to feel that we are enough, to give ourselves the respect and compassion that we give freely to others.
Rejection can make us feel sad and we might want to hide away to lick our wounds in solitude. I am no stranger to rejection myself and have experienced a lot of it in my life. At school, from my friends, from my father. Rejection can make us believe that we are fundamentally flawed in some way and worthless.
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We are all worthy human beings but we might not always feel it. We might feel broken or ashamed or inferior. We might have wounds that are not easily healed or fixed.
We might not be able to change the pain we feel when we get rejected but what we can try to do is to be honest with ourselves and do the things that we want to do and that are important to us.
We can own our feelings and listen to our bodies and needs and by doing so on a regular basis, our mental health might improve.
Often we can completely deplete ourselves in the service of others and forget about ourselves. We might tell ourselves that our needs are not as important or valid but the truth is they are.
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When we get rejected, we might feel like we need to prove ourselves to others, to prove our worth but perhaps what we really need is to continue to build our self esteem, to do nice things for ourselves and to take care of ourselves in the way we take care of the people in our lives.
By doing this consistently we might feel better able to be there for others and we might feel more hopeful and at ease within ourselves.
And who knows, perhaps in time rejection when it comes, like it inevitably does, might not hurt quite as much.
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