Rejection
Can leave us feeling left out and excluded from people and situations we wanted to be part of. At its worst we feel miserable and lonely, and at its best we decide that person is not worth suffering for. Interestingly, we can even find ourselves building up quite the scenario by weighing up every incident or conversation that’s occurred and creating proof a high court jury would find hard to refute. Hands up if you’ve ever done that? The problem being it just makes the whole thing worse. There is nothing positive about feeling rejected, but it’s part of how we treat each other and seems to be here to stay
What causes us to feel rejected and why?
Generally speaking, being rejected can be a learned behaviour usually resulting from childhood conditioning. We may have been the child that was the afterthought or the teenager that was seen as ‘naughty’ and insufferable. Wherever it began, rejection is often what we have carried for some time and through many experiences. Occasionally it can come about later in life, through a one-off situation one that leaves us shell shocked and outraged, resulting in feelings of discouragement and despair.
We are then left wondering why people are so cruel.
There are many reasons for that, but people who feel good about themselves don’t tend to make other people feel bad, so there’s the first hint.
Perhaps they have suffered from rejection themselves and want to share this round or maybe they want to get in first, before they get rejected.
It usually comes from a place of lack.
They usually have their own agendas, maybe they are feeling insecure or don’t want your light shining brighter than theirs. Interestingly, those people are often feeling envy, low self-esteem or worthlessness in their own lives. The saying ‘How you make others feel about themselves says a lot about you’ is never truer than when rejection is at play.
It doesn’t make it easier to bear, but it does alert us to be a little more savvy around who we share our precious time with.
Human nature dictates we will probably experience both sides of rejection, yep, I just wrote that. At times, we will do our own share of rejecting, consciously or unconsciously. Naturally we would prefer to think that we only live in the ‘all welcome’ space, but its’ just not true. When we are busy or have too many people making demands on our time, rejection of others can occur. Sometimes it can even be deliberate and we need to own that. Hold the mirror up people.
This doesn’t make us wrong, but we need to accept we are all imperfect human beings.
Although we can feel powerless in the face of rejection, we can take charge of it by recognising that is how we feel and change how we approach it. Seeking to understand why we experience it is helpful, perhaps it is us who are feeling needy, or less than. Perhaps it is true that we are relying on the same people too much to provide us with entertainment or company. Or perhaps it is simply that that person is not really on our team. However it shows up, some ways to manage it could be:
Acknowledging it’s there
Recognising the impact
Deciding on whether its intentional or not
Taking action on it – may be a conversation with the person doing the rejecting, or simply removing your proximity to them
Accepting that life is always a contrast
Trusting that all will be well