Rejection – it hurts

I had a bit of an ‘ah ha’ moment over the weekend. An ephiphany if you will. And like all good epiphanies once they become apparent, you realise just how long you’ve been hanging on to a way of being that no longer serves you. 

My ah ha moment – I so ain’t cool with rejection. I’m not. I fear it. I get anxious about it. It consumes me. I feel it in my gut and in my chest. I can feel my adrenals in overdrive waiting for the command to either fight or flight. It’s like drinking tooooo much coffee. Way too much coffee. 

And so it was in this moment of realisation, of blinding clarity, that I could see just how much this was impacting my life. From business to relationships to friendships. It was all there, plain for me to see. 

‘What we fear the most is what we’ll attract.’ 

I did an analysis of my reality – my fear became clearly apparent. I’ve attracted various situations of late where the commen theme (I’ve perceived) is rejection. Even to the point where I’ve been rejecting myself. Over indulging, self sabotaging, chosing with intention things that do not serve me. While writing this post, sentence after sentence, I can literally feel my ego being torn apart, layer by layer, memories from childhood to just yesterday surfacing.

What is it about the anxiety of rejection, that sees us protecting ourselves from the pain we anticipate to feel? 

Consciously I know that if I am rejected all will be well. I will survive. I have before. But that’s the thing about the sub conscious mind – when we are hurt emotionally we react in the same way as if we are being hurt physically, that is, to move away from the pain. If we are about to have pain inflicted on us we instinctively protect ourselves from the impending danger. It’s the same for emotional pain, for the subconscious mind does not differentiate between physcial and emotional pain. When we experience enough situations of hurt, we feel we have to protect our self from further hurt. It is neither wrong or right, it is a matter of whether the response suits your needs.¹

And this is the clincher – whether the response suits your needs. My needs are not being met. I am not allowing them to be met, for fear of experiencing a pain like the pain I once upon a time felt. 

But as with all of this work, in order to move closer to acceptance (the opposite of rejection) ie self love you need to acknowledge and stop identifying with the child that once was. The child’s attempt at wanting to protect you no longer serves the adult who has all the more resources and experiences to draw from. 

While curiously researching rejection I came across the following statement; ‘rejection increases sadness, despair and hostility, a decrease in self – esteem, belonging, sense of control and meaning of life. ²

My how this sums up my last few days. I have found myself questioning EVERYTHING. Examples a plenty to re-affirm I wasn’t enough. I was questioning myself, my friendships, my living arrangements, my career even – but I caught myself and in doing so allowed myself to go there. To FEEL it. To sit with the doubt and saddness. My normal tactic would be to resist this and cover it up by forcing my perception to change – but this time I felt a want and a need to instead sit with it.

I started writing this post about something entirely different. But the words did not flow. They were stilted and dry. And then it hit me, rejection was what I was meant to be writing about.

‘Rejection ranks among the most potent and distressing events that people experience.’³

I can relate to this. I become an entirely different person, let me rephrase actually, I become like my 11 year old self – insecure, unsure, desperate for acceptance. However at 31 it’s time to thank her and bid her farewell. 

I adore the following quote from Conversations with God;

‘You have to experience what you don’t want in order to know what you do want.’ 

I’ve been living this of late. I know what I don’t want, which is making it easier to detach from old ways of being so as to get closer to what I do want. That is to let go of the need for outside acceptance and to instead accept me, all of me.

I am enough, you are enough.

I invite you to ask yourself – where is your reality matching the vibration of rejection? Where, by living with more courage of accepting self will you be able to change your reality? Most importantly what would this look like? 

Photos thanks to Pinterest http://pinterest.com/clarey22/

References

1.http://www.psychologistanywhereanytime.com/relationships_psychologist/psychologist_rejection.htm

2.http://www.huffingtonpost.com/todd-kashdan/importance-of-human-connections_b_962540.html

3.http://www.psychologistanywhereanytime.com/relationships_psychologist/psychologist_rejection.htm