How should we deal with rejection? Is there a good way? A healthy way? An easy way? Or, are we just meant to travel through the raw, soul wrenching, nauseating agony that tears through us, challenging our sense of worthiness, our confidence, while shaking loose any sense of comfort and control?
What is rejection’s purpose? Is it to humble us? Wake us up to things we were unable to recognize? Is it meant to point us in another, better, clearer direction? Is it meant to challenge us to fight for what we truly desire? Is it meant to act as a motivator to lead us to greater reflection, assessment or action?
I’m not clear on rejection’s role in our lives. But I do know it can be demoralizing, depressing and demeaning. It can turn even the most confident and optimistic people into shells of their former selves if they experience enough of it or in rapid succession. And, I do know that when rejection comes from people or other sources that we truly value or hold in high esteem or when it challenges the achievement of your dreams, goals, ideas, or perceptions of the life you wish to lead, it hurts all the more.
One thing is for certain: we will all be affected by it. Whether it’s getting fired from your job, not getting asked out, being excluded from the family wedding, or not invited to some other special event, not having our ideas given consideration, not hearing from that job or funding application, not making the team, not getting the loan, being cheated on, getting a divorce, or a friend not speaking to you, we will all experience it.
Other than love, I can’t think of an emotion that is more personal or more painful. Because with rejection, it is a piece or all of us that is being rejected, dismissed, refused, not chosen, not included, or not recognized. I don’t think any one of us wants to be unseen, unappreciated, unacknowledged, or unconnected, or unloved.
We all just want to be seen, liked, loved, accepted and included. And rejection threatens every one of these. Rejection has an enormous power of its own but we are relatively powerless in preventing it. I guess our only power when faced with it, is in how we ultimately handle it.
A great article in Inc offers some useful tips on dealing effectively with rejection. The highlights include:
- Acknowledging your emotions and how the rejection is affecting you – giving your emotions a voice.
- Considering rejection is proof that you are pushing your limits and challenging the status quo – which is a key requirement for growth.
- Treating yourself with compassion and being kind to yourself rather than giving further power to the initial rejection by agreeing with your critics.
- Not letting the rejection define you but rather reaffirming your own perception of yourself.
- Learning from it and taking some nugget or insight away from the experience.
There are times in our lives where we may drift along happily and confidently and have nary a rejection sighting for months. Then there are other times when they come in rapid succession, times when a recent deep rejection wound is just beginning to heal and another one comes along and rips it wide open exposing its raw sensitivities again.
Personally, I have dealt with more than my fair share of rejection of late (along with a heap of other crap), I think I’ve done okay with accomplishing tips 1 – 3, but am working on 4 and 5 and suspect they are going to take some time to accomplish. And, as the image below suggests, I hope it is all leading me to a better place that I just can’t see yet.
Images shown are probably from some combination of the FB feeds of Daily Goalcast, Daily OM or Shannon Kaiser. They not my own.
A Broad Abroad in Broadbeach 