Rejection

Are you afraid of rejection?

Where did the fear come from?

Where does it show up in your life?

“Most fear of rejection rests on the desire for approval from other people. Don’t base your self-esteem on their opinions.”

Harvey Mackay

Rejection causes strong emotional pain and can cause us to be self-critical.

Oftentimes we decide we’re not deserving because of something that happened as a child when we didn’t get the love we needed or didn’t feel safe. We made decisions that lead our lives at a time when we didn’t have a lot of life experiences to base those decisions on. We make permanent decisions about temporary situations. It is protection. When we are young, we are naturally vulnerable and have an open heart. As life happens and we are hurt, we close ourselves off from what hurt us, and our hearts harden. Or we pretend they do.

But here’s the deal; what we resist persists. And it not only persists but it grows.

We felt rejected and the pain was too much to bear, we decided it was easier and less painful to reject others before they could reject us. The deeper the wound of rejection we have, the more likely it is to be rejected or reject others.

When we feel rejected, we reject ourselves before anyone else can. We put up a wall or run away.

We all long for love and connection and the wound of rejections cuts us off from both. It would have us believe that we are not worthy of our most basic emotional needs.

There is much to unpack and process about the rejection wound. I am becoming aware of how this wound has played a leading role in my life and as I look at the world, I see it in many others too.

I’ll be sharing more in the next weeks about rejection and have some suggestions for changing the pain from that wound into the joy of belonging.

For now, read this again and allow it to take you where it will. Just breathe.

When we change the world changes.