There are some things that come to us as a part of life that we wish would never come. Rejection is one of them. And there is not one of us that has not experienced a rejection in our life. Maybe it was because we were picked last to play kickball at recess in elementary school. Maybe the guy we had a crush on in high school never called after you and he went out once. Maybe your dream job seems to be someone else’s dream job. Maybe you just never get that call from the NFL to play professional football. Maybe the rejection that we feel sometimes is much more minor but still stings a little when it is felt. Have you ever felt rejected by someone and not known why? Even if they gave you a reason, would that reason make sense to you or be good enough so that you would say, “Oh, ok. Then I get it.” Yeah, probably not. How do we deal with rejection? Do some of you curl up in the fetal position and just hold on without looking outside yourself ever again? When you just want to disappear from the world (and maybe do for a while), hoping that the wound heals ever so quickly? Many of us can pick up right up where we left off. With the rejection comes a slight stumble as we continue to right our footing and continue to stand up right. We get back up and continue to look at the rejection as something that we can learn from and not something that will hold us back. Rejection can hit us like a ton of bricks and no matter how many times we tell ourselves that it doesn’t mean anything, it still has a little bite to it. So, how do we deal with rejection?
- We have to understand that it will happen when we don’t want it to.
- We have to accept for what it truly is and not what we perceive it to be.
- We have to move on from it and let it go.
We are bound by common feelings and similar experiences that unite us as people, regardless of the language we speak or the place of our homes. Feelings are universal and rejection is an emotional response to a situation that does not make us happy. Understand its purpose and work through it so as quickly as it comes, it can go.
Michelle Homme 2013 ©
