Everyone experiences rejection at times. Rejection can be hurtful, whether it’s a relationship ending or you get turned down for a job or promotion. Rejection can be compared to a wound; only it’s emotional instead of physical. Educating yourself on what to do when you experience the hurt of rejection is important for maintaining emotional health. If left “untreated,” the pain of rejection can lead to feelings of depression, self-doubt, and low self-esteem. No, you don’t have to see a doctor or counselor every time you experience rejection. However, applying these self-care tips can help you heal from those hurtful wounds of rejection.
Emotional First Aid
The idea behind emotional first aid is to give yourself some grace and self-care or self-love. You need to be kind to yourself and remember your value and worth. When you rise up in the strength of knowing who you are, you can cast that rejection off yourself. Beating yourself up and wallowing in self-pity only feeds the hurt of rejection. You need to clean out the negative thoughts and replace them with positive thoughts about yourself.
People are often unaware that they must pay more attention to their emotional health. We suck it up and try to be strong. Or we say things like “dust yourself off and try again.” While it’s good to do those things, we can’t ignore the feelings of hurt and pretend it didn’t happen. Storing up negative emotions is what leads to feelings of depression and self-doubt, as well as other physical health issues. When you cut yourself and have a physical wound, you don’t ignore it, or it will get infected. You clean and cover it to prevent harmful bacteria from getting into your bloodstream. This is how we must also look at healing our emotional wounds. We should also teach our children the proper way to respond to their emotional wounds.
Break Agreement With The Lie
When you feel rejected, it’s only natural to wonder, “what is wrong with me? Did I do something wrong”? The truth is, in most cases, it’s not about you. We are not everyone’s “cup of tea,” and that’s ok! You may be perfectly qualified for that job, but they went with someone else they “clicked with” more or had more experience or education. That doesn’t mean anything is wrong with you. It’s easy to slip into a victim mentality when we experience the hurt of rejection. When this happens, we agree with a lie. The lie is usually that you are not “good enough.” You can break the agreement with that lie and refuse to believe it. Every time those thoughts pop up in your mind, say, “No, I break agreement with the lie that I am not good enough,” or whatever lie comes to your mind. Replace those lies by telling yourself everything you are good at and make you the wonderful creation that you are.
Forgive The Ones Who Reject You
Many times when we receive an emotional wound because of rejection or betrayal, we seek vengeance. We may hold onto a grudge and bottle up bitterness and unforgiveness. These practices of unforgiveness can make you physically ill and are not good for you spiritually.
Forgiveness is not saying that the hurtful thing someone did to us is ok. In fact, forgiveness is not even about the person that hurt us. They might not even be aware that they hurt you. You aren’t punishing them by holding on to the hurt and unforgiveness. You will begin to heal when you learn to release the bitterness inside and choose to forgive them. Forgiveness is a choice. Read that again! Forgiveness is a choice. You might not feel like you forgave the person right away. You may need to repeat the process of choosing to forgive every time a painful memory comes up for you. But eventually, you will experience a state of freedom in forgiveness. The hurt you experienced will seem like a distant memory that no longer causes you pain.
Forgiveness does not mean you have to tell the person who hurt you that you forgive them. If they don’t think they did anything wrong, this can lead to them becoming defensive and will likely lead to more feelings of rejection. It also does not mean you have to maintain a relationship with someone who is toxic and repeatedly causes feelings of rejection. Remember that the forgiveness process is not about them. It is about healing yourself.
Ask Yourself If You Can Learn Anything From This Experience
In some cases, someone may have rejected you because you did something wrong. It can be difficult to admit when we do something wrong or have a problem. For example, someone may leave a spouse or partner because they have a drinking problem and refuse to get help. Or perhaps you were turned down for a job because you have work performance issues. The pain of rejection is still genuine under these circumstances. In fact, knowing that your actions led to your rejection can be even more difficult to overcome because you need to admit you were wrong and forgive yourself.
A healthy mindset chooses to overcome the circumstances. It’s about refusing to be a victim and choosing to be an overcomer. If you realize that someone rejected you because of your wrong actions, you may be unable to change the person’s mind. You may be stuck with suffering the consequences of your actions. However, you can learn from your mistakes. In the above examples, it may mean working on improving your job performance to make you more competitive for future promotions. For relationships, you may need to examine your own wrongdoing and learn to overcome it so that you do not repeat the mistakes in future relationships.
Control What You Can And Let The Rest Go
The truth is, we cannot control the actions of someone else. Most of the time, we cannot control life circumstances from happening. We can only control ourselves and how we react. Focus on what you can control and learn to let the rest go. You will have greater peace when you learn to do this.