Rejection hurts
Rejection feels ugly. It feels like unworthiness. It feels like a green eyed monster. Rejection is the wound that keeps on giving.
How many people carry wounds of childhood rejection into their adult lives, living as half eyed ghouls instead of gleeful participants ? How many people lived out a real live version of “Freaks and Geeks,” and never got beyond the threshold of hurt into self love?
Life is heavy, life can cause trauma. We need to recognize this trauma however so we don’t let it fester inside. I think people sometimes think the big hurts are the ones which really hold us back in life , but it’s actually the small, or I acknowledged hurts which can cause the most damage. They sit in the soul like ugly stones, repelling-
Opportunities
Life
Love
Good things of any kind.
Even an open door can become blocked as we hoard our pain, blocking the inside of amazing good things.
Even think about your relationship to the phrase “amazing good things”
Do you feel annoyed by that phrase? Do you feel wary?
I do: because I have experienced rejection-we all have.
I’m a sensitive person. I try to pretend I’m cool, or sauve, or hide behind my accomplishments, or fashionable lack of accomplishments, or clothing, or intellect or style, and pretend I don’t have broken dreams or a broken heart .
But I do have a broken heart.
The world has hurt me, and I let it. I didn’t say hey ! Back up! I’m awesome !
I said , nothing, and quietly let a lifetime of self sabotage ensue. But you don’t have to continue on with self sabotage. Today, this very day you can admit
-You are loved
-You are actually liked- yes that’s right, a lot of people like you!!!
You have opportunities to get out of your self hatred — every day! You don’t have to commit yourself to hating yourself. I think some people who experience trauma get so habitualized in self hatred that they don’t know how to admit it’s not their only feeling.
Do things which create opportunities for yourself-many people with negative self perception over look the value of opportunities.
Opportunities allow more love, more happiness, more freedom to flow through you. But if you live in fear of rejection or another uncomfortable sensation, you might only think of the DOWNSIDES of opportunities.
Say it with me now-OPPORTUNITIES CREATE MORE LOVE!!!!
opportunities create more happiness, more freedom, more joy.
When we allow opportunities in-literally any kind of opportunity, the opportunity to go for a walk with a neighbor even, the opportunity to go to the store, the opportunity to go on a date with someone unexpected, we allow love and freedom in. Happiness too. Try not to limit opportunities to just career opportunities.
Opportunities can come in the form of emotional opportunities as well-opportunities to learn about yourself and let all the good things in.
Remember that you deserve love-you deserve to exist in the physical world, not just the mental world. One of my crutches is existing in the mental world but not allowing myself to be fully embodied in the physical world. But you deserve to be in all the worlds-the mental, emotional and the physical.
You deserve the opportunities that are coming towards you. You deserve the love that is inside of you. And love IS inside of you.
Maybe secretly we even fear happiness. Maybe we fear that if we achieve happiness-that is the end of us. And maybe it is, but it could also be the beginning of us.
Pain makes a great story — and you can use your pain to create stories.
So don’t forget your pain entirely, or try to mask it under platitudes. Your soul is not a fool.
photograph by the author
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Rejection and It’s Many Faces was originally published in Mindful Mental Health on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.