Dealing With Rejection?  Here is How You Can Deal with it (in a Healthy Way)


Dealing with Rejection

Have you ever been rejected from a job you applied for, a new love interest, or by friends?  If so, you understand that rejection hurts.  In fact, some people have stopped trying because of that heartbreaking “no.”

Allowing rejection to hold you back can wreak havoc in your personal life.  Taking rejection negatively can impact your future relationships and contribute to debilitating conditions like anxiety and depression.  In view of that, you should learn to bounce back from rejection by building the resilience necessary to get back up when life takes you down.

The following ways will help you deal with rejection and come out stronger.  Actually, rejection shouldn’t be the end-all-be-all.  Its lessons should help you become resilient in your life.

Let’s get started.

Why Does Rejection Hurt so Much?

Rejection can come from family, friends, crush, coworkers, etc.  This stings so much even without being too sensitive and weak.  People have that inborn need to be accepted by others.  That is why people depended on groups to survive over the centuries.  So when someone rejects you feel hurt because it goes against everything you need to survive.

Further, your attachment style influences the amount of sadness you feel after a rejection.  For instance, Infants who develop a healthy attachment to their caregivers develop a secure type of attachment style, which makes them feel lovable and worthy.  However, those who face rejection at that age feel unworthy, unlovable, and inadequate.  The fact that the need for connection is inborn makes it hard for people to face and deal with rejection.

Healthy Ways to Deal with Rejection

Practice Self-compassion

People with a high level of self-compassion tend to get over divorce quicker than those without.  These individuals don’t allow the critical inner voice to color their outlook.  They practice self-kindness instead of self-judgment.  They treat themselves the way they do to their friends by being empathetic and sensitive to their struggles.  Expressing self-kindness doesn’t mean you’re denying the mistakes or feeling sorry for yourself.  It simply means you’re not cruel or judgmental toward yourself.

Allow Yourself to Feel the Pain

It’s important to allow yourself to experience the pain of the rejection rather than brush it over or try to cut off your feelings.  Allow yourself to feel the anger and sadness when rejected, even though it might trigger old, core emotions.  Some people are afraid of these feelings because they may push them to attack the person who rejected them or themselves.

But you can choose how to act, such as not allowing your feelings to control how you act and not shutting them off entirely.  So give yourself a chance to feel your feelings which come in waves.  Seek help whenever you get overwhelmed by emotion.  It feels cleaner about the whole situation when you allow yourself to really feel the sadness.

Practice Self-affirmations

Go beyond acknowledging your emotions and write down your feelings and things that you feel positive about yourself.  List down your strengths and values and read them out loud every morning.  You can think about what makes you instead of just talking yourself up.  This helps you hold on to the things that make you or are part of you.  These things will help you feel stronger in the face of self-doubt stemming from rejection in dating, your home life, or at work.

Don’t Blame Yourself

Self-affirmation after rejection

Every person desires to know why they were rejected.  But some rejections have no clear reasons.  Sadly people tend to blame themselves when they are rejected, yet they don’t know the reasons behind it.  They quickly assume that they are screwed up, unlovable, stupid, difficult, incompetent, and more.

Facing rejection can be harder if your background or upbringing has conditioned you to believe you’re the cause when others don’t yield to your request because you’re inadequate.  However, you can choose to discard these beliefs by considering other reasons for rejection.  In fact, even the most likable, attractive, accomplished, smartest people still get rejected.  For instance, you might have missed the job opportunity because the CEO preferred his niece over you, your crush might have canceled the date because he felt insecure, etc.  So it’s not always about you.

Associate with the People You Love

It’s important to remember that there is more to life than a single rejection you have experienced from one thing or person.  Realizing that many other people are on your side and the world has not shunned you can help alleviate the pain of rejection.

So spend some quality time with your family and friends and feel truly connected with people around you.  Turn to your friends for quality time and moral support when dealing with rejection from a crush.  Such connection reminds you of how lovable and worthy you’re and that people care about you.

Alternatively, you can think about the important people in your life in cases where spending time with them is not possible.  You can do that by finding a picture of them, especially when you are both enjoying your time together and looking at it.  Go back to the image of this person, even if it’s in your mind, to feel their comfort.

Engage in Healthy Habits

Dealing with everyday rejection from coworkers or family can be painful and stressful.  It can influence how you handle these stressful events.  It may cause you to eat a poor diet or sleep less, making it hard to cope with rejection in a healthy way.

On the other hand, leading a healthy lifestyle can help you cope in a much better way and stay strong in the face of rejection.  There eat well, stay hydrated, and exercise frequently.  The healthier your lifestyle is, the stronger your resources are to deal with rejection and other difficult situations.

Never Allow Rejection to Stop You

While rejection can be truly painful, you shouldn’t allow it to stop you from pursuing your goals.  Indeed rejection is an inevitable part of life, and most successful people have experienced it at one time or another.  The internet is flooded with experiences of prominent persons that faced rejection, including J.K. Rowling and Oprah Winfrey.

Remember that yours is not an isolated case that can help you when you don’t get that job you applied to or turned down for a date.  It happens to everyone.  Therefore rather than feeling extremely sad and angry, you can ask yourself what you can do in the future.  In other words, you should not sit in the rejection but instead learn from the experience and consider what you can do moving forward.  Think about where you can go.

Strengthen Your Resiliency

Resiliency refers to the capability to bounce back or recover from any setback.  It’s indeed a quality that every person should learn.  There are many things that contribute to resiliency, including:

  • Having an open mind
  • Practicing self-care
  • Seeing mistakes as essential steps on the road to success
  • Focusing on your strength
  • Concentrating on the lessons from the experience
  • Maintaining your sense of humor
  • Seeking support
  • Focusing on solutions
  • Avoiding all-or-nothing thinking

Takeaway

Rejection happens to everyone and is an inevitable part of life.  One should not sit in the rejection; instead, you should learn from it.  Further, you should not blame yourself or assume you were rejected because you’re inadequate because even some accomplished, attractive, and lovable people have faced rejection.  So focus on your strength, lessons, and on finding solutions.

Have you experienced rejections at work, home, or by a crush?  Share your experience and how you handled it in the comment section.


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