Written by Nishtha Nikhil Lapasia | Reviewed By Neha Bhardwaj | Updated On September 27, 2022
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Rejection is a part of life. Everyone experiences the darting pain of rejection; even the most successful people have been rejected at some point in their life. Rejection cannot be avoided. Nobody is immune to rejection. Rejection feels personal, and we doubt ourselves; we feel that we aren’t good for someone or something. We expect things to happen the way we have planned, but unfortunately, the universe doesn’t work that way, and when things don’t go the way we thought, it affects us.
We, at times, try to avoid situations where there is a risk of being rejected. However, we may still face many situations in life; whether it's personal or professional aspects, we have to take risks. There are possibilities of being rejected in it; some examples are :
I am sure that all of us might have experienced rejection in one of these contexts. Rejection causes us to feel a high range of self-doubt, confusion, sadness, dejection, frustration, and even anger. Many times we aren’t even told the reason behind our rejection. And because of that, we start experiencing negative thoughts and feelings about ourselves. Studies have found that the brain regions activated at rejection are the same regions activated in response to physical pain. Humans are social beings, and we crave acceptance, but when we are rejected, we feel or experience a lot of pain.
Even though the antonym of acceptance is rejection, that doesn’t mean that we are unwanted or unworthy; the way we react to our rejection is the most important factor. Rejection cannot be avoided, but we can learn to change our perception of it and face it in effective ways such as:
We shouldn’t suppress our negative emotions or be in denial, leading to more pain-causing more discomfort. The most appropriate way to deal with negative emotions is to acknowledge them; we should allow ourselves to feel the emotions, process them, and not bottle up our negative emotions.
One incident or someone’s opinion about us doesn’t define who we are, so we shouldn’t make judgments about ourselves based on what other people say. Rejection shouldn’t make us question our self-worth. Rejection is a part of our experience, and it isn’t an end.
Rejection is a good teacher. Maybe rejection can give us a new opportunity to grow; we can work on what went wrong and avoid making the same mistake in the future. If we change our outlook toward rejection, then it will help us grow.
Spend time with people who love you and accept you. Remember you aren’t alone or unwanted and accept that not all people or situations would like you and accept you ….and that’s okay.
Appreciate yourself and make a list of things you like about yourself and you are proud of it like your good qualities, and your achievements. Take some time out for yourself and do what you like, do things that make you happy. Work on your self-confidence. And make a note of how you are reacting to rejection. These things will help you deal with rejection in a better way.
What if things didn’t work out this time, but you tried, and that takes a lot of courage? Remind yourself that you can handle rejection and that many opportunities are waiting for you in the future.
In reality, when we are in a situation where we are facing rejection, it might be troublesome for us to practice the above points. Still, if we slowly try to work on ourselves and our perceptions and get out of our comfort zone, we will learn how to accept and embrace the situations in our life.
