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Hello hello! Today's podcast episode is on the topic of rejection, which came up

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for me this week. I'm feeling rejected and tender and making an effort to take

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some lessons from this. So when you grow up with five siblings, there's a limited

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amount of time and attention that your parents can afford each and every one of

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you. So we were all, it seems, in a competition for love, attention, affection,

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validation from our parents, right? Which means in our adult relationships, and I

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can't speak for my brothers and sisters in their experience of this, but for me,

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it meant that in my adult relationships, I've always needed a lot of love and

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encouragement and validation, and probably led to some some co-dependent

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issues for me and my relationships. I am now 36 years old and here's what I've

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learned from, you know, I'm gonna say a lifetime of rejection, but that sounds a

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little bit, well as me and overdramatic. I've lived a life full of love and

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acceptance and tenderness and joy, and I've also lived a life full of

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rejection, like every other human on this planet. So what helps me through the pain

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of rejection, and this is not necessarily a rejection in relationship, it could be a

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rejection, you know, from a job. I've been fired from my fair share of

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jobs, and that's another type of rejection that is, you know, is painful,

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right? It's something we have to kind of lead ourselves through and move

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ourselves through. The rejection of kind of not getting a job or being fired from

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a job for my high school students who are applying to universities and getting

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rejected from universities, and then of course I'd argue the most painful kind

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of rejection is relational rejection when you have someone that you consider your

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best friend in high school one day, give you a call and decide that she doesn't

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want to be friends anymore. And that was a couple of weeks before prom,

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yeah, before we graduated. So yeah, that was certainly a painful rejection,

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especially after, you know, after going through high school and middle school and

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elementary school with a lot of difficulty making friendships and

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holding friendships and finding friends and learning how to make friends. That

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was particularly painful for me. Yeah, she dropped me like a hot potato, and then I,

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you know, I saw her at prom with her friends and her group of chosen

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friends that I was excluded from. So yeah, I have a lot of stories about that kind

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of rejection from my school years and probably the earliest rejection you can

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experience is rejection from your parents, and that doesn't come from

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necessarily something as extreme as like, oh my parents abandoned me or

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neglected me, although it can sometimes, but just like not receiving the love,

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care, tenderness, affection that you need from, you know, the first people in your

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life who are meant to take care of you in all these ways. Unfortunately, not

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everybody has the capacity to offer the kind of care that you need. So in dealing

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with rejection over the years, what I've learned is something that gives me a

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great comfort, especially now in the midst of my most recent rejection, which I

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can talk about in a couple minutes, but really I keep reminding myself that

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rejection is divine redirection. I really believe that everything happens for a

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reason. The good, the bad, the ugly, all of it is here to help us grow, to teach

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us, to bring us into a new level of expansion and knowing ourselves if we're

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open to the lesson. So if you're able to witness your pain and be with your pain

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and offer yourself the tenderness and love that we so often need from others,

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we can move through rejection or navigate it with a little bit more

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direction, I suppose. I'm not gonna say it'll be easier, although it could.

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Rejection is tricky because it brings up all sorts of things like shame and you

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know, you want to blame yourself, you ask yourself like, what did I do wrong? What's

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wrong with me? When in fact a rejection, even just hearing a no over the last year

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of my relationship with no has been evolving too because as I'm able to look

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rejection in the face, even something as simple as hearing a no, as I allow

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myself to be more willing to hear a no, it makes me braver. It makes me more

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willing to ask for the things that I want regardless if I get a yes or a no,

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and I'm practicing out of saying no to myself preemptively so that someone else

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won't say no to me. Yeah, I love this topic because I think rejection is

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something that we all struggle with to some degree and it really cuts you

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to the core and so we either shut down our feelings of, you know, rejection or

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despair or shame or self-loathing. We either try to shut it down and move on,

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deny that we feel any of this hurt or like we just kind of end up in a

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pity party kind of space and you know what, sometimes you need a moment for a

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pity party and that's okay but having the awareness of self to be like, okay,

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I've had my pity party, I'm ready to move beyond this kind of using our

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mindfulness tools to just be present with the emotions, be present with the

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feeling, is powerful stuff, it's really powerful stuff and yeah, so let's just

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kind of take a moment and close our eyes, find a comfortable seat and tune into

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the breath, just notice your breath without having to fix it or change it in

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any kind of way, just notice the quality of your breath. As you're settling in,

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you can slowly start to invite a deeper breath into the belly and feel the belly

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expand as it fills with air.

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Notice the contraction as you exhale

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and as you begin following your inhale and your exhale, bring your attention to

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your emotional state in this moment. What's the most prominent feeling for you

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in this moment? You can label the feeling, ease, joy, sorrow, anger, whatever that

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feeling is, name the feeling

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and notice where the feeling sits in the body. What is your physiological

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experience of this emotion? Perhaps it's attention in the throat, perhaps it's an

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expansive feeling, maybe it's in the head, in the mind space, perhaps it's in the

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butt pit of your belly, right at your seat. When you find where the emotion sits, sit,

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sit, notice it, observe it, breathe into it, take a deep breath in, let it go.

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Notice where that emotion sits and give it space.

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Let it dissolve or expand, let it move, let it swirl, let it constrict, allow it to

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do anything it wants to do and give it your tender attention and care.

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Be with the emotion, take a deep breath in, let it go.

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You can be here as long as you like and when you're ready, gently open the eyes,

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notice the space around you and offer yourself some love and gratitude for

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taking care of yourself today. You're doing a great job.