How To Deal (And Heal) With Rejection

It is an interesting time in our world today. Things are moving faster than ever, and people are more connected than ever in ways they never have been or could have been before from such great distances, which is serving to highlight all the ways we are DISCONNECTED from each other and from ourselves and have been for so very long.

This is ultimately a good thing to be sure, but like all things that surface and have been hidden, it comes with a lot of ugly gnarly stuff we’d rather not see or deal with. And one of those gnarly things is an issue that comes up for many modern self-made entrepreneurs on the regular, and that is: REJECTION.

When we were kids, the threat of rejection by your peers was a bit more sporadic. Meaning it would come up on the kickball field, or in the girl’s bathroom, or the basketball court or 6th-period science. But now, with our social media immersed culture you are literally subjected to it 24/7 as long as you choose to engage there, which if you are an entrepreneur, you pretty much guaranteed have to.

Which means there’s no place to run or to hide from this threat of rejection and this secret fear so many of us carry that we simply DO NOT BELONG.

When you are first stepping up to be more visible in your business, which is an absolute non-negotiable must for any successful business (being visible that is), it’s going to feel like the MOST excruciating kind of pain imaginable at first, and that is because it literally IS.

You’ve likely heard it before, but the feeling of rejection is equivalent to death to the lizard part of our brains and that is exactly how it will feel when you get this ball rolling. Like you literally want to die of embarrassment sometimes.

The reason for that is because it’s encoded into our DNA from when our human ancestors lived in tribes, that you be accepted by your tribe, because if you aren’t, you’re out, and if you’re out, you’re literally dead. In our human history, being accepted in our tribe was equivalent to literally life or death.

There are still traces of this in us operating today, AND there is also nothing more painful than the seeming CONFIRMATION that yes, you are indeed unwanted and unloveable.

Of course, it is NOT at all true, it is not confirmation of that at all, but when we have underlying self-worth issues or old unhealed traumas around rejection, every single silence or dissent feels like a confirmation of our worst fears. Again — it is NOT a confirmation of that. But boy will it FEEL like one.

And it will make you want to crawl into a hole and disappear.

But DON’T. Don’t do that.

Instead, take all that energy that you would spend pouring into other peoples thoughts and opinions of you, and pour it back into yourself. Go into the quiet, unplug, cry it out if you need, call a friend, call a professional, talk to someone who loves you, read a book, take a walk, binge watch a Netflix series and do whatever in gods name you need to do to feel better for a bit, and then simply come back and try again when you’re ready.

Each time you don’t die of rejection or failure, you begin to trust yourself more and more that you’re gonna be okay, and you start taking more and more actions that are out of your comfort zone, and with those actions comes different results over time. The results that you’ve always been wanting. It happens as you build the courage to stand on your own and stand WITH YOURSELF and your specific unique desires and vision, even when it feels no one else is joining you.

That is what makes all the difference.

It’s going to be really hard and really painful at first detaching your value from OTHER PEOPLES VIEWS and opinions, and re-attaching that value to yourself irregardless of what they see. But this is your calling… and so this is part of the call. Surround yourself with others following that call, surround yourself with those who will support and cheer you on in those moments. Reach out for help when you don’t have any.

The good news is, your business and money journey is gonna heal ya! It will get easier and easier the more you come into yourself and trust yourself and your own voice, body and mind.

All you have to do is stay with you.

xo,
Sunni