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Recovery Discovery within Rejection

Issue 26

“Life is 10% what happens to us and 90% how we react to it.”

Rejection often is thought of as an adult reaction to situations like being turned down for your next promotion or not getting into your top college. But it actually starts on the day you are born.

As infants and toddlers, we take emotional cues from our parents and caregivers that may feel like unintended rejection. Without any way to express ourselves coherently in our earliest years, those feelings can get trapped in our nervous systems and may lead to limiting beliefs, including “I’m not good enough” or “I can’t do anything right.”

Each time we feel the emotion of rejection, our limiting beliefs can grow stronger, and we may begin to show normal human signs of fear of rejection such as:

• Being a people-pleaser

• Taking on too many responsibilities

• Having trouble saying no

• Working too hard

• Hiding your true thoughts/feelings from others

• Staying in unhealthy relationships

• Fear of failure

• Perfectionism

• Codependency

• Putting up with poor treatment from others

Why do we fall into this?

Simply put, human beings are herd animals. Individually, we are designed to pick up social cues to coordinate and align our behaviors with those around us. I work with many of these traits within my EFT Tapping practice.

“Often people attempt to live their lives backwards: they try to have more things, or more money, in order to do what they want so that they will be happier. The way it actually works is the reverse. You must first be who you really are, then do what you really need to do, in order to have what you want.”

– Margaret Young

What if rejection had a shiny flipside and could be considered a positive outcome?

By creating healthy responses to rejection and cultivating positive language, we can increase our resiliency and the resiliency in those around us. By changing a problem into a challenge, we can open pathways to growth and transform stress into potential.

Surprising positive benefits include realizing that rejection can:

• Promote motivation

• Provide perspective

• Teach patience

• Lead to growth

• Open the door for another chance

• Provide protection from the wrong decision

• Redirect efforts toward collaboration

Rejection has many meanings depending on our perspective, but in many cases, there is a silver lining.

Rejection feels monumental at the moment, but there may have been times that you’ve looked back and thought, “I’m so glad I didn’t go forward with that decision” or “my new job is 10 times better than the job I didn’t get.”

Where do you stand on rejection? Let me know ([email protected]). Your perspective matters.

Karen St. Clair
Karen St. Clair
Karen St. Clair is an accredited certified EFT International Trainer NQT, Reiki Master of Masters, best-selling author, speaker, and founder of Reiki Tap Renewal℠ and has a gift for facilitating her clients’ life-changing outcomes. www.karenstclairEFT.com.

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