“I feel like I don’t belong most places I go”, “I always fear people will reject me”.
Let’s look at what is happening under the hood.
The key is to pay close attention to what happens inside your body when you recall a specific memory of feeling rejected.
You may notice an internal picture, an audio or a feeling - usually a combination of two or all three that makes up your meaning of that memory.
It is a sequence of that internal stuff that rapidly - and largely unconsciously - plays in response to a triggering situation.
Photo by Di_An_h on Unsplash
The great news, though, is that you are actually the director of this play. Meaning you have the power to redirect it.
Here are versions of what you might currently be doing:
You could be sitting in a work meeting and want to make a suggestion when you suddenly hear the stern voice of your mother saying, “That’s not good enough! You clearly haven’t thought this all the way through”, after which you make a mental image of the dismissive look on her face, and then start feeling insecure and out of place and decide not to share. You’ve rejected yourself. (Others might simply respond with, “I’ve got an idea, and I’m curious what others have to say about it”, and join in on the conversation.)
Or you could see something external, like a group of people at a party that you think are totally your vibe getting along great, then say something inside your head like, “I don’t fit in, I’m just not likable”, and then feel dejected and isolated and stay on your own. You’ve rejected yourself. (Someone else could see the group and think, “Ha what a cool group, totally my kind of people - let me go get to know them!”, and join the interaction.)
The idea of sharing your work publicly, whether online or in person, could trigger a sort of GIF of an unidentified group of people or that stuck-up former co-worker sneering at you before turning their backs on you. As a response you could experience an explosion of jittery anxiety dropping into your gut and vibrating out into your limbs. You’ve rejected yourself. You decide not to go public. Try imagining at this point what someone prolifically sharing their work may be experiencing instead?
There are many different variations and combinations of the above.
The point is that you are actively, albeit involuntarily, generating the rejection experience, and you do so over and over - largely without noticing.
All while thinking that rejection is happening to you.
Because when you experience those internal representations, you act in response to them. You feel rejected and respond by behaving like someone who is rejected. The shame of rejection makes you ungiving, makes you want to hide - hide your story, hide your ideas, hide from opportunities, hide from being truly seen by others.
You’ll interpret everything around you through the lens of rejection - irrespective of what may actually be happening.
So, can someone who feels perpetually isolated, out of place and rejected then ever feel like they belong?
Yes, they can.
It’s simply a question of replacing the blueprint they are currently using to feel rejected with an alternative one of their version of naturally feeling like they belong.
Now, this should not serve to gaslight you out of very real experiences of being rejected and deliberately made an outcast. Systemic oppression and societal mechanisms of exclusion are real and the scars many of us carry as a result are the very building blocks of our personal rejection blueprints.
Instead, I am talking here about all the ways we preemptively close off opportunities for connection and progress to ourselves by dismissing ourselves by default - out of fear of, and to protect ourselves from the emotions that come with the hurt of rejection.
Because it has been etched into our bones, and our bodies remember.
And I’m talking about the power that comes with the possibility to change the way the body remembers, change our interactions with current and future situations, and what that means for the way we can show up to this world.
It means we can show up in new ways that serve us a heck of a lot better.
It means you get to create more of what you want because you now move more freely, speak more intentionally and breath more easily.
And I’m not sure I can think of a more beautiful thing.
- ijeoma
P.S. To start inspecting your own rejection strategy, go back to the last time you experienced feeling rejected. How did you know it was time to feel rejected? Being there now, seeing what you saw, hearing what you heard - what do you experience as you relive that moment? As you bring these unconscious experiences into your awareness, write them down.