My Rejection
This is something I wrote a while ago. But I had a conversation with a colleague at work about how we deal with rejection the other day and thought I should finish it off.
My head is in a bad place right now. Every thought and interaction I have is shrouded in negativity. The worst thing about it is that I know I’ve brought myself to this place. I’ve kind of stood by and watched as I dragged myself down. It’s a path I have trodden before and even though I’ve worked hard to recognise it, I sometimes still find myself trudging down it making myself more and more depressed.
My main cause for starting to go down this path on this occasion is the bruising of my ego. I think when I’m in the right frame of mind I can handle a bit of constructive criticism. But when it lands on things that I think are fundamental to who I am as a person it can be a bit harder to deal with. Those criticisms feel more personal, they bring out insecurities that I have about myself and inevitably I get a bit defensive.
The bruising of my ego has come from a couple of rejections and disappointments. More specifically I’ve allowed myself to be consumed by the validation of other people. As I’ve learnt over the past wee while, attaching my happiness to others' perception of me is a sure fire way to disappoint myself. Especially when I allow that perception to rattle what I see as the foundation of who I am as a person. It feels like, you don’t just like that thing I did, or the way I did it. You don’t like or even love me as a person.
I’ve noticed how I follow a certain pattern after rejection too. I go searching for instant validation from some other external source. I know on an intellectual level that I should be focusing on my own self worth. But my first reaction is to try to find someone else to say ‘Na, you’re all good mate’. It’s not helpful to me and leads me into conversations I don’t really want to be having.
I’m sure we all struggle with some version of this. Rejection is horrible. It hurts whether it’s the first time it’s happened to you, or it’s happened a number of times. You might get better at processing it and dealing with it. But depending on the situation and where the rejection comes from, it can slip past even the most solidly built walls of defence. The tools you’ve developed to deal with a certain type of rejection might be completely useless and redundant when you are dealt a different kind entirely.
Like I said before, it’s made me pretty defensive. Which makes me want to throw shade on anything anyone talks to me about. Everything is glass half empty and the tone to all of my thoughts and the things I’ve been saying is negative. Which in itself only serves to make me feel worse. I’m thinking negative thoughts and putting negative energy into the world as a result. It becomes a nice little self fulfilling prophecy. The only thing I can get out of anything is negativity. I think it’s great that I have learnt to recognise this and catch myself in the act, but I am also frustrated that I didn't catch it earlier. But being negative, about being able to stop the negativity that came from a negative response is a vortex I really don’t want to go down!
I’ve been thinking about whether opening myself up like I do with dadpression has made more more resilient or whether it’s actually opened me up in ways that I didn’t have to deal with before? Am I now beginning to see the reality that being an open book and sharing how I think and feel can have an impact on me in ways I didn’t predict. Seems a bit unfair to me! But I guess it is all part of the human experience and something for my ongoing personal growth.
So I guess at the moment, I’m probably a little bit more fragile than usual. Which in itself is a representation of my growth in that admission. But it’s also a reminder that progress isn’t linear and that I can fall down the old pitfalls if I’m not vigilant about which thoughts I give my energy to. And with that reminder to myself, I’m off to work on some breathing techniques and practice some gratitude for all of the amazing things in my life I might not have been giving enough attention lately.