Not Rejection. Redirection or Protection.

You may have heard this before and it is one of my favorite mindsets that I have adopted. Rejection is seen as a negative, when it can actually be a positive for you! This podcast walks through types of “rejection’ and how we can shift our mind to see our perceived rejection as redirection or protection.

Podcast Transcript
Rejection is not fun. In any form. And rejection can feel and look different for everyone. 

• No, I don’t want to hang out with you.
• I’m sorry, you didn’t get the job. 
• You’re not my type, sorry. 
• Sitting alone a sporting event
• No plans on a Friday night

It is a very personal feeling. While there are some very standard scenarios where we’d all agree, yes, that was definitely a rejection. Sometimes you may feel like it is a rejection, but really it isn’t, but our hearts and feelings take over what our brains don’t want to process, or maybe can’t process yet. Don’t take this as a negative statement. It is not easy to work through the feelings of rejection and why they are there. They could be bubbling up from a past experience or an old wound. The tricky part, we might even know the old experience or past wound hurt us or impacted us as much as it did. That is when it is difficult to process rejection. I know the types of rejection that hurt me the most and I continue to work on identifying why they are there. 

1. Relationships not working. I have been divorced twice and am currently single. I could do an entire other podcast on what dating is like right now and I might, but not today. LOL. In a nutshell, I am not sure there is anything harder than dating and feeling rejected, even if you know in your heart it isn’t a good fit. Again, this is a very personal one for me because of two divorces and being in the dating world. I have a very specific feeling or know what I need or want to feel like with my partner, but when a relationship doesn’t work out, I take it personally. Like I didn’t try enough or I wasn’t enough. When that is not the case at all. I have also been through what I think is possibly the worst type of ‘rejection’ in the dating world which is being ghosted. If you’ve been listening to the podcast, you know one of the catalysts for me starting this was because of being ghosted. I believe it hurts so bad because you don’t get any answers. It would be easier, maybe, if he would have said, I don’t love you. I’m sorry. But to go from one day of “I love you and I miss you,” to never hearing from him again. That hurt.    
2. Feeling ugly and fat. This could be rolled up under the first one as well and is maybe more of an insecurity. But I am often scared of being rejected because people will think I am fat or ugly. I can point back to a few specific instances where I know this is coming from. I remember being called big boned when I was growing up. I was a little heavier and one of my grandmothers told me I was just big boned. That didn’t sit well with me and shaped how I talked to myself growing up. 
3. Getting made fun of, even if just teasing makes me feel dumb and in turn feels like a rejection of who I am as a person. This is a silly story and yes, sometimes I don’t say the smartest things. My filter is broken at times. For example, in my parent’s house there is a chicken incubator that my grandparents used on the far. I didn’t know it was a chicken incubator. It is a tall table, about hip high and a little wider than a normal table. It also opens up, but it is not very deep. When my mom moved the incubator into the house to be used for decoration I asked what it was. And if I am remembering correctly, my immediate family was all there. Mom or dad said an incubator. I didn’t miss a beat and asked if that was the one my dad was in as a baby. DOH. I reazlied know how silly of question that was. If I would have stopped and looked at the depth of the incubator I would have known a small baby would still not have fit in there! However, all I could think of at the time was that dad was in an incubator when he was a baby and this incubator had been on the farm. Well, as you can imagine, to this day I have not lived this down. I don’t like this. Even though I know my family is just teasing me when it comes up, it makes me feel so dumb and embarassed that if feels like a rejection of my intelligence. A rejection of who I am.

The other story I have of getting made fun of is one that did shape me greatly. It is the one of the boys and the track meet. I have mentioned this in a few other podcasts, but I was in high school and at a track meet when I walked by two boys and one said ‘woof.’ Talk about rejection! I wasn’t even asking for their opinion or talking to them! They just outwardly rejected me. Clearly that one hurt and has stuck with me for many years and probably always will. That was a rejection in my looks. So being made fun of can come in many ways! Your looks, your emotions, your smarts, etc…

And to the next one.   

4. Being passed up for promotions. If you have never had to go through this, you are one lucky human!! But I am guessing that at some point in your professional career you have not received a job you have applied for. When I was younger this was easier for me. I felt like it was because I didn’t have enough experience and that there would easily be someone more qualified for a role than me. However, as I get older and have ‘a few years,’ okay, ‘many years’ under my belt this gets harder and harder. There are times when I don’t feel like I have accomplished enough as my peers and that they have acceled more. Which some have. Some people are high achievers and that is amazing. As you know, I floated for a while and have changed jobs and had children, so my path is different. That is what is key to remember here. We are all on our own paths! We can’t compare our path to anyone else’s. Even though we want to so badly. But with this rejection you often have feelings of not being enough. Us women usually take this personally.  Feels of not being enough, or not being liked seem to creep in, when in fact it could simply come down to skill set. 
5. Being left out. Thank you social media for this gem. Before social media we didn’t have near as many ways of knowing if we were left out of a fun night or trip. Now, we can see it instantly and sometimes by multiple friends. This is hard for adults and double hard for our little generation growing up with it. We need to know that it is okay to not always be included, that maybe it has nothing to do with us and the situation unfolded differently. However, seeing people out that we might be friends or acquaintances with, can be hard and feel like rejection.
6. The last one that I am riesling now as a parent…I take the rejection my children feel as my own. Their rejection hurts me more than my own. Ugh, like a dagger in my heart. I bring this up, because helping my daughter with rejection has taught me alot about dealing with my own rejection and the good and bad ways to deal with it. 

Let’s shift gears and talk about how to deal with rejection. 

First, the title of this podcast. Not Rejection. Redirection and Protection. If we can shift our thoughts and minds to focus on this statement when we feel rejected, it puts a much better perspective on the situation. No, you don’t always want to take a breath and try to see it this way. It is easier to just be sad and mad and eat a row of oreos (oh come on, I’m not the only way who does that!), but that won’t get us anything but a big butt. After you’ve had some time to process the situation and of course you can be sad or more about, then I want you to come back to really take a hard look at the situation. Ask yourself: 

• How could this be a redirection? 
• Was this situation leading me down a path that was not aligned with my goals and I was ignoring the red flags? 
• Was the situation or relationship bad for me and my family? 
• Was this relationship or opportunity blinding me to something better? 

See what I did there?? LOL. Something better….

Answer these honestly and I bet you will find that the rejection was either protection or redirection. It may not be obvious right away, your answer might come a few days or weeks later, but it will come. 

There is also a lesson to be learned in every ‘rejection.’ Write down your lessons. I was reading a devotional the other day and it was talking about Moses leading the Israelites out of Egypt which took them 40 years! I just love this number 40! Anyway, it truly should have only taken them a couple of weeks to get out of the wilderness, but they were not learning, they were not trusting. They had a purpose in the wilderness and each experience taught them something. We will have tests, we will have periods of waiting, but it’s what we do with the rejections, the tests, the waits, that truly reveals who we are designed to be. So write it down. Write down the rejection and how it could be projection or a redirection. Go back and read these every once and a while to remind yourself how far you’ve come! 

Yes. Rejection is hard. But let’s stop talking about it like it is bad. Instead, let’s talk about is as protection or redirection. 

Maybe you are ready to take this journey and start taking massive action to reach your potential or you could be trying to decide. Either way, I am so excited to have you here! My soul is on fire to help you! If you’d like to join me on a journey, visit somethingbettermydarling.com and click on ‘give me 40 days!’ to sign up for a fall or winter journey! Connect with me on Instagram or FaceBook at Something Better, My Darling, or if you’d like to see me and my kiddos and fur baby, you can find me at Mandi Lanae! This is Something Better, My Darling. Thank you for listening. Make today great, my darlings!