How to Overcome Rejection Issues (Part One)

Buying into the lie

When you look at the world today, especially the celebrity world; everybody wants to be the next Rihanna, Beyoncé , Kim Kardashian, Jay Z, Drake or the next biggest thing. The media bombards us with images of beautiful people, in exotic beautiful places. These subliminal messages convince people into believing that in order to be successful in life, we have to look like this, or have this, or be doing that.

But when we view those images and compare ourselves, it seems like we fall short of the ideal. Many people already feel insecure about themselves on the inside and now they are made to feel even worse about their physical appearance. Some people even go to the extent of having major reconstructive plastic surgery to look like their idols, believing the lie.

If you don’t know who you really are and your purpose you want to become other people. I believe there is an identity crisis in the world today.

Some people may say, well, there’s nothing wrong with being like someone else, to aspire to do great things. It’s true there’s nothing wrong with admiring someone who seems to have made it, and you have aspirations to be just as successful if not more. There doesn’t seem to anything wrong with that. But there’s everything wrong with wanting to be like someone else because you don’t like who you are.

Why does Rejection hurt?

So where do rejections come from? Or rather why do we respond to rejection in such a negative manner ? Why can’t we just get on with life, why does it affect us so much? Because rejection affects the way we think about ourselves. The way we think about ourselves will influence our behaviour, which in turn, affects everything we do in life.

In order to solve any problem/issue, one needs to go to the root. With my experience in mental health, most issues with rejection do stem from childhood but not always. Some stem from teenage years, maybe from bullying or pressure to conform etc and also adulthood.

So probably, from the first occurrences of rejection/abandonment/abuse, there would have been this thought implanted in their mind that they were not good enough. And that thought would have continued going through their mind and if something happened that was similar to the earlier sense of rejection, that thought or lie would arise again, almost to justify those initial thoughts,’I told you you are useless’. So a person who has been sexually abused or abandoned/rejected as a child will have this thought implanted in their mind that no one will ever want them, no one will ever desire them, or love them. So they withdraw from people thinking they’re unloveable.

Or some who have the same thoughts will cling to every person, every relationship, whether it’s toxic or not and their thoughts will be ‘I will do whatever I can, I’ll be whatever you want so that you will love me. Even though I believe I’m unloveable , I will make you love me’, the same thoughts/ lies manifests itself differently in different people and different situations.

So the person has continued to believe that thought as the truth. It’s like a seed that has been planted in their mind and their thinking has caused the seed to grow and grow into a large oak tree till it permeates their whole existence and destroys their life. How do you destroy a tree? You chop it down from its roots, you up root the tree. That thought, or lie begins to affect the way they think about themselves, it begins to affect the way they interact with people, it begins to affect the way they live their life. Get rid of the roots so it doesn’t grow again.

So the root started from the seed that’s had been planted, those thoughts that have been able to grow. Uproot the thoughts that says your useless, unwanted, undesirable, uproot feelings of worthlessness, uselessness, feelings of not belonging, of not fitting in, feeling like an outsider, feelings of insecurity, feeling unloveable, uncared for, not wanted, unappreciated, despised, feelings of shame.