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Embracing the Pain of Rejection
We live at a time when emotional openness and vulnerability are celebrated as the newest discoveries of human wellbeing.
We emerge from centuries of shaming and suppressing our emotions in order to appear stoic, invulnerable and strong. The more emotionally illiterate and unavailable are now being challenged to soften up and become more emotional. It would make for a better, a more authentically human experience – apparently …
And so we try. We get in touch with our feelings. We ask ourselves the hard questions and feel the pain of the truth. We even feel our feelings! Feelings that then ask us to reach out and connect.
We are brave. We are being told that this is the next step of evolution and that our personal and spiritual growth requires us to be vulnerable with others and connect with them.
For many, it is really hard to open up and ask for connection. It is really hard to understand and open up to that vulnerability. But we do it anyway because we know that we do want to connect with others.
So what happens when we do but are ignored, dismissed or rejected? What do we do then?
We’ve mustered up all our courage and did what we have been asked to do. Where did it go wrong? Why didn’t it pay off?
