Rejection, Resilience, and Romance

Rejection is God’s Protection…the person was not

right for you, now the door is open for someone else

much better to come into your life.

― Pamela Cummins

Anyone who’s ever experienced romantic rejection knows full well just how soul-crushing, humiliating, and destabilising it can be. It takes courage, strength, and grit to put yourself back together and re-establish confidence after someone’s given you the heave-ho.

If you’re a highly sensitive person, rejection wounds can cut very deeply, and take longer to heal. More often than not, our knee-jerk reaction when being spurned is to freeze like a startled deer, then head for the hills racked with self-blame, and hermit away to recover.

So, how do we bounce back from rejection, and come out winning?

Below, I draw on personal and collective experiences (i.e. mine and my female friends’), to explore how and why rejection can occur; how to hold oneself emotionally accountable; and finally how to learn from it, cultivate resilience and progress into a healthy, reciprocal relationship.

Reframing rejection:

First consider that oftentimes the reason you’ve been rejected by someone new may have less to do with you than you think. Despite their obvious pursuit of you, the other person may not be in any position to actually BE in a relationship; there could be way more going on beneath the surface, such as involvement with a third party; a predilection for sexual flings over deep connections; or simple ‘cold feet’.

So, if you’re sensitive and/or vulnerable, be very mindful of who you set your romantic sights on. Be sure to scope them, and their intention, out first.

It’s also a good idea to learn about attachment styles- Secure, Insecure Avoidant, and Insecure Resistant – in a bid to ascertain who you are most compatible with.

Equally, if you suffer from low self-esteem and are easily flattered, beware the ‘chaser’, the fantasist, the trickster, the love-bomber; these people are simply energy vampires who are more than happy to let a sensitive, empathetic person fill their cup for them.

Consider also, that rejection can likely occur as a pre-emptive strike, i.e. when a potential partner feels threatened, emasculated, or undermined in some way, they may be scared that you will reject THEM, so in a self-protective measure they’ll get it in first.

If this is the case, just remember that a sincere, heart-based connection will be powerful enough to overcome such issues – irrespective of intellectual, spiritual, or emotional inadequacies – and will front up to vulnerability and insecurity like a champ, in order to allow the relationship to organically grow.

In other words, LOVE trumps fear; no exceptions.

In the event of infidelity, being passed over for another could have less to do with you and more to do with the infidel, who, for a multitude of reasons may just need a quick ‘hit’ of external validation in order to bolster his flagging manhood. If so, you’re better off investing your time in someone who’s secure enough to go the distance in a mature, committed relationship.

Alternatively, if you’ve invested quality time in someone who presents as a viable romantic prospect, but abruptly rejects you the minute they begin to ‘catch feelings’, then this decision will most likely have a lot more to do with their fear of INTIMACY than it does with you.

This is extremely common, so if you’re sensitive don’t delude yourself into thinking that you can ‘fix’ them, as 9 times out of 10 when you emotionally mentor a man it will be for the benefit of the next woman he encounters, not YOU.

In the event that the person who’s emotionally withholding refuses to step up and give you a proper go, you’ve no choice but to take the hit. Don’t hang around waiting; regroup, take some time out for self-reflection, then find someone who IS emotionally available.
One easy trap to fall into following rejection if you’re an empath is being reeled back in by the other person for a psycho-analytical dialogue about their hurt feelings; about how guilty and misunderstood THEY feel for dumping YOU.

This is merely a transparent attempt at repairing their own self-image in light of being the ‘bad guy’, and should be AVOIDED at all costs. It’s not your job to make someone feel better when they’ve dumped you, so go ‘no contact’, and concentrate your time and energy on repairing YOUR hurt feelings instead.

Sometimes rejection can be positive…

The person rejecting you may not always be the ‘baddie’. It undoubtedly takes courage to come clean and reject another person who you know really likes you, when you don’t feel the same way. If this is the case, it’s the right and honourable thing for them to do, to tell you EXACTLY where you stand before things go too far.

So, if you’re on the receiving end of this type of rejection, be grateful that the person in question cares for and respects you enough to tell you the truth. It may sting, but at least you won’t waste any more time on them, and can make space for someone who DOES want to be with you.

On the other hand…

If somebody hasn’t had the decency to come clean and reject you until AFTER they’ve filled their cup, then rest assured that karmic law dictates that this person is destined to experience the exact same suffering but by someone else’s hand.

To put it simply, someone who’s been selfish, knowingly led you a merry dance, then quickly discarded you afterwards, is an emotional coward, and should be awarded no more of your precious time or energy.

In other words:

Rejection is one thing, but rejection from a fool is cruel
— Morrissey

Rejection is closely linked to how we ‘show up’ to relationships in the first place:

For example, if you show up as a SEXUAL interest, when underneath your interest is ROMANTIC, then you’re going to get burnt.
Often a highly sensitive person will fall into this trap, by actively CHOOSING to dim their light and dumb themselves down in order to maximise their surface appeal and appear more ‘normal’. Sooner or later, their true self will emerge, and they’ll be rejected for being too intellectual, emotional, or ‘intense’.

In this case, the sensitive person is guilty of false advertising — the suitor being attracted to the SEX, not the whole person.

Conversely, if the sensitive person is fully transparent about who they are from the get-go, and whole-heartedly embraces a new connection in good faith, only to then be rejected for being ‘too deep’ or ‘too much’, then this can be utterly devastating.

It may be that the other person isn’t showing up as THEIR authentic self, or that they’re emotionally out of their depth, or simply can’t handle what’s being reflected back to them regarding their own shadow.

Quite often, the real reason is because the other person can’t handle authenticity, and underneath their impressive facade, secretly feel like they’re not ENOUGH.

Another rejection hot spot is male-female friendships; predominantly because one may secretly want to sexually ‘conquer’ the other.
There are two likely outcomes in this scenario: 1) Sexualising the friendship causes one of you to ‘catch feelings’ which the other doesn’t reciprocate, in which case the friendship has to end, and 2) both of you ‘catch feelings’ in which case, happy days, the friendship can progress into a relationship.

How to cultivate resilience after being rejected:

Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself

disappears — Marcus Aurelius

If you’ve been constantly bruised by rejection, you may be unconsciously acting from a childhood wound or self-love deficit, which means you will have a propensity to choose controlling, possessive people who are charming, dominant, and HIGHLY unsuitable for you.

If this is your pattern, then you need to muster up the determination to not repeat these cycles of the past; to look ahead with clear vision, and focus on building a beautiful future with someone worthy of you.

In order to break the old patterns, you must burn your bridges with the past, go within and regroup. Reflect on where you’ve been and where you want to go; identify the unresolved learning from previous experiences of rejection, and heal the wounds that have derailed your ability to truly love YOURSELF.

Further, in order for you to identify a HEALTHY relationship, you first need to resolve the karmic magnetism that’s been pulling you back into toxic relationships, then establish new boundaries and learn the lessons — e.g. acknowledge that if you always find yourself giving out more than you receive, then you must learn to give and take in EQUAL MEASURE.

Be aware that you can safely learn these lessons WITHOUT needing to romantically act them out. Be sure to release the old programming and patterning that attracted you to the wrong people first, then identify what you truly want BEFORE you put yourself back out there. You’ll emerge so much stronger and more resilient when you do.

So, shed the old skin, be honest about who you really are (if you like tweed, wear tweed!), embody your authenticity and uniqueness, and acknowledge that you deserve to be treated with love and RESPECT.

When you value yourself, it’s easy to make good decisions in love, as anything that doesn’t match up to your value system will be easy to say no to, and you’ll no longer be drawn to toxic trysts.

Undoubtedly, destiny will pepper your path with many frogs — just remember you have the free will to pick and choose;

DISCERNMENT is key here: focus on alignment, self-love, and balance, so that you’re 100% ready for the right person and can see him when he appears.

Choose someone sympatico, who wants what you want, who it’s SAFE to be vulnerable with.

And finally… take things slowly. Don’t rush. Resist the urge to compulsively ‘panic date’, or scatter your energy across multiple dating apps. Instead, side-step the ghosting and rejection; it’s so demoralising and will only destabilise all your hard earned positive vibes.

If you’re still blaming yourself after being rejected, remember that ‘this too shall pass’. Work on yourself, get ready, keep progressing forward, and trust that love will happen for you when you STOP looking for it.

We all deserve to be in a loving, respectful, reciprocal relationship; to be fully accepted as our true selves, free from the worry of being ‘too much’ or ‘not enough’.

JLO

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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