A 12 year old frail boy walking into a new school, his first day, looking around with a mixed emotional bag of anticipation, anxiety, nervousness. Slowly stepping into the corridors with new faces all around, some staring at him, others hardly noticing him. Reaching his classroom, he settles in the corner most seats, hiding in the shadows. The teacher walks in and calls out the newest student. Unwillingly, he stands up, now all eyes on him, walks to the front of the class and meekly says out his name. With some residual courage he looks up, in the roomful of strangers, he spots one face smiling at him, he dares to smile back. The child moves into his seat, inviting the newcomer to join him on his bench. There, it looks like he has found himself a friend.
Now, that was a happy ending to all the nervousness the boy was carrying. He was welcomed openly. But our adult selves are well aware that this is not always the case.
A new school, locality, city, workplace all give rise to an anxiety that stems from the fear of being ‘rejected.’ Rejection is an emotional wound that we undergo multiple times in our life, but it still hurts just as much each time. Recent research has suggested that the pain of rejection is quite similar to the pain of a physical injury, and therefore must be tended to. Humans are social animals, and even with our evolved brains we crave the need of social connection. When this is thwarted, like when a lover dumps you or the manager fires you or you do not win the coveted trophy or you are excommunicated by your social group, you are bound to feel down in the dumps. Social rejection influences our emotion, cognition & even physical health.
The term ‘Social Rejection’ makes it quite clear that people who reject us are the reason for our misery. But are they really? Afterall, it is easier to point fingers. After an initial phase of pain, most of us find respite in turning our ‘rejectors’ into our arch enemies.
However, let’s rewind a little and let’s take a second look at the situation. Blaming others hardly makes us feel any better. So how do we heal the pain of rejection? A quote by psychologist Guy Winch, “The greatest damage rejection causes is usually self-inflicted” helps put things into perspective.
When someone rejects us, it takes a direct hit on my self-esteem. Every rejection is about ‘Me’ psychology calls this ‘Personalisation’. When a group of friends excludes us, we think, “They are saying ‘No’ to me”, when a partner breaks up, our self-talk goes, “You are not good enough, he/she doesn’t like you anymore.” The first step is to break this attachment: The attachment of the ‘action/incidence’ to ‘me.’ Instead of friends not liking ‘me’, try rephrasing it to, “Maybe we don’t share common interests”. To a boyfriend’s rejection, let’s re-think, “Maybe we have grown apart and he doesn’t share the rapport we once did.”
This thought transformation can give a renewed energy, a feeling of empowerment to make the change. When we are not preoccupied making it about ‘ourselves’ (and eventually blaming others), we may be more open to looking at what actually led to the ‘rejection’ and look at if there were areas that we could genuinely work on, thus making myself better one rejection at a time!
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