Needing approval and feeling rejected has been a major storyline in my life. I recently found out that in addition to the amount that most of us suffer from this, as a woman with ADHD, I suffer from its wildly under-discussed symptom, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria—basically I am even more prone to intense feelings of rejection.
We are tribal beings. As children, our brilliant minds went to work for us and stored all kinds of information on how and who we needed to be in order to fit in. This process has been refined through evolution as we needed to be accepted in the tribe in order to survive. We needed our caregivers to accept us in order for them to take care of us so we wouldn’t die. In short, fear of rejection is so strong in us because our minds have evolved to link rejection to death.
This explanation for why we feel the need to be approved of and why we fear rejection fascinates me, although it did not cure me. I don’t know that I will ever be cured. But what I can tell you is there is something I tell myself that shoots rejection down whenever it comes up.
What I learned long ago and eventually started to believe is that you cannot lose what is yours.
Everything in this world is energy. You attract the energy that you’re putting out.
What does this mean for when “bad” things happen? It means that there is a lesson you need to learn, something that is seeking to emerge that you couldn’t previously see or something was out of alignment.
The most obvious form of rejection is romantic rejection. Let’s take the example of being broken up with.
Even if you cannot come up with one single reason why your relationship wasn’t perfect, you need to lean on faith and trust in me when I say that it wasn’t. What has healed my rejection in this circumstance and many others is that if it left me, it’s not mine, and so I don’t want it. He left me, so even though I couldn’t see why, I had to accept that he wasn’t mine, and therefore I didn’t want him.
There is a bigger show at play here and we are not orchestrating it. The Universe’s goal is for you to become the highest and best version of your authentic self. The Universe does not make mistakes in achieving this goal.
So, if someone you love has left you and you can’t possibly understand why and everything in you wants to try to change their mind, you have to remember this: They wouldn’t have left if they were meant to be yours right now. And you only want what is yours. You only want what is yours, because what could possibly be better than the highest and best version of your authentic self?
The vision of the highest and best version of your authentic self is so exciting because there is no way you can possibly imagine it. You can have hints. You can have ideas. But I promise you that the final picture will be greater than all of your hints and ideas because you haven’t met all of your authentic self yet.
This version of you is always unfolding and you are always being guided. This is what you have to remember when you feel rejected. You have to remember that what is unfolding is unfolding perfectly, even if right now it sucks.
You have to remember that when you don’t get that job or that house or that date or that raise, that is exactly what is supposed to happen. If you don’t believe me, look back at your life. I guarantee you can remember a time that sucked to go through, but looking back you can see why you needed it.
You cannot lose what is yours, and you only want what is yours. You’re not here to live someone else’s life, someone else’s dream. You’re here, as unique as they come and as bright as the sun, and so your life is destined to be unique and bright.
I know it might feel like this was perfect. This was everything. This was you. And you didn’t get it. Or you lost it. And babe, that sucks. I know. But it wasn’t yours. And if it’s not yours, you don’t want it. Repeat that until the cows come home and one day, I promise, you will go from learning to believing to knowing deep down that you will never lose what is yours. And against that knowledge, rejection doesn’t stand a chance.
