Feeling bad due to rejection is not a sin. Humans operate on a complex network of emotions, and our minds are not very accepting of failures. And that is okay. There is no need to beat yourself up for that. Since this blog is about love and relationships, helping you understand the situation from a spiritual perspective is in order. Behind every rejection, there is a more profound, universal arrangement that you may not comprehend right away, but you surely would eventually as time would go by. But until then, there is a process that as a human being you can surely be a part of.
The process of coping with rejection does not involve any tricks. There are no mathematical calculations. And certainly, you would not be bestowed with some fancy mantra that would speed up your recovery. But there is a sure shot way of driving your blues away and finding peace once again. And although it is hard, if you can find a little patience in you to make yourself happy again, these amazingly effective tips would surely get you up and running after a grey phase.
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5 STAGES OF GRIEF
You might have heard about it, but now it is time to put it into an application. The best way to overcome rejection is by knowing exactly which of the five stages of grief you are on. Once you identify that, it becomes a little less challenging to cope with a rejection. Let us walk through each stage to know exactly where you stand.
Denial
This is the first stage of grief. And it is probably the most toxic one. Simply because you don’t know that you are hurt. And even if you do know it, you don’t acknowledge your feeling. It is difficult to get over a rejection if you don’t accept the fact that you have been rejected. You can’t fix the things that you don’t think are broken. Denial is the most common way of grieving. All those hate crimes aired on Crime Patrol are all a product of denial. The criminals fail to acknowledge that they have been hurt and they directly skip to the next stage; anger, which ultimately leads to them committing a crime. Not quite healthy, right?
If you have been rejected, avoid living in denial. Of course, acknowledging the rejection will hurt more, but you would, in turn, be opening a path to healing.
Anger
Anger is the second step toward healing. Once you have accepted your emotion in its original form, you get to work with it. So, you vent out your frustration somewhere. Anger is the most primary defence emotion. Channel your anger toward more productive stuff. Yes, you have already heard this a million times, and it is better said than done. But there is no rush. Take your time!
The easiest thing you can do is make art. We are all artists and directing your anger toward producing art gives birth to some of the best artworks. If you are a songwriter, quickly grab a book and a pen every time that you are angry. Write down the meanest lyrics that you can think of. If nothing, it would make for a great heavy metal song. But keep it going. The more you write, the faster you would get tired of being angry, and that would ultimately push you to the next stage.
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Bargaining
You are in the safe zone for some time if you are in the bargaining stage. Here, you try to rationalise things and try to find explanations. You justify the actions of everyone involved just to come to a satisfactory conclusion so, you can finally sleep well at night. But be careful, because there is a high possibility of you getting obsessed with finding out why it happened to you.
Understand that you cannot always find an answer to everything. And as much as I hate to write this down, sometimes ‘yeh kyun, why, kaiko ka jawaab nahin hota.’ Oh, Salman! What have you done?
Try not spiralling down the lane of disappointment. Don’t get vacuumed into the painful void. Because you have to get yourself to the next stage, which is only possible if you stop questioning and learn to accept what happened.
Depression
Now that you are filled with a plethora of unanswered questions, you have successfully managed to drag yourself into the fourth stage of depression. It sucks but be assured that there is something awesome waiting for you. Now is the time when you can ask for help and actually begin to get well. Before this stage, the only person who could help you was you. So, asking someone to pull you out of your misery would not have actually worked.
Meet professionals and take their help to analyse your emotions. Connect with yourself when you are at your lowest. This is the best time to know yourself.
Acceptance
The healthiest stage of them all, the green zone, this is your light at the end of the tunnel. Acceptance is the key! When you accept your feelings and make them feel wanted, they stop hurting you. Yes, this may be an absolutely ridiculous personification of emotions, but it is true. Treat your emotions as a part of your own self. They are not foreign. Your feelings make you a human being. So, when you acknowledge them, you accept that you are capable of getting hurt. You learn that it is not the end of the world and that there is more to life than just a petty rejection. Now, it would definitely seem petty.
Some people might argue and ask how difficult can getting over a rejection be that it requires you to go through the five stages of grief. But if you come to think of it, every person goes through these stages when they are hurt. Sure, everyone has their own speed of recovering. Some dwell upon one stage longer, whereas some get through them so quickly that they don’t even realise that they went through them.
11 Effective Ways of Coping with Rejection in Love
1. Don’t be afraid to feel the pain
Your feelings are the best part of you. And I am not saying it just to cheer you up. It is something that sets you apart from a robot. It is not criminal to feel pain. You are only reacting the way you were meant to react. You are wired that way. When you avoid feeling pain, you deprive yourself to feel like a human. And that is when you begin to question your self-worth because you are not sure of who you truly are. Therefore, allow yourself to be just as much sad as you are happy. There is nothing wrong in that.
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2. But don’t pity yourself
Why did it have to happen to me? How can I live with myself after this? What did I do to deserve this?
Are these lines sounding familiar to you? If yes, you are in extreme self-pity, my friend. Stop asking yourself easy questions. On the contrary, ask yourself ‘how would I never let myself feel this way again? And ‘what should I do to be happy?’
3. Don’t blame yourself either
It did not happen because of you. It happened because it was bound to happen. The universe does not have you at its target nor does it have a gun perpetually aimed at you. Think of it this way. In a world of approximately 8 billion people, everyone has to be hurt at least once to retain the balance. You were rejected once. But the rest of the days are yours. It was your day today. It will be someone else’s tomorrow.
4. Go back to see if this has happened before
It is time to do some self-analysis. Has it happened before? If it has, try looking out for a pattern. While you should not be blaming yourself for being rejected, you don’t necessarily have to sit in one place and accept your fate. Instead, go out and make things happen. Nobody is perfect, and you can always use some improvements. Remember that making yourself better would only make you happy.
5. Bring out the critic in you
You are your best critic. Instead of justifying your habits or behaviour, take help of a certain thing called ‘constructive criticism’ and make the necessary changes. Also, learn to distinguish between criticising and being critical. While one is positive and has the power of turning your life upside down for the better, the other is extremely negative and can keep you melancholic.
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6. Choose happiness over anything else
Learn to be happy. Being single has a lot of perks. Embrace them. And get this tattooed if you can, but if you are not happy alone, you will never be happy with someone else. You should be willing to enjoy your company before enjoying that of the others. The best way to do this is by spending time with yourself. Take yourself out to dine, watch a movie alone or take yourself shopping. You would realise that you are quite an interesting person.
7. Don’t shy away from getting professional help
Sometimes, a rejection can leave a deeper impact on you than you could have imagined. It can cause a kind of trauma that can be challenging for you to deal with. In such a case, instead of fighting it alone, get help. We know Indian societies still don’t accept counselling as something that is normal. But you should do everything you can to be happy, even if it means breaking the barriers.
8. Listen to some happy music before sleeping
Music is the best cheerleader. It has the power of making you either extremely sad or incredibly happy. And we are aiming at the latter here. In fact, listening to happy music before sleeping can help you sleep better as well as wake up feeling fresh the next day. And why just before sleeping? Fill in the void with some background music every time you are running an errand or even when you are walking down the street. It is better to transpose to a happy place through your music than to walk alone ‘on the boulevard of broken dreams.’
9. Know that the one who rejected you has been rejected by someone else, too
No one is perfect. There is a good possibility that the one who rejected you might have been rejected by someone else. Like I said before, you are not alone. Everybody hurts someday. And it is okay to feel sad for a while. But don’t let that feeling govern your entire life that is ahead of you. Draw some emotional boundaries for yourself. Be stronger. And know that there is nobody in this world who has not been rejected. If nothing else, knowing this helps you recover faster than otherwise.
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10. Avoid being too self-involved
You would feel more hurt due to being rejected if you keep to yourself. In these cases, extroversion truly helps. Never be self-involved when you are going through a healing process. Socialise with people. In fact, take this as an opportunity to do something for others. When you contribute to society, you feel less self-conscious because you know you are a productive individual. It also helps you gain appreciation, which goes a long way, too.
11. You are not the only one
As mentioned earlier, there are close to 8 billion people in this world. Is it possible to entirely dismiss the probability of having no one else who is feeling what you are feeling or has gone through what you have? Not possible, right? And you are right! A thousand people are going through the same process that you are and another thousand that have already been healed. You are no different. You will, too, find your happy place soon.