I've been thinking about your thread all evening Haennie, before I came to post on it!!
I wanted to think of one clear example or theme that has been present for a period of time in my own life, and that has been coming to terms with my physical appearance, that has been the biggest learning curve in my life.
I've always been on the short side with regards height, and as a guy I never really thought about how something like that can cause so much rejection until I became an adult and looked back on it.
When I was younger I was always passed up on when it came to being picked for sports, this I overcame with surrounding myself with others who were more interested in music, that became my clique in high school, we knew every new band/song, even played guitar and could pull off a few songs on acoustic at parties!!
Next it was relationships and realising women tend to choose guys taller than them, this again I needed to overcome and work to my strengths, which was conversation and being interesting to others, work wise again height can make me look younger than I am, so promotions when generally the most experienced climb the ladder, looking younger can be a disadvantage, the typical 6ft leader is not something I can pull off, but again focusing on the selling myself part in interviews has got me over the hurdle.
Rejection can be tough, because it makes you feel like you aren't good enough, people make judgements and that's the world we live in, but the problem is I can also delude myself into pre judging people and create stereotypes in my own head about what types of people get the promotion, get the girl, get the break in life, and easily beat myself up unnecessarily and have a pity party.
My past is full of years simply drinking my resentments and those feelings of rejection away, but that didn't seem to get me anywhere!!
My new approach is to accept the cards I've been dealt with, it didn't happen overnight but I'm getting there, we can't change rejection, that's out of our hands, we can only keep pushing forward, in the same way Sobriety happens 24hrs at a time, so does life itself, the decisions we make, the people we interact with, the judgements people may make about us, so be it, we can only do our best and what will be will be!!
Great topic Haennie!!
