When Rejection Steals the Best of Who I Am

“We don’t need you there.” A simple sentence. Five words. Five syllables. However, in my brain the interpretation of this sentence was anything but simple.

It unleashed a flood of uncertainty. My brain instantly fired off locator arrows that traveled to past rejections in my memory. Past hurt was pulled into this current conversation. Suddenly, I wasn’t hearing “We don’t need you there.” I was hearing, “You aren’t wanted.”

Rejection always wants to steal the best of who I am by reinforcing the worst of what’s been said to me.

The best of who I am was certainly not the one interpreting this comment.

The most hurt version of me took what was said and added pages of commentary. This additional dialogue highlighted my insecurities, brought to mind all the many reasons I was surely being excluded, and vilified the person who uttered those five words that started this whole thing.

Suddenly, this person was unsafe. She was insensitive. And worst of all, I pictured her rallying others to believe the worst about me as well.

If you’ve had these same thoughts and feelings… I understand. And I’m sharing more about the 3 perspectives I’ve learned when it comes to rejection over at (in)courage today. Read the rest of this post here.

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Every Book Starts with a Sentence
And then I received another rejection letter
A Sneak Peek of My Next Book