The pain of rejection

But, whether it’s caused by your own wickedness or being unlucky there is hope that you can remove the burden of rejection from your shoulders in your lifetime.

I learnt this reality the hard way having grown up as a rejected child and young adult who could not understand the reason for my rejection.

Curse of God

Some of my friends told me that I was cursed by God, probably because of some wickedness of my parents or grandparents, and that it was time I went back to my roots to find out the cause of my rejection.

And to support their uncharitable views about my rejection, they would quote for me the book of Numbers 14-18 which says “The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.”

For a person brought up in church and still holding steadfast on some of the teachings in the bible, ignoring some biblical verses that seem to be talking about your circumstances cannot be easy.

Even when I tried to put on a brave face and hope somehow the inner tensions would abate, a fresh incidence of rejection would toss me back to the wailing corner.

Specifically, I have faced rejection in class and strange enough in a Christian religious education class. Our religious education teacher, a young lady fresh from college, would sneer at me then casually remark that “I looked like a frog”.

Even in college, I cannot remember having more than a handful of serious friends. I lived as a loner throughout my college years.

And even when I got my first teaching job, I couldn’t exactly fit in the staff room. As teachers gossiped in their usual boisterous and prejudiced manner I maintained a studious silence. Eventually, I had to leave the school and the teaching profession altogether to pursue a different career.

I have devoted a significant portion of my life to studies and have earned three degrees and a diploma, which to me is a no mean achievement. But despite all my academic achievements I have only received rejection in the over 1,000 jobs that I have applied for.

Long time ago while in a foreign country in search for a job while hosted by a friend, it reached a point where I couldn’t get one despite my efforts. When it became apparent that I couldn’t get a job, my friend started to be concerned. He therefore advised me to consider “returning home to find out from my parents what was wrong with me.”

Spiritual Intervention

However, as a Catholic I tried all sorts of penances and other spiritual exercises just to see whether the curse of rejection hovering over my life could be dispensed.

And in one of my most inspired moments I applied reason to the problem at hand. I realized that the Bible is a cryptic book that will give you what you want to see. Those who want to see my rejection as a curse from God will see it that way, while those who want to see my problem as a normal temporary challenge that will soon go away will exactly see like that. Though I later got a job a teaching job in a Catholic institution it was not the end of my problems yet.

I was always in debts, spiritual sorrow, and in despair. I could not sleep for a whole night as I agonized over my life and the present suffering. When I thought about home and the suffering in there tears rolled down my eyes and I would cry uncontrollably in silent for hours.

Nothing new under the sun

When my inner tensions went away and I regained my inner strength, I recalled what that preacher man of old in the book of Ecclesiastes 1:9 says “That which has been is what will be, That which is done is what will be done, And there is nothing new under the sun” (New King James Version) that I realized that there is nothing new under the sun.

The problems you could be facing today were already experienced by many other people before you. When you suffer rejection, you should never allow it to damper your self-worth and prevent you from living your life.

Carrying the burden of past rejections prevents you from seeing the beauty of the life ahead and can also lead to severe depression, anxiety and a broken heart. A Recent research study has established that the brain actually treats the pain of a broken heart like the pain of a broken arm.

Rejection has serious psychological implications not only for an individual but also for the society in general because it influences emotion, cognition, and overall physical health. When you are ostracized, you are likely to react by becoming aggressive and violent in nature, and can also lead to a drop in performance of difficult intellectual tasks.

We are all human beings with similar needs and the need to belong is common to each of us. Scientists claim that that the need to belong is rooted in our evolutionary history and once ignored it turns human beings into rogue monsters who are social misfits. The rogue human beings are the ones responsible for the horrendous acts like terrorism, gory murders, and the like which are daily reported in the media.

The beauty of realizing the dangers of social rejection and the abyss pit one can fall into if they allow, and the fact that you can recover from the episodes of rejection makes you evaluate your options. I realized I had a long life ahead and it was not worth it mourning over my rejection.

I appraised myself and took stock of my situation before formulating the next step. I tried to master the social cues that could lead to connection with other people and especially those I would have a higher relational value.

Cultivating Inner Worth

I also made changes in my life to increase my worth and the degree to which other people would be proud to be associated with me.In a moment of illumination, I realized I had an aptitude for writing but I had left that talent to atrophy. It was a low hanging fruit, an inner worth that I only needed to cultivate and become a social magnet. I started writing and expressing myself in creative poems and journalistic pieces which I would post on the school noticeboard and before long I got noticed for my writing prowess.

In our English lessons, I started writing great compositions which our teacher would read for the entire class. Gradually, my writings and my talent started making headlines in the school’s rumor mill.

My articles would be discussed openly in the laboratory, dormitories, and in the dining hall. When the school finally approached me to start a school magazine I was already a celebrity in my own right, and many people were getting proud to be associated with me.

Final thoughts

We shall all get rejected at one time or another, and it hurts. But it is possible to remove the burden of rejection in your life despite the cause of rejection. What is important to know is that there is nothing new under the sun and there are many others before you who got rejected and they overcame. What you need is to evaluate your life and change the few aspects of your behavior that could be leading to your rejection. And while at it, cultivate your inner gifts and talents and exploit them to become a social magnet.