Rejection is a form of loss, suffering, bereavement. It may be external, as when someone doesn’t like the music you composed, the poem you wrote, or the painting you created. Aspiring actors know the feeling of yet another audition that leads to silence. Putting out a plethora of résumés and not hearing anything back is a form of external rejection.
These kinds of rejections hurt, but not as deeply as personal rejections. These are internal. To be dismissed, ignored, told one is no good or worthless – these cut to the core. Romantic breakups, being snubbed by friend groups, avoided, prejudged, or feeling the sting of racism, wounds us deeply.
To one degree or another, we all experience rejection. Rejection can either lead to growth and emotional health, or dissolve into negativity.
We are evolutionarily wired in such a way that rejection from the family, clan, friend-group, tribe, or community (including faith communities) feels threatening. Our ancestors could not survive apart from the tribe.
That’s why some of us panic when we are rejected. When my son committed suicide on my birthday, it felt like a personal rejection, and I periodically experienced severe panic attacks for years.
Others feel rage and desire revenge when they feel exiled. Like Cain in Genesis, they become dark villains, murderous with wrath.
Another may feel overwhelmed and sink into despair, frozen and emotionally impotent. Negative reactions to rejection clothe us in shame, self-loathing, and self-imposed isolation.
The good news is that we can choose to respond positively to rejection. We can embrace it, open the door of our hearts and let it in.
Adam and Eve were rejected. They faced it, took responsibility for it, stopped blaming and hiding, and made the best of their situation.
Joseph was rejected, cast out, by his own brothers. In Egypt, he made the best of his situation, maintained his integrity, and rose to a high position. Then, when his family was in need, he forgave and provided.
Cain responded to rejection by becoming a dark villain; Joseph responded to rejection by becoming a hero.
Jesus experienced the ultimate denunciation – despised and rejected by his fellow Jews, his friends, and the Roman society. He conquered hatred with love, violence with forgiveness, and death by dying. He felt, amid ineffable agony, rejected by God, only to be seated at God’s right hand.
Once we become thoroughly grounded in the ultimate reality that our core identity is Beloved, we can realize that rejection by employers, lovers, publishers, friends, families, or faith-communities says nothing about our ultimate worth. With hearts broken open, we welcome whatever comes.
The Guest House
By Jalaluddin Rumi
(Translated by Coleman Barks)
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond
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