fear of rejection

Yes, that is true! I believe many of you have experienced similar things as I have. We always get confronted by rejection and it is hard to accept it. Here I have a few anecdotes from my life.

GROWING UP AND EXPERIENCING REJECTION

For as long as I can remember I always experienced rejection. I was different from other kids. That started in kindergarten when I wanted to play with the bigger kids because they played real stuff. The problem was they did not want to play with me because I was younger and smaller. Back at this age, I started to have problems but it was not that obvious because I always was able to play with my friends outside of kindergarten.

When I started school I was five years old while all my classmates were six or seven years old. For me, it was not important that there was this difference and ever since I started school I have been used to having older friends. Still, I was different from others. I quickly understood things and was bored at school. So I was not able to hold back answers and just talked in class.

I was different from the others and because of that, I was rejected. Another fact was that I was not really thin. I always had some pounds more than other kids. That supported the rejection.

WHAT I DID AGAINST IT

Later I became a victim of bullying, but I will tell you more about this in another post. Honestly, I did not know what the problem was for a really long time. I isolated myself in school and accepted the rejection. It was important to me to have friends and a lot of social contacts. Luckily I had them through my mother and I had some friends outside of school.

Dancing helped me. All my problems went away during dance classes and I had friends there. I got pretty ambitious and between the age of six to fifteen years, it felt like the best thing that happened to me.

Outside of school, I was always open. I talked to others and found new friends very quickly. Today I have many friends from vacations and I am so happy to have them. Something that I recognized after years was that I had two different personalities. There was Hannah the girl who went to school and had to accept rejection and there was Nike, me the one who is confident, open, lovely, and happy. Even after I found out that it was this way and that I behaved differently in school than at home and with friends I was never able to change it. But I learned something in my life.

HOW IT IS TODAY

I can cope with rejection and I know that there will always be some rejection. Not everyone can or has to be a friend and that is good. I learned that being self-confident is way easier than hiding or changing. When you experience rejection I assure you that it will pass. There are so many great people out in the world that will welcome and support you. Do not rely on people who reject you.

If you experience rejection at work it is the same. There will be other opportunities and challenges for you. You never stop growing and others too. Relations will become more professional and rejection less important.

Trust in yourself and if you are the one rejecting others then always keep in mind:

“If you cannot fight your opponents embrace them!”

That is what I will do. Another tip is if you feel rejected talk with the people who reject you. Sometimes it can be a misunderstanding and you just believed that a person rejected you. After observing rejection in my own life I think I found a good way to figure out if a talk can help.

Keep on going there are always good things coming. I hope I was able to help some of you.