I spent years trying to put down roots in a family that absolutely did not want me.

I tried to give more love, thinking eventually they’d see my heart and value me. They didn’t. They flat out rejected me. I do not bear their name, and I never will.

I spent years agonizing. Bringing my heart and more love, more kindness; crying out my hurts and then renewing my hope every week, every single time. Hope/ rejection. Hope/rejection. For years. I never knew why I wasn’t good enough and didn’t measure up – I just knew I couldn’t. It was indescribably painful.

This played right into my childhood wounds, and awakened the modus operandii of past-me; If someone dislikes me, rejects me, or is in some way critical or unkind, let me just give more love and be even more kind and understanding. Let me scramble to explain myself when I am misinterpreted, to fight against perceptions that don’t feel like me; let me then take ON those perceptions and “fix” myself. It’s an endless cycle of self-abandonment, when we make others’ criticisms our truth, and keep trying to “do better.”
Young me grew up believing that Love was the act that would heal, and that if people were unkind to me, it was just that I had done something wrong; I hadn’t given them enough kindness yet. Jesus, I believed, said Love was everything. Therefore, it was incumbent upon me to love those who threw stones at me. Both metaphorically and literally (yes, I have been surrounded and pelted by stones, while my brother stood by, and then asked me what I had done wrong that i deserved that. How…biblical.)

Wow, is this ever faulty.
Let me save you years of therapy: don’t do this.

If someone doesn’t like you, rejects you, seems to be seeking ways to find fault or criticize, smile, and walk away.

Forgive them. They don’t know what they just lost.

Forgive them, for they know not what they do.
I forgive the people who didn’t want me in their family. They got their wish, their prayers were answered.

I forgive them completely. I still carry sadness that my value wasn’t seen, but I don’t need to mourn long. Why should I?

I lost people who didn’t love or even like me. They lost someone who loved them. 

 

Just a reframe, if your heart is hurting. Especially at this time of year, the old things come up. I think they come up so that we have the opportunity to shine light on them and maybe heal them at last. Don’t jump through hoops trying to figure out “why” people reject you. Just go where you are seen. Go where your heart is welcomed and appreciated. Go where you are liked. Go where people are grateful you choose them.

If you don’t feel such places or people exist, clear out the old. allow a space of nothing to exist – like the barren trees in winter. Keep loving yourself and doing what you are called to do in this world. Keep noticing what it feels like to be loved, wanted, and appreciated, by giving yourself affirmations. Then, the new blooms will creep in, and you’ll be able to recognize them, because you’ll know what it feels like to be loved, wanted, and appreciated, given the benefit of the doubt, given compassion and lovingkindness.

abundance will come, if you are courageous and don’t just fill the emptiness with relationships that continually ask you to apologize, prove your worth, or “buy” your entry with service, gifts, changing yourself, or any of the other ways we try to negotiate our worth with others.

Your worth is not negotiable with other people.

I am sending you love.  We are all a team. Some don’t want us. And that’s okay- they just deprived themselves of an amazing, loyal, loving, person. Their lesson to learn (or not), and their loss. Pivot! Whatever rejects you, redirects you.

I’ll do a part 2 to this post, which will be a more practical, how to heal the pain of rejection post. It has been proven that rejection lights up the same places in our brain as physical injury, and there is a way to heal that.

We all deserve to love and be loved.