Something to think about? 6 Ways to Cope With Rejection. Your husband ditches you for a girl half his age after 23 years of marriage. The tenth job interview you’ve been on results in another ding letter. Your friends get together for a beer and don’t extend an invitation to you. We all endure rejection, but for us sensitive types, it can be devastating and the stings can last years or even an eternity. “Humans have a fundamental need to belong. Just as we have needs for food and water, we also have needs for positive and lasting relationships,” says C. Nathan DeWall, PhD, a psychologist at the University of Kentucky. Recent research finds that rejection has serious implications not only for a person’s psychological state, but also for a society in general. According to Kirsten Weir of the American Psychological Association, social rejection can influence emotion, cognition, and even physical health. How do you move on and believe in yourself after such heartbreak? Here are a few places to start. Express your anger. You have every right to be angry, and it’s healthy and good to yell, stomp, throw, or curse. A new study by researchers at the University of Jena in Germany found that expressing anger is good for your health. In this study of 6,000 participants, those who repressed their feelings were at risk for developing diseases. More specifically internalizing emotions raised the pulse rate of participants. Over time this could lead to heart disease and cancer. Apparently being hot-tempered can even extend your life. Mediterranean cultures who tend to be more expressive live longer than European northerners who are more reserved. Get a superficial boost. Depending on how deflated you feel, you might not have the capability of going deep and feeling the pain. Confronting the intensity of an emotion can disable a person if he or she is in a fragile state. An alternative? Starting with something a bit more superficial like hair highlights to ease the pain. Researchers from Ruhr Universität and the University of Basel found that persons who underwent plastic surgery felt less anxious and had more self-esteem than the patients who didn’t, which isn’t to say you need to run off and get yourself worked on. The study merely reiterates my philosophy that sometimes a manicure can be just as effective as a therapist appointment, or maybe you could get a manicure on your way to your therapist. Start something new. I’ve always found that the best way to heal an end—or a simple ouch-- is to begin something new: a fresh project, friendship, club, or job. There is anxiety in leaving your comfort zone, but to do so means you are evolving, which can bring its own exhilaration. “We must always change, renew, rejuvenate ourselves, otherwise we harden,” said Johann Wolfgang von Goethe. It can be overwhelming to think about moving one leg in a new direction, so remember these words from Rumi: “If all you can do is crawl, start crawling.” Crying. Crying is actually quite good for you. According to biochemist William Frey, emotional tears (as opposed to tears of irritability) remove toxins as well as chemicals like the endorphin leucine-enkaphalin and prolactin that have built up in the body from stress. Crying also lowers a person’s manganese level, which is a good thing. I even read somewhere that crying burns 1.5 calories a minute. If you’re like me – who can cry off and on for the whole day – those calories add up. I’d say you have just earned yourself a chocolate shake. I consider a crying spell like an inner shower. It cleanses my insides so that I better process pain. Make a self-esteem file. I’ve discussed my self-esteem file before. It’s basically a folder that holds every compliment anyone has ever given to me. Secure, stable, confident people don’t need one, but folks like myself who battle low self-esteem every other day have to be reminded of their good qualities on a regular basis. I suggest asking two or three of your best friends to list ten of your best qualities and put those in a folder to jumpstart the project. That’s what I did seven years ago. My therapist asked me to make a list of ten of my best qualities and I couldn’t do it. So she told me to ask my friends. I was embarrassed. Ashamed. Why should I need to do this? But my self-esteem file has saved me from weeks of self-loathing. Laugh. Did you know that laughter can reduce stress in practically every human organ … that humor can boost our immune system and fight viruses? A little laughter and wit make everything tolerable—even a ding letter, look of rejection, an empty inbox, snide remark, or spotting your group of so-called friends hanging out at your favorite restaurant without you. Humor cultivates optimism, an attitude that protects you from negativity, fear, and panic. In fact, it’s pretty hard to laugh and cry at the same time, even though they look very similar. And unlike exercise and eating broccoli, laughing is fun. “Time spent laughing is time spent with the gods,” says a Japanese proverb. Therese J. Borchard
Posted on: Sat, 29 Jun 2013 21:38:38 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015