Working with Intense Emotional Pain from Rejection

Part 1: A Guide

Recently I had an experience where I was talking daily to an individual for 2 months. Constantly texting and calling back and forth, maybe a little too much. There was excitement, there was playfulness, there was flirtation(lots of it). Then we planned a trip together within 2 days of meeting up IRL I experienced a flat rejection from this person and am currently left picking up the pieces of my own heart.

It hurts like shit. Each moment I’m confused why I feel this much pain. I didn’t think it would hurt this bad. It’s not just the pain from the rejection but what it triggered even deeper in my psyche.

I find myself revisiting the patterns that I thought I’d overcome years ago. The deepest darkest recesses of my own unconscious. Feeling like I’m not enough. Feeling like I’m worthless. Suicidal thoughts. Feeling inadequate around other people, like I lack some core value that everyone else has. And more.

Each and every day has been just as challenging as the last. I just want the pain to be over with. I just want to be back to baseline so that I can go out and experience the joy of life again. So that I can pursue that which is meaningful in my life and career. So that I can have more amazing memories.

Here’s how I’m working with this intense emotional pain.

1. It’s Okay to Cry (Even as a Man)

Yes, sure I’ve heard that it’s okay to cry before. But the feelings of social and familial judgment for crying as a man in today’s society are still there. Every time I cry it’s hard not to feel like something is wrong with me, or that this isn’t what men do.

Yet this is what life is calling forth from me. To learn how to cry without judging myself for crying. Rejection can be the perfect opportunity to learn how to not judge ourselves for the pain that we all inevitably feel. We can learn that just because we’re crying and in a lot of pain doesn’t reflect on who we are as a person, it doesn’t detract from our worth on this planet.

2. Reach Out to Friends

The saving grace has been reaching out to friends for support even if I’ve never reached out to them before this point. When we’re going through the wringer, it’s an opportunity to see which friends are there for you in the difficult times that life throws at us and which ones aren’t.

But when a friend is there for you and checking in with you in a hard time like this, it really shows. It shows that they care. It softens the pain to know that even if someone was reckless when your feelings were on the line, other people care. Other people really want to see you thrive and to see you overcome the pain of the current situation that you may find yourself in.

To all the friends that have been helping me these past few days. Thank you! You mean the world to me.

3. Give Yourself Space

Honestly, sometimes I wonder if just lounging around on the couch and feeling like shit is helping anything. Maybe it’s not. But part of me wants to think that by not diving right back into work-mode immediately the feelings are given room to just be. They’re not told that they’re bad. The pain is allowed to be as it is.

Don’t put too much on your schedule.

Don’t do everything that you possibly can to avoid these emotions.

Just have a free day. Take a warm bath or shower. Eat some ice cream. Watch Netflix. Cry. Pet a dog. Hug a dog. Hug friends and family.

The pain is allowed its full expression. It’s allowed to be felt. There’s nothing wrong with the pain. The only thing that we can do is to feel the feelings. To learn from the feelings. To be with the feelings. To do our best to find healthy outlets for the feelings. And above all else, to not avoid or run from the feelings. To not repress the feelings. But when we repress feelings it always leads to self-deception and unconsciously causes more pain for other people.

It feels to me like taking responsibility for the greatest degree of pain that we can is a virtue. The more that we can work through our own intense emotional pain, the less other people have to be caught in the sights of our own projections.

4. Love Your Feelings — Talk to Your Feelings

A tool that I’ve come back to again and again and again is IFS (aka Internal Family Systems), which I’ve talked much about in previous posts.

I’ve noticed in the last couple of days that when I’m not listening to what my feelings are telling me then I’m more likely to get caught in circular loops of:

• What did I do wrong?

• What’s wrong with me?

• Why can’t I just be chill and not needy?

• Why am I too much for other people?

• Why did this happen to me?

• Why do I have to be feeling this much pain?

• What’s wrong with me?

• Why are other people so put off by me?

And I have the intuition that when I talk to my feelings more it tends to break these circular loops of the mind that keep us in our negative patterns like apathy, depression, anxiety, and so much more.

5. Choose Awareness

Choose to remain aware of everything that’s arising. What stories are arising? What feelings are they accompanied by? This is the juice of the process.

Learning how to not go into an unconscious mode when difficult feelings arise IS THE WORK. That very moment when you choose awareness over unconsciousness is the work. I know it’s painful. And when we choose awareness it often exacerbates that pain at the moment, but upon doing so we shine a little bit of light on that which is generating our pain. That which is causing and giving rise to the uncomfortable and difficult things that we’re feeling.

There will be times when hope is a rare commodity, and you wonder what the point of awareness is in the first place.

I personally find myself asking what the point is of being conscious in times like these. Is the work really paying off if I’m still in this much pain? I ask myself.

Have I even really progressed at all in the last few years of inner work? I ask myself.

And I’ve been genuinely doubting whether the work is worth it. And there have been days where I’m convinced that it’s not worth it. But the feeling of relief and of wholeness that I’m finding while writing this article is making it all worth it. I’m still in pain, but the degree of pain has lessened just a little as a result of writing this article. And that’s what I hope for you. That in reading this your pain will lessen just a little.

But it’s beginning to make a lot of sense to me that feeling the pain at the moment is better in the long run. That feeling the pain now is always better than putting the pain off until later. Yet it hurts like fuck, but it gets better. And the more healthy outlets we choose now, the better it will be for us in the long run.

6. A Tool for Rebuilding Self-Worth

Watch here

In watching videos on how to deal with rejection I came across this tool that seems pretty valuable in rebuilding our self-worth after rejection.

Because usually, our self-worth is the first thing that takes a hit after rejection like this.

So how do most people try to build self-worth? Through positive affirmation right. But according to psychologists, positive affirmations don’t work if our unconscious doesn’t believe them. No matter how many times we tell ourselves that we’re enough, if our core belief about ourselves is that we’re not enough then saying “I’m enough” 100 billion times won’t do a thing.

What we can do instead is start from the positive traits that we actually do believe that we have.

Step 1: Write down 5 valuable qualities/attributes that you believe you have

Step 2: Write a brief essay (1-2 paragraphs) elaborating on one of these positive traits.

Step 3: Write a couple of paragraphs for the other qualities if you’re in the flow, but don’t force it.

And because you’re the one that’s generating these 5 valuable attributes that you have you can be sure that it falls within your current self-belief system.

7. Don’t Be Fooled By The Digital Personas of Others

Everyone is going through their own shit, and 99% of the time you just don’t see it.

I recently revisited this video by a couple of Van Life Youtube Vloggers, Max & Lee, that I used to enjoy watching. A lot of their vlogs made it seem like they had a perfect life. They were driving their van from Canada to South America and it looked like they had a happy relationship. What more could anyone want?

But then Max released this video sharing that Lee lost her battle with mental illness and took her own life in 2020, post-covid.

This is REAL, people. The fakeness of Instagram & Youtube & Facebook isn’t some bad side effect that no one is suffering from. NO. People are actually taking their own lives out there because of how shitty social media makes us feel. Genuine mental illnesses are coming out of our toxic social media environment and yet for so many of us, it feels like social media is the only outlet that we have to connect with our network of friends and family.

I’d highly recommend watching Lee’s video about depression to get a taste of what real vulnerability can look like.

Lee opening up about her depression shortly before taking her own life.

Let’s change this.

Let’s normalize calling people randomly and spontaneously (or scheduling a weekly time slot to reconnect with the people that we love regularly.)

Let’s normalize crying in other people’s arms or at least over zoom/facetime.

Let’s normalize validating the feelings and emotional pain of others.

Let’s normalize vulnerability.

Let’s normalize having difficult conversations.

And let’s realize that every time we validate someone’s emotions, cry in another’s arms, be vulnerable, have a difficult conversation, etc. we’re helping the collective. We’re having a small, yet rippling effect on the web of the social fabric such that it’s easier for us and others to have difficult conversations and be vulnerable and truly connect with others in ways that fulfill the yearnings of our souls.

Let’s view getting emotional reps in as just as powerful as getting reps in at the gym. Every single time we use the muscle of emotional vulnerability it becomes stronger, it allows us to share a little bit more of ourselves.

Yes, many of us feel insecure and inadequate and seek external validation on social media at the hidden expense of other people. I’m looking at you, Instagram influencers 👀. But that’s okay. Just don’t feed into it. Don’t give your time and attention to these accounts, or even to the platform at all if you’re strong enough.

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I hope that this piece helped you feel a little less lonely. If you know someone that is going through emotional pain at the moment, please send this to them. My deepest intention is to make the world a little less lonely.

Every day I’m dropping further and further into the realization that the deepest purpose I have on this earth at the moment is to have a positive impact on lessening the mental health crisis. So many of us have struggled with depression, anxiety, trauma, pain, etc. and all I want to do on this earth is to learn the lessons and protocols that actually make a difference in helping people overcome their own depths of emotional pain, in the same way, that I’m working through my own depths of emotional pain each and every day. 😢😡😫

I love you. 💜

If you’re struggling, please reach out to me at +1(402)-658-8260. I’m here for you. I want to talk with you. I want to help you feel a little less lonely and a little more connected in these chaotic times that we’re living in.

The entirety of you, pain and all, is loved and will always be loved. You just need to find the right person. If someone hurts you then please don’t give up hope that there are other people out there that will understand your pain and joys and will have the capacity to hold you in a loving field of empathy.

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PS: And to those who have hurt me in the past. I don’t judge you. I don’t blame you. I feel for you. I feel for the pain that you must be experiencing. I feel for the struggles that you may be going through. I love each and every one of you. And I don’t regret the time we spent together.