Sylvie Shene - Articles

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ARTICLES: REJECTION

For those of us that were raised in dysfunctional families carry around a lot of toxic shame. Nothing triggers our painful shame like rejection. I too hope I will never have to feel it again. As John Bradshaw in his book “Healing The Shame That Binds You” says: “There is no greater potential for painful shame than rejection. This is a truism for all relationships. But for shame-based people, rejection is akin to death. We have rejected ourselves, and for someone on the outside to reject us, it proves what we fear the most, that we are flawed and defective as persons. Rejection for us means we are indeed unwanted and unlovable.

There are degrees of rejection, raging from the store clerk not smiling to being rejected and left by a cherished lover. The pain of such a rejection is physical as well as emotional. It feels like a knife in our chest. I’ve only experienced it once; I certainly would not want to repeat it. I’ve been with scores of clients as they go through the pain of this kind of separation.

All the techniques I’ve outlined can be useful while going through the grief of a broken heart. The more one has done the original pain work and left one’s fantasy bonded family enmeshments, the better one will be able to handle rejection. If one still fantasy bonded and enmeshed, the rejection is equivalent to death. For a fantasy bonded person, the rejection impacts the hurt and lonely child who never resolved the original grief.

So, I heartily recommend that you do original pain and inner child work as a way to lessen the pain of future potential losses. The more you have differentiated and separated, the better you can handle separation and aloneness.

I recommend Judith Viorst’s book, Necessary Losses. It presents what I’d call a philosophy of loss. It will help you accept the fact of losses as a necessary part of the human condition.

I once thought of writing a similar book. I wanted to call it “I Grieve, Therefore I Am." I wanted to show that to live well is to grieve well. Everything you have ever done has ended. Life is a prolonged farewell. Grief is the process that finishes things. The end of grief work is to be born again. So to live well is to grieve well.

When going through the grief of personal rejection, you need legitimization, social support and time. You need a loving and significant other to be with you. You need your feelings mirrored and affirmed. It’s better if you have more than one significant other. This is the advantage of having a 12-Step group or any kind of support group.

Grief goes through all the staged I’ve described: shock, denial, bargaining, depression, anger, remorse, sadness, hurt, loneliness, etc. You need time to go through your grief stages. The worst thing you can do is rush into a new quick-fix relationship. I’ve seen this happen disastrously. The new relationship covers up the grief core, and another layer of unfinished grief accrues. Grieving a rejection takes time. Stay close to nourishing and supportive relationships. You are a worthy and precious person, in spite of the other person’s leaving you.

Finally, remember that your “internalized shame” resulted from your childhood abandonments. Your worst fear (rejection) has already happened and you survived it. You were a needy, vulnerable and immature child and you survived. Wow! You can and will survive again.

From the book, "Healing The Shame That Binds You" By, John Bradshow

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