By Elayne Savage, PhD
May is Mental Health Month. Let's take a look at how stressful everyday work and personal situations can be. Relationships, productivity, and our physical and emotional well-being are affected.
Changing the way we think about something does wonders to change how we feel about ourselves, our world and the people in it.
Rejection, fear of rejection, and disappointments often lead to taking things personally. Taking things personally saps our energy and productivity, especially when we dwell on perceived slights for hours, or even days.
Based on the emails I've been receiving, a lot of people would like to focus on a huge topic - feeling left out. So let's take a look.
For example, Ginny writes about a recent strategy meeting with her manager and a co-worker. When she walked into the conference room the manager and co-worker were already there, chatting away. Their giggly, chummy behavior continued - and they acted as if Ginny wasn't there. It felt exclusionary and hurtful. It was definitely awkward. Once they got down to business, Ginny still felt left out. She could barely concentrate on the discussion. Her mind kept going to the negative messages she was telling herself about why they were excluding her.
And the rest of the day was shot as well. Ginny found it almost impossible to concentrate on her project. She found her mind traveling back to the experience in the conference room. And that awful feeling in the pit of her stomach.
She wanted to explore it with me during a session. I asked, "When have you felt this way in the past?" Ginny connected it to interactions with peers. "In Middle School, and High School, too." Ginny had lots of memories of feeling left out, unwanted, like an outsider: "I felt ignored, hurt, and lonely. It felt as though I was always knocking on doors, wanting to be let in and there was no entry.
"I remember a couple of times some girls were whispering when I walked into the room. They noticed me and stopped talking. And then there were the times I was so hurt when I wasn't invited to a party, even when I was a little girl."
Group interactions can be especially troublesome and hurtful: Another client remembers, “I felt like a third wheel with my friends . . . I'd find myself walking two steps behind them, then three . . . feeling sorry for myself . . . each step I took intensified my sense of being on the outside creating an even more intensified sense of being on the outside . . . becoming more and more invisible, thinking, ‘They’re so involved in conversation, they don’t even notice I’m not walking with them.'
“Sometimes, all these years later, I still find myself dropping back when I’m walking with two other people - and feeling sorry for myself just as I did in the old days.”
Can you relate to this painful common teen experience? Have you experienced being left out when you are with friends? Does that feeling still affect you now? What are your other left out experiences? I welcome your experiences in the comment section at www.QueenofRejection.com .
Not Making the Cut
Andrew expected to be chosen to be included in an upcoming coveted project. For several weeks he had been imagining himself as part of this prestigious team and how it would look on is resume. He was devastated when he was passed over. The intensity of his reaction surprised him.
When has Andrew felt this way before? He recognized the feeling right away:There have been many sports fantasies that didn't turn out the way he dreamed. He was a slight kid who was usually chosen last for the softball games even though he was a pretty good hitter. "When I’d come up to bat I’d hear the other kids whispering, ‘He’s an easy out.' I guess you could say the position I played was 'left out.' If no one gave me a chance, how could I ever prove myself? It just didn't seem fair!"
And not being chosen for the project at work brought up all those old feelings. By making these connections and understanding his reactions in his current situation, Andrew was able to gain enough distance from old hurts and move on to new challenges.
Going Invisible
Danielle tried hard to be noticed in school, but always felt invisible to others. She thought she was speaking up a lot in class, but as we talked about it, she realized her actions actually contributed to classmates not seeing and hearing her. "I had trouble making eye contact and I'd lower my voice to a whisper. No wonder no one noticed me!"
There are dozens of 'feeling left out' stories in 'Don't Take It Personally! The Art if Dealing with Rejection' especially in the chapter on peer rejection - "Friends Today, Gone Tomorrow."
http://tinyurl.com/5cg598
On the Outside Looking In
On a personal note, I've been struggling with left out experiences most of my life. I grew up feeling different from other people. Mostly it was about not having a mother in a world where every family seemed to be intact.
If you read my writings or have heard me speak professionally, you know the story of the plane crash that killed my mother and grandmother when I was twelve. When my mother told me she was leaving to take my grandmother to the Mayo clinic, I saw it as my mother choosing my grandmother over me. I felt left out. And the next thing I knew, they were dead.
Having a mother who’d died in a nationally publicized accident was not only devastating but mortifying.
The first day of eighth grade was a week after the plane crash. I was walking across the schoolyard where students were clustered. As soon as they spotted me, they stopped talking. I just knew they had been talking about me, feeling sorry for me. I remember feeling incredibly different from everyone - like the only person in the world without a mother. I was the center of attention, yet I was alone and lonely.
I felt like a freak.
Another factor in my 'left out' growing up experiences was moving several times back and forth across the country. Each community has different customs, even different accents. Learning new social skills and rules is a set-up for rejection. Being 'different' is often not well tolerated well by peers. I made lots of embarrassing blunders. I felt on the outside looking in.
Interestingly, at a recent high-school reunion, we were sitting around reminiscing, and I heard one of the most popular guys say how he never felt part of the crowd. I couldn't believe he said that. I was shocked. I always saw him as being the very center of everything, but it seems he didn’t feel that way. And here I thought it was just me who was so sensitive.
There are lots of times over the years when 'left out' feelings re-emerge and knock me off my center. It took a long time, but I have learned how not to feel overwhelmed by these feelings anymore. They just don't have the negative power over me anymore that they once had.
As I "walk along side myself," I pay attention to my process and notice how I may be feeling rejected, taking something personally or giving myself self-rejecting messages.
As I noted above, changing the way we think about something does wonders to change our behavior and relationships. Here are some tips that have worked for me, my psychotherapy and consultation clients:
• Learn to recognize the signs when those “left out” feelings start to take over.
• Remind yourself that you may be feeling rejected at these times - even betrayed or abandoned. But that may not be how others perceive their interaction with you.
• Putting words to your feelings will help define the situation for you. Speaking them out loud to safe people is even better.
By understanding your history and process about feeling left out you will be able to change the way you respond to overwhelming feelings. And its easier to keep your balance and your composure.
It helps to ask yourself some questions to understand what you are experiencing:
• Am I taking this personally? How?
• Is there any cause for me to feel threatened?
• Am I feeling rejected in some way?
• Where did this reaction come from? Is it something “old”?
And most likely it is an old message we picked up while navigating the bumpy road of peer or family interactions. Discovering what that message is lets you make choices about whether you want to continue down that same path or back up to the fork in the road and explore another direction.
Until next month,
Elayne
Elayne Savage is the author of ground-breaking books published in 9 languages.
You can order books and CDs directly from my website.
http://www.QueenofRejection.com/publications.htm
To order DON'T TAKE IT PERSONALLY! THE ART OF DEALING
WITH REJECTION from Amazon:
http://tinyurl.com/5cg598
To order BREATHING ROOM — CREATING SPACE TO BE
A COUPLE from Amazon:
http://tinyurl.com/2e3objs
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