Feelings of rejection are in your control

Rejection comes in many forms:

- A partner letting you go
- A parent's neglect
- A friend's lack of respect, support or loyalty

These rejections can stay with you for days, week, months - even years and as a result they can negatively impact on your life.

Rejection is made up of 1 part: your interpretation of external behaviors and the other part: your expectation of people, circumstances and events.

With regards to the first part, we are often not trained from a young age to interpret the attitudes and behaviors of significant others accurately. For instance, parents rarely explain to their children that they are 'snappy' today due to their own underlying stress. As a result, children learn to interpret such behaviors as meaning there must be something wrong with them or that they have done something wrong.

With regard to the second part, your expectations also influence your interpretation of events. Thus, in the above example, children have the expectation that parents are there to love them unconditionally, so they need lots of reassurance that even when they misbehave or are spoken to in a less than patient manner - they are still loved.

In order to deal with rejection as an adults, it's important to have realistic expectations and to explain events accurately. Let's use a career example. When you put your heart and soul into work (as many people do), you are likely to have the expectation that hard work equals validation, recognition and financial rewards. However, this is not necessarily the case. Hard work gives you a better chance of attaining these things, however if you fail to take opportunities, voice your desire for financial incentives/promotions, or ensure the 'right' people at work are made aware of the great job you're doing, you are less likely to achieve the accolades you desire. Consequently you are likely to feel rejected by your employer and may even start to doubt your abilities as a result. However, in the event that you were passed on for promotion, you have the option of viewing this as a sign of your inadequacies, or instead to view it as a reminder that you need to tweak your work process. Thus, your interpretation of the outcome will also influence how rejected you feel in that moment.

The same principles can be applied in relationships. Often in partnerships individuals do not take the time to address issues that are important to them and end up losing too much of themselves in the partnership - for fear of losing the person, or simply to keep the peace. This giving so much of themselves can lead to an expectation of receiving the same or more in return. However, often such grandiose gestures are not reciprocated. This in turn leads to feelings of rejection, as the lack of similar support is viewed as a reflection of themselves rather than of their partners inadequacies.

In order to avoid feeling rejected, you must change your mindset. Whilst no one likes to feel hurt by another persons actions, the way you respond to this hurt will dictate whether or not you interpret the other persons behavior as a personal rejection or just a problem the other person may need to address within themselves - in other words its their problem - not yours!.

Stop making excuses in relationships

It's very common for women in particular to make excuses for the behavior of partners at the expense of themselves - particularly in new relationships. Women who are likely to be suffering from low self esteem can find themselves in relationships where they are having to guess how much a new partner really likes them, wants to be with them and/or wants to be in a committed relationship with them.

As an outsider, it's often easy to see the problem in these situations - these women often desperately wants to believe the relationship will work, so they seek potential signs to prove the relationship will be a success. Often the search is for signs the other person likes Them. However this is where most of the problem lies. In seeking validation, women can confuse whether someone likes them, with whether someone wants to be in a committed relationship with them. They are very different things. The respective partner most likely enjoys the woman's company but if she is having to question his true intentions, he is not willing to give her as much as she truly desires.

It's very important for men and women to be VERY clear about the person they want to attract and the relationship they would like to have. In doing so, early warning signs of negative behavior (such as being distant, being rude, flirting with other people and showing a lack of respect) provide clear direction to either walk away or clarify the behavior early on - then make a decision about staying or leaving.

The key issue here is self respect and self value. People put up with bad friends, partners, family members and associates because humans have an innate need to be liked. However, it's important to remind yourself regularly that avoiding assertive actions (standing up for what you feel is acceptable behavior in a relationship) empowers you to create positive and supportive relationships. These relationships in turn help you to grow and succeed as a human being.

Defining your relationship by how comfortable you are at communicating

It's interesting to note that whilst personal relationships should be the ideal place to communicate freely, it is in these relationships that you are most likely to experience the most fear in doing so. It is the fear of rejection (on any level) that leads to anxiety over displeasing others - and... This fear of rejection usually can be traced back to your relationship within your family.

The way in which you communicate and the level to which you feel free to speak up within your family has a direct impact on how you communicate within your friendships and within your intimate relationships. On a conscious level you are likely to be a great advice giver because you can see objectively the result of poor communication within relationships, however, taking your own advice and acting upon it - is a very different matter.

Lets discuss an example below

Imagine that you enter into an exciting new relationship. At the start of the relationship you are so focused on pleasing the other person that you allow many indiscretions to slide and avoid speaking up, for fear that you may be rejected or criticized. You compromise on things you would never suggest your friends compromise on (such as sleeping together before you're really sure about the relationship) and you allow things to be said that would normally upset you.

For a few months you keep up the act, but soon your self respect kicks in and you can no longer hold your tongue. Subsequently, at (most likely) inappropriate times, you explode and end up having a huge argument with your partner. Your partner then responds in a nasty manner because he/she is not used to this behavior. Your outburst is significantly different to the passive and supportive role you have been playing up to that point.

After the outburst you apologize profusely for your behavior and as a result avoid the conversation underlying the outburst. You revert back to passive behavior and, as expected, in time another outburst occurs. Eventually as a result of not having sufficient grounding in the relationship, your partner is confused and disheartened by your change in behavior and ends up leaving you.

Whilst in the example above, the partner would appear to have poor empathy, it is logical to expect anyone entering a new relationship to have low tolerance for change in one's personality. For a partner to enter the relationship as a positive and relaxed personality and then to turn into a nagger or display a temper personality would cause many people to wonder where their partner had disappeared to.

The solution to all this is to begin to face your fears and speak up when your inner voice tells you it's time to do so. Each step you move towards assertiveness takes you another step closer to removing passive aggressive behavior. The key to this change however, is believing that a small bit of discomforts is much more tolerable than losing yourself and not being true to yourself - simply to keep the peace.