Rejection happens to us all and we carry the scars to prove it. Even small cuts can really sting; grazes and scrapes are all hurtful and one of the reasons people tend to experience such sharp emotional pain when they encounter rejection is that the same areas in the brain are activated when people experience rejection as when they experience physical pain.
"Despite how common rejection is, few people know how to soothe the emotional pain it evokes and still fewer recognise the Psychological wounds.
In addition to causing sharp emotional pain, rejection also damages self-esteem, it makes you angry, it increases aggressive impulses (one of the main reasons people punch walls), and it destabilises your need to feel connected." - Guy Winch
We howl and cry when in physical pain. Yet we defend our inner self when in emotional pain, we cover the wound with a plaster that and sometimes never remove it; it is soiled, horrible and dirty but still in place.
From an early age we begin to deceive ourselves. Self deception is the use of defence mechanisms that ease emotional pain.
You may ask, " but isn't that a good thing?" ...no, because we want to grow and mature. We want to have strength of character to overcome setbacks.
Let's do an exercise and see whether we can pick out our own means of self deception when dealing with emotional trauma. If we recognise them we can learn to face up to our emotional pain and begin our road to healing, getting to know our authentic self.
Deep breath...here we go...remember defence mechanisms are one of our commonest ways to cope with unpleasant emotions:
1. Denial: the first step in the cycle of any loss. I believe denial is a soft cushion on which to lay your head, just for a moment, before you have to face up to reality but denial can become a way of life.
2. Repression: a step up from denial. "It never happened" We can completely block out the trauma. The difficulty being that it can pop up at anytime in our memory.
3. Regression: slipping back into childish behaviour. I have seen a grown man throw a tantrum like a 2 year old! A childish dependency may be the outcome of continuous regressive behaviour, which may lead to codependent behaviour.
4. Displacement: our "kicking the dog" analogy. Instead of focusing on the problematic person, we displace our anger or other emotions on the poor dog or another unlucky individual.
5. Projection: this is extremely challenging to recognise; a simple example: you buy an expensive outfit but feel it does not look so good on you. You arrive at a party wearing it and decide your friends stared at it just a moment too long; you blurt out, "Why don't you like my outfit?"
6. Reaction Formation: we all know the quote " the lady doth protest too much". This describes reaction formation. We have seen it played out, outward behaviour that shows the opposite of what a person is truly like in secret.
7. Intellectualising: we immediately start to think of solutions instead of feeling the pain e.g. A flat mate leaves after a fight, you sit down and work out your finances.
8. Rationalisation : letting ourselves off the hook and blaming others or circumstances.
9. Sublimation: it is a long term cognitive response to earlier pain and is played out by "paying it forward" to others in pain. Most psychologists and those in ‘helping professions’ can find themselves in this place.
Ponder this:
“I know that when a door closes, it can feel like all doors are closing. A rejection letter can feel like everyone will reject us. But a closed door leads to clarity. It's really an arrow. Because we cannot go through that door, we will go somewhere else. That somewhere else is your true life.”
― Tama J. Kieves
Rejection really can be your protection, if we feel that pain, we will look back and accept our new path and ourselves.
Resources:
Whitbourne, SK, Fulfillment at any Age. 2011
No comments:
Post a Comment