When we were in elementary school, we often listened to stories from our teachers about loving others, sharing, and learning to have empathy for those around us. Likewise, teaching empathy to children will undoubtedly positively impact them, such as shaping them to become better people, helping them build strong relationships with other children, and learning to tolerate differences.
I still remember when I was a volunteer at an orphanage near my school. I was helping a teacher there for a session that the head of the orphanage had arranged. The children were asked to sit in a circle. One by one, they were asked to stand and stay in the middle of the circle. Then, the teacher asked the other children to praise the child. I was pretty impressed with the session until a child who could be considered quite different from his friends came forward. He had a much different physical appeareance than the others, and as he advanced, not a single child spoke. The class became very quiet, and finally, the child cried loudly. At the end of the class, the child told the teacher that he was embarrassed and sad that no one was praising him, even though he praised the other children when it was their turn.
I felt sorry for him and came to understand that the feeling of being rejected by others hurts and lingers for days or years. I have often experienced rejection, and even now, I still can’t forget that experience. And the rejection I felt had an impact that I can feel to this day. As a result, I often become insecure about myself and often compare myself to others.
I then tried to look at articles on the internet to ignore and take the pain of getting rejected. Several of these articles provide the same tips, which I find self-explanatory and not very helpful until I watched a video from a YouTuber, where he did a challenge that lasted for 100 days. I look at the website and see 100 different ideas to get people to reject it every day. The point of the website is that the way to relieve the pain of rejection is to get rejected.
Although I haven’t had the chance to try this challenge, I have read other people’s experiences. So many of them feel significantly helped and get a positive impact, also durable for their lives in the future. Overall, there are four things they can learn after doing the challenge.
First, the more a person is rejected, the less pain will be and go away, making it easier to respond to a rejection. The key is always to train yourself to be outside your comfort zone.
So, how do you get out of your comfort zone? When we get rejected by someone, we tend to just walk away without listening to the reasons. The second thing to learn is not to walk away from rejection. The more a person avoids rejection, he will not achieve what he wants because he will continue to act safely. He also indirectly assumes that this offer is impossible for others to accept, which adds to his self-doubt.
The third thing is that people refuse is not because of the person who made the offer, but rather themselves. There is a possibility that their mood, feelings, and circumstances at that time were terrible or not good, so they decided to refuse. The point is to remember that the reason lies with them, not the person making the offer.
The last thing is to turn a rejection into an opportunity. A person can find the positive side of any rejection and change their opinion from saying ‘no’ to ‘yes’.
What is the point of this article? To show you the best way to deal with rejection, you have to face it head-on. You never know what you can get until you decide to keep trying. We need rejection, specifically the pain of rejection, to learn how to accept rejection calmly and control our feelings. That way, we can know more about personal strengths and weaknesses and learn and develop continuously.
That is the beauty of rejection.
Words by: Victoria Liv
Picture credit: Monstera Pexels
Sources: Rejection Therapy