“Whatever is rejected from the self, appears in the world as an event.”
- C.G. Jung
What if this thing called rejection is only a story that the mind has conjured up to keep you from tasting the fullness of life? What if this fabrication is preventing you from experiencing the bliss of a true intimate connection with another soul? When you look deep within, to the darkest cave of your past, do you see the light of consciousness (sanity!) shining toward you, beckoning you to soar higher.. until you can no longer cling to this dysfunctional pit of darkness?
Out of all experiences in life rejection is the one that seems to push our buttons the most. No wonder we walk around with such a heavy emotional arsenal against it. A variety of defensive patterns that supposedly ”protect us” from getting hurt. Such as being overtly reclusive or independent, or getting caught in a shallow speed dating pattern, so you can reject others before they reject you. These barriers only shut us down further, and prevent the healing. Most of us crave intimacy on a deep, primal level, yet we block access to it because of old protective mechanisms.
Let’s face it: everyone has experienced rejection at some point in their lives and it was never pretty. Now you have two choices about it:
1. Do the work and heal this BS now!
2. Ignore it and pretend to move on (bad idea!).
Re-living our stories we only deepen the scar. This often happens when we enter in a relationship trying to patch up the wound with other people who are broken in the same way – dating people who carry the same scars. And before we realize it, the situation turns into one big rejection festival. Who left who? We have a way of hurting others in the same way that we have been hurt. Aaah.. it was the karma, you say. But this karma is only real if you were unaware of your story and chose to repeat it.
The Answer is in The Mirror..
All rejection is really our inner self rejection projecting itself into outer reality. We unconsciously sabotage the operation because of core beliefs we harbor. Whether it is you that are doing the rejecting or being rejected, it’s all part of the same play. Most likely the person who seemingly rejected you carried an unacknowledged part of your story that you weren’t ready to own. If you were not aware of this until now, this is the one realization that will turn your life inside out, or more accurately, outside in. There is no one else to blame. What now? Can you see how you’ve been hiding yourself from love because of this huge misunderstanding?
When you shift the focus on you alone, you stop finding fault in outer circumstances or other people. Find out how and why you are rejecting yourself. How do you keep yourself ”safe” so you don’t have to experience rejection again? Where do you hold feelings of not being worthy of love? These are the blocks that cause repeated rejection to occur. By healing the rejection wound within yourself, you no longer attract this experience in your life.
CAN YOU ANSWER THESE QUESTIONS TRUTHFULLY?
In what ways have I not allowed love into my life?
Have I not forgiven someone who seemingly ”rejected me”?
What defense patterns do I engage in that keep me from loving and being loved?
Am I holding on to hurt from past relationships ending?
Really, it’s ALL About Self Love…
“A cup that is already full has no room to receive.” – A Zen Proverb
Nobody else can love you unless you do. If your cup is full of defenses and hurt from all those outdated rejection encounters, you cannot receive the love you desire.
Somewhere in your inner operating system there is a command that says: I am not worthy of love or I am not good enough as I am. This prompt keeps you on automatic, no matter what your conscious wishes may be. If you think you can enter into a relationship and not have it end up in another rejection scenario, without doing the work of self forgiveness and healing, think again. These patterns don’t change until we do.
When we subconsciously send out signals of low self worth, what shoots back are situations and people that reflect it. Then we wonder why we keep getting into so-called rejection scenarios over and over again.
So find out what your inner blueprint says. Are you hiding a sense of worthlessness behind a facade of false pride, self directed sarcasm, rap about how none of this stuff even applies to you?
A quick way to see how much you really love yourself, is by taking a look at how people closest to you in your daily life are treating you. This is a direct barometer of your sense of self worth. The people closest to you, or their absence, can teach you most about how much you love yourself at this moment.
Remember that there is a bigger picture in every heartache. Life is really teaching you to love more – through the pain – even if it feels like a stagger in the heart. We continuously set ourselves up for rejection unless we truly learn how to accept and love ALL parts of ourselves. This is the journey back to wholeness.
THE SELF LOVE RECOVERY PLAN
There is no express way to self love. It’s a matter of making the choice, and then following up with consistency and commitment to yourself, day by day.
When you start focusing on loving yourself more and living life the way you want it, miracles start to happen. Suddenly, you see all these barriers crumbling down. This is the single most valuable thing you can do to yourself and others. All your experiences and relationships arise from this place of unconditional love and acceptance of yourself.
Here is the way it works: the more genuine self love you can allow in (not talking about egoistical, self indulgent kind of love, but soul love), the more loving people and circumstances you will attract in your life. From a place of authentic self love, it is impossible to experience rejection, because there is nothing to reject!
Don’t Be a Victim of Your Past
Start living in the present moment, conscious of who you want to be NOW. You have chosen this experience and now understand what it was really all about. Just process the experience(s) fully and choose to let go. Pain is part of life’s ebb and flow. It comes and goes, don’t hold on to it for longer than is necessary.
Ultimately, rejection is another story we tell ourselves to avoid being truly vulnerable and open. Allow the feelings to run through you without resistance, and realize that you were never truly rejected by anyone else, nor were they. All we really need to do is let go of the stories that keep us from realizing the illusion of separateness.
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Dear Life,
I would like to inform you that I am fully and completely present and available to myself, and in all my relations. I choose not to run away scared, like the abandoned and rejected child that has been avoiding being hurt for lifetimes. I choose not to recycle that story but to show up for myself and for others; to be truly vulnerable and willing to do the work that it takes to evolve and be human.
If it’s a choice between love and fear, I choose LOVE. I’ve done the dance of fear and unavailability long enough, and recognize that it no longer serves me. The lesson has been learned and well integrated – thank you! I am not going to vanish at the sight of slightest difficulty or conflict. I am here to face it with courage and understanding.
Teach me how to love without fear.
Aleeiah
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“If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.”
-Jim Rohn
I have always been really good with big life changes – changing countries, living situations, relationships – and you get the picture. But then recently, I noticed all this resistance coming up around a very small change in my life.
It’s ridiculous, really. I had to change computers and I didn’t want to. Even though my old one was drawing its last breaths and simply could not continue serving me.
This got me thinking about the real issue behind the resistance: fear. Since fear comes from the mind, and we are not our mind, all fear is, essentially, an illusion.
So, what was I really afraid of?
I realized that the computer itself is a symbol of the mind. It’s all about control, managing and thinking our way out of problems.
With my computer suddenly failing, I was reminded that there are some problems that cannot be solved with the thinking mind.
Furthermore, when we fear something, it is often the very thing that will set us FREE. Think of your fear as a key to a place called YOUR LIFE AS YOU REALLY WANT IT.
Whatever change you’re undergoing or pondering, big or small, the golden rule of all change is: COMMIT. Just commit to doing it. Failure or backing out of is not an option.
Here is a little 3-step program for easier change:
1. VISUALIZE YOUR BEST POSSIBLE SCENARIO
The act of visualization sends the message to your brain that this is possible. But don’t only see it, feel it. Feel what it’s like to live in the future version of you. And make a habit out of it. Neuroscience says that the brain doesn’t know the difference between an external and internal experience. We know that all change comes from within. In order for change to occur in outer reality, it has to seed and grow inside first. This is where you create the life you want.
2. DO SOMETHING DAILY YOU WOULDN’T NORMALLY DO
A useful trick for showing yourself that change is nothing to fear. It can be as small as going to a different supermarket than you normally go to, talking to a stranger, or even taking a different route to work than you normally would. See how you feel after altering your daily course. That wasn’t so bad, huh?
When you’ve done something out of the ordinary, something that maybe frightened you once, you’ll start to expand yourself to all kinds of different possibilities. Smaller changes pave the way to bigger changes.
3. GET OUT OF YOUR HEAD
Literally. Meditate. Run. Sing. Paint. Do anything that stops the thinking, for at least 30 minutes per day.
The mind likes to think it’s in charge of the show. When you quiet the mind, the rest of you follows. Then, you can truly get out of your own way and let the needed change unfold – naturally and without resistance.
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“Greet yourself in your thousand other forms as you mount the hidden tide and travel back home.” – Hafiz
All my life I have been seeking for this elusive thing called love. But, looking for love hasn’t brought me any closer to it. Quite the opposite, actually.
Then, sometime ago I went through a trauma that woke me up. I had just lost a baby and left a painful relationship. I was so shattered that all I could do for weeks on end, was to lay on the floor and listen to silence.. it was somewhere in that silence that I entered an awareness where all desire for any kind of seeking dropped. As I laid on the floor week after week, I began to surrender to the pain and decided to listen to what it had to say. I was exhausted on all levels of my being, and there was just nowhere else to go.
To my surprise, what was underneath the pain was an ocean of Love. I felt how everything I had ever searched for was already in me; like a kaleidoscope that reflects an entire world in a single fragment. Separation no longer existed – I was one with everything I had ever sought for. This was home and I had been there before countless times, but somehow kept forgetting the way back. Seeking hadn’t brought me there. It was only after I stopped seeking, that a door opened.
“Lovers don’t finally meet somewhere, they’re in each other all along..” – Rumi
Have you ever been in a perfect relationship and still secretly yearned for more, for something deeper? We wander from one relationship to the next in search of the “one” true love.
Each time, when you look into your lover’s eyes, what do you see? A reflection of yourself.
We constantly buy into some counterfeit form of love: sex, romance, egoic attraction and so on. Then, we assign conditions and objects to this love. But, the love that needs a condition or a face is not the true story. You may be caught in the temporary delusion that love mysteriously appears when you meet a “match” or a certain condition is filled. When the conditions of your love affair fall out of favor, what is left of this love?
Sometimes, it takes many heartbreaks and fruitless quests to understand that romantic love is not what we ultimately seek.
All the people, shapes and forms we fall in love with in the exterior world are only ripples on the surface of an endless, primordial ocean. In the end, romantic love can only remind us of the divine, unconditional, unchanging love that is our true home. It exists as a force of nature that secretly powers everything. Love can never leave you, because it’s what you’re made of. We are caught in a perpetual search for outside love only because we have forgotten this simple truth.
“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” -Rumi
I had understood the concept intellectually, and even felt it in fleeting moments, but it had never taken root until I had exhausted myself with suffering.
Finally, I saw that what my heart really longed for, was not a lover, but to return back to its source. True Love is not a question of finding anything or anyone to love, but remembering who you are.
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Photography by Leea
“You create your own universe as you go along” – Winston Churchill
The country I grew up in had two TV channels at the time. That was all that was available. Then, a few years later they added a third one. By the time I was a teenager another one came – channel 4.
I remember feeling overwhelmed by all these new channels that had popped up.
In the U.S alone, there are hundreds of channels. Television is like a micro-cosmos of life on earth: at each given moment, we choose which channel we wanna tune into.
When I watch TV I’m getting thoughts, ideas and subconscious signals of somebody else’s pretended life. All my time, energy, and focus is being wasted on fiction, instead of what’s really happening – and more importantly, what could be happening if I wasn’t pouring my attention down the tube.
When you choose something on TV, it’s called entertainment. When you choose something in real life, it’s called manifesting your own reality. Both actions are governed by the same basic principles of energy.
Our lives are created by the choices we make. If you’re flipping through too many channels, you not only get sensory overload, but become de-sensitized to your choices and what’s really happening in your life.
What if I Can’t Choose What I Want?
Not being able to make up your mind is another type of choice; one that creates chaos and unpredictability. Some may call the result of this kind of choice ‘chance’ or ‘luck’. Getting lucky simply means that somewhere along the line you made a choice without knowing it, and it happened to be in alignment with your best wishes. If you were unlucky you made a choice that was in alignment with you fears; what you didn’t want.
Frequently, we are unconscious of our choices. Having gazillion channels buzzing around creates static, and makes it more difficult to discern your own truth from fiction.
If there’s fear, lack and confusion in your life, then take a look at the channels you’ve been tuning into. What has your attention and intention been focused on lately?
What About Other People’s Choices?
Everyone has a channel. We are all stars in our own reality show. If two channels merge by conscious intent, the frequency shifts and the channels can become co-creators of the same show. Multiplied by many viewers, the channels’ power grows. This is how realities are created: choice, attention and focused intent.
You can’t consciously create your own reality when you’re caught up in someone else’s drama.
What other people choose does not matter, unless their wishes happen to align with yours. If they choose the opposite of what you want, there’s nothing you can do, apart from undertaking futile resistance. Your channel is your own making.
Change The Channel
All our experiences are created by the choices we make and the intentions behind the choice. Choose what is most significant and relevant to you, and use the power of your attention, focus and will to align with the outcome you want.
There is nothing else standing between the life you wanna lead and where you stand currently, except these three very powerful steps. If you don’t like what’s playing in your life, change the channel. It’s about as simple as that.
Furthermore, get off CNN, Facebook, Twitter (after you Tweet this post) and whatever else is distracting you and start focusing on the life YOU want to create.
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Photography by Martin Marcisovsky
“We either make ourselves miserable or we make ourselves happy. The amount of work is the same.” -Carlos Castaneda
Earlier in my life I was addicted to drugs. Then alcohol. Then martial arts. Then adrenaline. Anything that made me forget the pain would do. Later, I became addicted to knowledge and learning. At the moment, I am addicted to chocolate pudding and Bob Dylan.
Nearly everyone has some form of addiction. Addictions are born from the belief that we are not complete as we are. That we need to look outside ourselves for something that will fill the void, complete us in someway, and take away the pain. Rather than going through the emotions, we reach for something to numb them out.
It doesn’t matter what your addiction is to – booze, love, sex, drama, even spiritual teachings – it all comes from the same source of incompleteness. We think that people, thoughts, or things outside of us can fill that bottomless pit of hunger in our being.
Feelings and thoughts come and go. That’s all that the pain is – just a feeling that needs to pass through, so you can learn from it.
I’ve had friends and family members who have died from addictions. Because they never faced the source of their pain. What a waste. Often, we spend more energy in trying to avoid the pain, than it would take to just look at it and let it come out. So, that’s what it was all about? Some rejected feelings that got blown out of proportion.
Reality check.
If you are addicted to something you are out of touch with your emotions and need to ask yourself the following questions:
What do I avoid and reject?
What emotions have I not allowed myself to fully process and feel?
What truth about my life have I not faced?
If you don’t meet your pain, it will come to meet you. Chances are you will be out of your favorite drug-of-choice when it happens. Then what? You can either face the pain directly or perish. Accept the reality of this moment or exhaust yourself by fighting and resisting it.
The emotional band-aid that the addiction provides disappears as easily as it came to be. Then, we’re left with the void again; in an endless cycle of seeking external fulfillment. The pain never goes away by hiding it. It’s always there, only numbed out and in exile. I’ve realized with my own addictions over the years, that I can never escape something that is part of me. I can only accept it, try to understand it and then transform it.
Truth is that nothing “out there” can complete us. Because we are already complete, only somehow we’ve forgotten this. Feeling the pain is vital. The more we allow ourselves to feel, the more understanding we develop, and the more healing can take place.
There is no right or wrong. It’s all just LIFE.
We think of something as good or bad, right or wrong, because we were born with the idea of separation and duality. Black and white. Hot and cold. Pain and pleasure.
Putting labels on everything makes us more comfortable. But, can we ever really and truly know what something is? It surely doesn’t get any better because we know. To know that I am in pain doesn’t bring any relief.
You can call it what you want, join groups and try to force yourself out of the addiction, but you’re never gonna be in complete recovery, until you understand and process the root of the pain.
Besides, nobody is perfect.
There is no such a thing as perfection. It’s only a story you’ve made up.
I still struggle with the search of external happiness from time to time. What helps me get through it, is that I allow myself to feel the pain and emptiness, and to make mistakes.
If we knew without a question of a doubt, and not just as an abstract thought, that we are all connected to one source of life, would there be a need to search for something on the outside to complete us? I think not. We would understand that we already are, and have everything we could ever want – and most importantly – that we are never alone.
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“We are attracted to people who express the qualities we deny or repress in ourselves.” -Shakti Gawain
You keep going to the same restaurant year after year, ordering the same meal. It’s comforting and you feel good when you’re eating it. But when you get home you feel sick to your stomach. You couldn’t resist because it’s your favorite food!
Relationships are like this too. We have our favorite subconscious pattern that we keep ordering, again and again – only with different people and various appetizers.
When we get sick we blame the restaurant, then the cook, or the meal itself.
The Truth is That You Placed The Order
Last year I entered into a relationship that seemed fairytale-like at first. After a few months, the turbulence kicked in, and I realized I was in the same situation as in all my previous relationships: feeling rejected and abandoned.
In the past, I’ve chosen men that were unavailable, in one way or another. Then usually some kind of abandonment scenario would ensue.
It’s the exact opposite of what I consciously want. Yet, it’s what I’ve been getting nearly every time.
So, What’s Going on?
We enter into significant relationships to work out our major issues, often established in early childhood.
As a child, you have no filter for what’s wrong or right, you simply absorb whatever is going on. If one of your parents left, or there was any kind of abuse going on; be it mental, verbal or physical, rest assured that you will be acting out your dramas with your partners. It’s a subconscious play that repeats itself until the wound is healed.
Relationships are no play date. Being in one is much like holding a mirror to your deepest fears. This is what you need to face, learn and let go. Consequently, that’s what you get until you do.
You Can Call it Karma or Law of Attraction..
We choose our partners because they resonate to the same underlying emotional patterns we hold. This connection holds a key to something we need to resolve and heal. This is the soul’s way of pushing us to the next level in our evolution.
Early Abandonment Issues?
My father was not around much. When he was there, he would retreat into his own world, leaving to work on cars until late at night. This was his way of escaping the family life that he really didn’t want. He simply wasn’t emotionally or physically available for most of my life.
Naturally, my mother felt abandoned. Finally, she left me and my father after years of deep unhappiness and resentment. I was left growing up by myself, since my dad was largely unavailable and did not know how to function in the parenting world.
Acting Out Subconscious Patterns
As children we have no other playground for relationship models except those of our parents. This was the relationship blueprint I had taken on from early childhood: I keep choosing men that are emotionally or physically unavailable, so I can avoid truly connecting, in fear of abandonment. It’s pretty obvious where I picked that one up.
If you were abandoned or felt rejected by one or both of your parents, you might be stuck in a similar relationship pattern.
Don’t Re-live the Past
Anyone who has been in a long term relationship has likely repeated their traumas a few times over, leaving hurt and wondering what the hell happened in the end.
We keep re-living our past, until we become conscious of the underlying patterns, and start to do the work that is required to overcome the dysfunctions.
Take Responsibility
Avoiding your problem or projecting it on someone else is a foolproof recipe for conflict and separation. Have a look the issue that keeps popping up as a common theme in your relationships. Are you seeing the pattern yet?
Once you’ve chosen to take responsibility for your repressed emotions, you will come to see that you’re attracting difficult relationships and connections for a reason: to heal your past and mature beyond the wounded ego.
Look at Things From Both Sides
It’s easy to get stuck in drama and hurt when you only see your side of the story. Try to look at things from your partner’s perspective. Doing this opens you up to the empathy that both need, in order to resolve any conflict.
What was his childhood like? What were the major events that took place in his life? How did his past relationships end? Look into his early traumas, and put yourself in his place. How do your past experiences mirror his?
What if it Doesn’t Work Out?
If only one party is ready to work on resolving deeper issues, the relationship will likely terminate, and usually not in a pretty way.
Be willing to learn from the experience, instead of lingering in the pain and hurt of past stories, and you will be ahead of the game next time around.
There is a valuable lesson in every difficult or painful seeming relationship. If you do not see the lesson, that doesn’t mean there wasn’t one. You have simply chosen not to look at it, and are surely in for a repeat course.
Quote Wisdom:
“We do not attract what we want, but what we are” -James Lane Allen
“Be grateful for whoever comes, because each guest has been sent as a guide from beyond” –Rumi
“There are hundred paths through the world that are easier than loving. But, who wants easier?” – Mary Oliver
Related posts:
“If you really want to do something, you will find a way. If you don’t, you will find an excuse.” – Unknown
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Are You Really Listening to Your Intuition?
Traveling Without Baggage
(a story of how I gave up all my possessions)
7 Ways to Get More Kick Out of Life
Namaste,
MD Owl
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Photo by Martin Marcisovsky
Know things in nature
are like a person.
Talk to tornadoes;
talk to the thunder,
they are your friends
and will protect you.
- Anonymous Navajo poem
(From the Medicine Owl poetry archives)
“Arise from dreams of littleness, to the realization of the vastness within you.” – Yogananda
You’re standing at a crossroads. You can smell a new path is about to emerge, but you haven’t quite figured out how yet. A relationship that should be over, but you can’t let go. A job that you hate, but are afraid to quit. A general feeling of unease, depression or anxiety, that won’t go away, and you don’t know where to go from here.
We transform in order to grow. When the old patterns in our lives no longer support the soul’s evolution, they fall apart.
“The shell must break before the bird can fly.” -Tennyson
It’s all too easy to get stuck in repetitive behaviors, beliefs and situations, no matter how uncomfortable or unhealthy they really are.
When you break an old dysfunctional setting in your life, you’re simply peeling away that which is no longer useful to your journey, in order to help you grow and get closer to the truth of who you really are.
That Which You Resist Stays
When change occurs, it is always to catalyst our evolution into higher consciousness. When you resist the process of change in your life, there is suffering and turmoil. Let go of the resistance and watch the opportunities unfold.
The price for not going for it and letting the fear hold you back is more of the same.
Your Heart is The Key to Transformation
Ignore what your mind is telling you, or what you think will happen, or what people around you might say. In order to bring about transformation, it must come from the heart’s intention.
Make an initiative for change, from the heart level, and then take action to follow in course. The mind can set your own your way, but it doesn’t know how to bring you all the way there, only the heart does.
Living IT
The secret of manifesting a change, is to focus only on the outcome you desire, not the journey or its difficulties. Go into your heart, and feel what it’s like to already be there, on the other side. Look into the future and see it as NOW. What does it feel like? If it excites you and makes you feel happy and alive, you are headed the right way.
The change you want will come when you can feel it, clearly, as if it’s already happening. Adding gratitude to the mix, will speed up the process. This is the easiest way to invite transformation into your life.
More transformational quotes:
“To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” -Henri Bergson
“Sometimes a breakdown can be the beginning of a kind of breakthrough, a way of living in advance through a trauma that prepares you for a future of radical transformation.” – Cherrie Moraga
“Your life does not get better by chance, it gets better by change.”- Jim Rohn
“Constant development is the law of life, and a man who always tries to maintain his dogmas in order to appear consistent drives himself into a false position.” – Gandhi
“As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world — that is the myth of the atomic age — as in being able to remake ourselves.” – Gandhi
