REJECTION

"There's nothing like rejection to make you do an inventory of yourself." - James Lee Burke 

As a little kid, my family (parents) were so precious to me. I loved my father so much that anything he did must be right. He was my knight in shining armour. He was my hero. He was my comfort. Matter of fact I wanted to be like him when I grew up. I remember the way he used to give me a bath and prepare me for school. He taught me (I'm sure I learned from him), how to iron shirts and shorts so straight you'd think someone used a ruler to measure it. Somehow, I can't exactly remember what happened and things began to go wrong. My dad all of a sudden wasn't the loving, patient, concerned father he'd been. It got so bad he moved out of the house and one day in court while the issue of separation was being debated, he was walking out of the room when I rushed to him and he looked me straight in the eyes (a little 4 or so year old kid), and said "I'm not your father, ask your mother who your father is".

Now that happened many years ago, but the truth is from that moment on, I can't explain it, but I just noticed that a certain boldness eloped. Disappeared. I went through most of life with the mindset that I wasn't good enough to achieve anything good. I had a very low self esteem all my childhood years. I was intelligent, absolutely. But every time I felt, and I kept hearing "you're not good enough. Look at your friends they have both parents leaving together with them. They are the ones who are supposed to achieve greatness, not you". All my life I kept hearing that and into adulthood today I still fight "low self esteem", but thank God it's not as bad as it was growing up.

Rejection can cause a series of damaging events in your life; it really hurts. Most rejections inflict damage to our psychological well-being that goes way beyond mere emotional pain. In most cases can cause one to have a "low self esteem" that can hunt them all their lives. Here are some known facts that describe some psychological impacts rejection has on our emotions, thinking, and behaviour.

1. Rejection piggybacks on physical pain pathways in the brain: fMRI studies show that the same areas of the brain become activated when we experience rejection as when we experience physical pain. This is why rejection hurts so much (neurologically speaking). In fact our brains respond so similarly to rejection and physical pain that we feel physical pain from rejection as with an injury, and sometimes more.

No matter how painfully rejected you have been in the past, you can receive healing today, now is the day of salvation. Step up, shoulder high, chest out and walk tall...there's no one better than you out there. Those who rejected you weren't qualified to be with you. Don't cry over it; rejoice and be happy.