Self-Rejection Leads You to Reject Others

When you live in a state of self-rejection, you often will not realize that you are actually also rejecting others.

How many times in your life have you experienced the acute pain of being rejected by people? It is a pain like nothing else. People breaking up with us, ghosting or ignoring us, not reciprocating our love, belittling and demeaning us, bullying us—all for no really good reason, too. Right? I mean, you are likely a pretty decent person on the whole. This happens all too frequently in our world today and there are really important reasons for why this happens. I’ll explain.

My Self-Rejection Origination Story

Were you ever bullied by anyone as a kid? Many of us were. I was. I was bullied about my weight and it was very detrimental, humiliating, and extremely sad for me. I was a very kind and loving kid. I was lonely and I used food as comfort after school when my parents were working. I was a Latch-Key kid in the 80s and I loved my sitcoms and my HoHos and Pepsi a little too much. I covered up my loneliness with comfort foods and Gilligan’s Island, Three’s Company, The Brady Bunch, Happy Days, and many other funny shows in order to escape my loneliness. On top of the sadness I felt most of the time, I was also bullied when I began adding a lot of weight to my frame. The TV shows provided me “friendship” and “love” when my parents were working and otherwise absent and when people were mean or distant because of my weight (or so I imagined anyway). I had been a really normal-weight, thin child until about nine years old. Lots of things were happening in my family life, to me personally in the form of molestation from trusted older caregivers and bullying boys in my neighborhood, and the death of my favorite uncle between the ages of five and eight and I am sure I felt a lot of conflicting feelings throughout that time. I was misunderstood, told I was too sensitive and to get a thicker skin, mocked and humiliated, rejected, and bullied instead of comforted. I was blamed for being irresponsible with my food choices rather than seen and understood as having been traumatized, lonely, sad, and confused about everything that was happening in my life.

Children simply do not have the resources or the abstract thinking to understand big, huge, adult-like things that take place right before their eyes. Children need to be reassured and loved and to be made to feel safe above all else. I was left alone and food was my only friend. I was bullied for it at home and at school. From the rejection I received from others I loved and depended on, I started to dislike myself. I told myself I was ugly and not good enough. In other words, I began to reject myself. I started to leave my body or dissociate from it because I started to hate it. I thought my body was against me. I hated myself for being fat and gross and ugly and for being made fun of as a result. I became the “funny” one who made people laugh—usually at me! I took any attention I could get as long as it made others happy instead of disappointed with me for being so out of control and bad. I was also struggling in school and was bullied for that as well. So, my self-esteem plummeted everywhere I turned. As I grew older, I did things to try and lose weight so I would not be bullied anymore. I became a swimmer and I slimmed down, got stronger, and gained confidence in myself. As a result, I was treated better by people when I was thin. I was not rejected anymore for being fat, but I was rejected by other girls for being too attractive. Handsome boys liked me and some of them were also self-rejecting bullies who ended up abusing and hurting me as well. So, there was no way to win! As you can see, people bully for all kinds of reasons.

Although I was not usually a bully toward others because I was more a bully to myself and I was also a fawning type who strove to please people in spite of my “ugliness” and “stupidness,” I know there have been many times in my life when I rejected myself and the way my body looked to the point where my friends and especially my love partners felt rejected by me. I was not my true self when I was so focused on hating my body for “betraying” me. I have definitely been in rotten, crabby moods as a result of hating the way I look in clothes and pictures and I know I have taken it out on my loved ones at times. I am not immune to the collateral damage I have caused as a result of my own self-rejection. As with anything in life, I have had to become very self-aware of all of my bad behaviors in order to change, grow, and heal. It is not easy to reflect on the messages I sent to people when I self-rejected, which was that I was rejecting them instead of myself. In essence, I was saying: “I reject you first so that you won’t reject me later when you start to think I am unattractive and gross for being so fat.” Can you guess what happened? Lo and behold, they DID reject me. They felt rejected BY me and they rejected me as a result. It was not because they thought I was ugly or too fat. It was because I sent the energetic message that I was not attracted to them and did not even like them simply because I felt so unattractive to myself and did not like myself. Isn’t that kind of nuts? But that is exactly what happens.

The Bully On Self-Rejection

When we are first introduced to being “rejected” by people in our lives, we are very often young and we don’t have the tools to discern that someone’s criticism, neglect, harsh tones, or shaming is all about them and not us. So, we do the natural thing and we adopt the messages we are getting from the bigger people around us. After all, the bigger people must be right about us. After all, they love us and they only want the best for us, so when they tell us we are bad or unworthy, they are likely aiming to help us be “better” in some way. Right? The truth is that there was never anything wrong with us, no matter what they say. They were operating from the lies and fear from their world at large and their parents’ incorrect beliefs about themselves. And on and on it goes, century upon century. So, this sets us off on our path of finding fault with ourselves at each and every turn. We start to believe other kids when they bully us, that our teachers and coaches don’t like us because they demand better from us, and that our bosses might hate us or fire us for not doing as well as Cindy the brown-noser from that other annoying department where Cindys are born and bred.

Take my bullying story for example. People in my life bullied me about my weight because of THEIR self-rejection issues. It’s true. Maybe in their minds they thought shaming me was for my best interest and that shaming me would make me change my behaviors, but that is not how shaming works. Shaming works in exactly the OPPOSITE way of how it is intended. When a parent bullied me about my weight, it was about their worries about their own weight, about how they had been rejected or bullied in their life for it or for not measuring up in some way, and because they wanted better for me. It came from a good place, but the way my young, underdeveloped child’s mind considered things back then, it felt like I was being annihilated with hate from someone I loved and who I thought loved me. After that moment, I felt very unloved, abandoned, and totally rejected by the ones who I trusted to have my back no matter how “disgusting” I looked. It was a defining moment in my life that changed everything for me (not in a good way except that it finally brought me to my healing, which IS good), and it has taken me the majority of my life to overcome it. A kid named Mark from my 5th grade class who called me out in front of the entire class about how fat I was left a permanent scar on my brain to this day. I had done absolutely nothing to that kid and he walloped me verbally about my weight in front of the entire class when I raised my hand to answer a question. That was probably the last time I ever raised my hand in class or even did well in school from that day on. I was very humiliated and ashamed of myself and wanted to hide away forever. Everyone, including the teacher, laughed at his outburst. He was not only not punished for it, he was actually rewarded with laughter and praise at my expense.

When a bully rejects and abuses you, it is because they are used to being bullied from someone else and they also have developed an internal critic who also bullies and judges them.

Am I angry about what these people did? No. I understand why they did it. And I feel sorry for them. You know why? People who have been abused, rejected, and bullied and who do not heal, end up repeating what they have learned at home and from society. This poor kid likely had a lot of bullying happening in his home. Perhaps his mother was fat-shamed by his father and maybe by her own father and he was just doing what he thought a man is supposed to do to a (fat) woman to help “correct” her. He is simply parroting what he has been shown is normal relating in the world between men and women after all. Maybe he was so on edge and stressed out by being abused at home by his parents that he had to find a target to pick on to make himself feel slightly better. I was, perhaps, the target of his inner turmoil and rage that particular day. I really can’t say, but I will promise you that anyone who feels a need to bully is not living with inner peace. They are operating from very wounded parts of themselves.

As a side note, it might be best to know that people who have gained weight are doing so as a form of protection or for other reasons that have nothing to do with wanting to create a target on their backs for bullies. They are also not trying to “mess up” the medical system by causing excess expenses for every tax payer out there. They have real (usually very painful) reasons for it and it usually stems from trauma or abuse. Please recognize this and have some compassion for people. No one WANTS to be overweight. I promise you that.

Relating Intimately When Both Parties Self-Reject

You might be able to see just how convoluted, confusing, and maddening it can be when people in relationships who have been taught by childhood upbringing and cultural conditioning to self-reject on demand might “do” relationship with each other.

When we are in intimate relationships and both parties are used to being rejected—first by others and then by themselves—there is no end to the ping-ponging of misunderstandings and hurt feelings that ensue.

Why is it that we get so confused about who is rejecting and self-rejecting in a given situation? First of all, we very rarely realize that we self-reject. We usually look outside ourselves and find the “evidence” that someone is rejecting us and then we blame them for the rejection. How can we even know that we are self-rejecting? Since it’s so hard to spot, it does take self-awareness and looking at our life experiences in order to see how our life is reflecting back at us what we are putting out. And, since most of the world has been programmed to shame, criticize, and self-reject from early childhood, it is a good bet that most of us are doing this continually and on autopilot.

It might be hard to see how exactly we put out into the world our own self-rejection and how it reflects back on us and you might not believe this is even a true or a real thing since our conscious minds almost never give into the “hate,” and only want to see the “positive” side of things (which, ultimately, is a great thing!), but on a subconscious level we are broadcasting out to the world how we really feel about ourselves (whether good beliefs or not-so-good ones). The inner self-rejecting, limiting beliefs are what are constantly on the forefront of our energy and “hits” others who also have parts of themselves that self-reject and then they end up feeling insecure and rejected by us. Then, since they are unaware of their own self-rejecting tendencies, they, as a reaction, do end up rejecting us since they are rejecting themselves already. They project their self-rejection onto us, blaming us for hating them or thinking less of them in some way.

Here’s an example: I walk into a party and I don’t feel good about what I am wearing. I think I am too fat and ugly. My mood becomes really sour as I see lots of other women looking fabulous and sexy in their outfits. I become socially awkward and kind of grumpy and not really approachable as a result. What do people do? They stay away from me because I am clearly not happy and they might be taking it personally and think I am judging them in some way, which then proves to me that I am gross. And my bad mood is also tipping off their fears and limiting beliefs that they are unworthy in some way. So now everyone is staying far away from me and also feeling somewhat insecure about themselves as a result of my self-rejection. Can you see how this plays out on a very subtle level? If we are not fully aware of our own self-rejecting thoughts, we can go on forever and ever ping ponging back and forth, taking everything personally and feeling attacked and hated by people. This is the way wars start. WE self-reject and then place it onto others who then, on a really subtle level, also reject us back. No one even knows what is going on and we are all pointing fingers at everyone else when this is where the inner work is at.

If you are “rejected” by being breadcrumbed or ghosted by someone, think about this. Did you really do anything to cause it? If not, it is likely that the other person started to self-reject, thinking you are too good for them or that they are unworthy in some way. Unless they specifically tell you why, you might never know, but it does not help to to take it personally and think the worst of yourself. If their ghosting behavior makes you start to self-reject by telling yourself you must be ugly or unworthy in some way, that’s exactly where your inner work is at because that simply is a lie. Even if you are the “ugliest” person on Earth (which I don’t even believe is possible), you are still a beautiful soul with a loving heart on the inside which counts for a lot, I promise you that! In truth, maybe it’s as simple as you are just not their type. And that’s okay. I am not for everyone. Same with all of us. I think that a little note of communication with a person to let them know you are done chatting or that you are not interested would be appropriate, but apparently this is not always possible with some people.

Self-Awareness and Self-Love Are the Ways Out

This mini-battle on a microcosmic level can be halted all together if we will simply become self-aware and work at changing our inner beliefs that are rooted in self-rejection. Sounds simple enough. And it IS simple. It’s just not always easy to spot. Thankfully, I am a self-rejection, limiting beliefs detective and I can spot this for you and help you end this toxic patterning inside yourself. See, once we can stop this patterning inside ourselves, we won’t be as inclined to be with partners or friends who still self-reject. We simply won’t be able to be near those kinds of people because if they are not self-aware, lots of drama ensues and it’s very exhausting to have someone projecting their self-rejection onto us when we know it is not about us to begin with. The world can only heal one person at a time, so you always have the choice to find your limiting, self-rejecting beliefs and heal them so that you can embody inner peace for good.

My examples of body shame and hate are only one area in which we self-reject. We reject ourselves in all kinds of ways, from berating ourselves for not being “better” at things to needing to be perfect in every facet of life. When we feel like we have “failed” at one thing, we start to reject our entire selves as being “a failure” instead of simply seeing that perfectionism is a myth and we cannot be perfect at everything. We can be successful or good “enough” and that can be okay. We self-reject when we believe that we are not as smart as or that we are too much of something. Whenever we talk down to and criticize ourselves or shame ourselves in any way, we are self-rejecting. This is because there is no reason to mistreat ourselves like this. We are humans and we make mistakes. We are not supposed to be perfect. We are supposed to be happy, free to be our authentic selves, free to be different than others, and calm and peaceful. We cannot be healthy if we are not calm in our bodies and telling ourselves that we are “bad” or “ugly” or “stupid” because we sometimes do “bad,” “ugly,” or “stupid” things is not going to help us be calm. This activates our nervous systems and produces cortisol, stress reactions, and eventual disease. Self-talk is at the heart of health.

When I help you rewire your neural pathways so that you are now operating from self-love instead of self-rejection, you can likely see what a huge difference this makes in your entire life, right? I have tools ‘a plenty that help you rewire your brain for success and happiness at my disposal. I would love to help you with self-care and self-love, so please contact me to schedule a session.