The fear of rejection used to terrify me. It would paralyze me, keep me stuck, keep me numb, and make me prisoner in my own mind.
I'm a big believer of understanding what I'm feeling and why. I have a desire to understand what's under the anger, frustration and fear. Why do I react the way I do in response to certain situations, interactions and emotions that come to the surface?
When I used to feel like I wasn't seen, heard or acknowledged, I felt hot, frantic and busy moving through my body - the emotion I felt was anger. I would go to that place of anger because it held a false sense of power.
What I was actually feeling was hurt, rejected, flawed, unseen. I felt pain in my heart and I DIDN'T like feeling pain! Pain feels cold as it runs through my body, anger feels hot. I HATED that cold feeling of fear, so I replaced it with the heat of rage.
I began to ask myself what was so scary about pain; why did I work so hard to avoid it or go around it?
Being angry goes around it, numbing goes around it, shopping, compulsive exercise, wine, drugs, TV - whatever your avoidance of choice technique is - goes around pain.
Once I started stepping through the pain I stopped being so scared of it. I stopped being so angry, irrational, crazy, fearful and confused. I started to be aware and I began to understand the layers of emotions and what was going on at each layer.
Once I learned to embrace the pain I recognized that it really didn't hold any power over me. Pain was not the enemy, RUNNING was. It turns out that pain is a teacher. Once I adopted this mindset I stopped resisting the pain and started being thankful for the lesson on the other side of it, even before I knew what it was.
Now I see pain as my biggest blessing. Without it I wouldn't be the woman I am today. I wouldn't be at this level of consciousness. I wouldn't be fully living and fully feeling and taking in all this life has to offer me.
I'm not suggesting pain is something we seek out, but it's our choices in what we do when we feel fear or emotional pain that will determine how many times we have to go through the same experience.