So they chose someone else over you!
Your long-awaited promotion went to your colleague instead! Your crush chose someone else! Your potential client chose someone else’s services over yours! Someone else got the award instead of you!
One of the hardest thing to digest! isn't it?
This blog will give you some tools and techniques to get over it and feel at peace again!
Pain seems more painful when we resist it instead of allowing it through.
Stop. Breathe... And pause for a moment. Let's try to figure what's really happening inside of you. Notice that feeling of discomfort in your body. Where do you feel it? How and where is it flowing? Notice your feelings.. what emotion are you feeling? Is it envy? Guilt? Disappointment? Chaos? Anxiety? Worry? Perhaps it’s more that one emotion or perhaps you don’t even know what it is. It’s okay!
Ask yourself, what if I just allowed myself to feel what I am feeling instead of resisting it? It’s okay to feel jealous, it’s okay to feel sad, it is okay to be disappointed once in a while. It’s okay to feel what I am feeling now. It’s really okay! Why am I being so hard on myself? What if I give myself a break from my pursuit of eternal happiness and just rest in this feeling for a little bit?
What is life all about? Is it just about being happy all the time? What will happen if we are happy all the time? The way we experience happiness now will be so much more diluted! That’s when we’ll realize life was never meant to be about experiencing just the happiness. Each of us is entitled to experience the full spectrum of emotions - happiness, sorrow, jealousy, pride, anxiety, joy, guilt, gratitude, worry, safety, love, anger, the list goes on. I like to tell myself that life is an experience to be lived fully. I am entitled to experience the entire spectrum of emotions in this life. This is my story and I will live each chapter in my story with absolute passion and acceptance.
After you allow yourself to pause and feel, move on to reflecting on what really happened.
One reason we feel worse than we should is because - We label it as Rejection! We take it personally. Ask yourself Was their action really “A rejection of me” or “Acceptance of someone else”?
More often than not you’ll find that it is them accepting someone else and not really rejecting you. Acceptance of one thing doesn't necessarily mean rejection of the other. It’s JUST acceptance of something and should be perceived as nothing else. Their viewpoint might be “I like him/her, perhaps a tad bit more than you.”. The way you perceive it is “You are useless. I don’t like you.”
We are so ruthless to ourselves. We allow ourselves to believe the most negative judgement of ourselves without even giving a benefit of doubt to other possible interpretations of the same situation. Perhaps the other person did work harder than you, perhaps there were other personal reasons for other parties that you were not aware of, perhaps they perceived you as overqualified, perhaps they thought you are too busy for what they need, perhaps the other person needed it more than you, it could have been anything. We cannot change what happened in the past, but when we do have a choice to interpret the situation with a range of possibilities, why do we always let ourselves believe the one that is most harmful for the peace of our mind? If you must conclude the chapter with some interpretation/thought to hold on to, why not choose the one that supports you, helps you move on sooner? Dump all the “I am useless” thoughts, they are really not worth your time and energy, and most importantly they are not true!
There is an even better way to feel more accepted and powerful. For once, think of the people who have accepted and celebrated you in various parts of life! Remember the look in their eyes? Was it anything less than real? Think of those situations, re-live those moments! What did they see in you? What they saw still exists within you. People may take away your job, your awards, your clients, but they cannot tamper with the very strengths of you! You own your unique strengths, your unique gifts and values and they will be the reason you will succeed in your life ahead!
Often it seems even more painful when you know the person they finally chose. But maybe you can use this extra information to get over it sooner. What do you know about them that will allow you to extend a little bit of love towards them regardless of what happened? For e.g. you might be able to reason out why the other person needed it more than you? Or they were meant to have more significant impact on the life of the person who chose them? Any quality of theirs that you truly admire? This might be a hard one to implement at this time, but if you could just allow yourself to try it, you’ll feel a dramatic shift in your temperament that very moment. This technique never fails, all you need to do is to allow your heart to expand just a little.
Turn the energy drain into energy fountain! Physics tells us that energy can never be created nor be destroyed, just transformed from one form into another. If we cannot get rid of the negative energy just transform it to positive energy. Think about how you can do that. Many people use their negative experiences to motivate them to perform even better next time. Can you take this as a challenge? Convert that draining pull to motivational push! How else can you convert your energy? Can you use your energy to do something for someone less fortunate than you? Such an act helps you step out of your "me" zone and experience your connection to the world outside. It can make our worries feel small. Think! Ask yourself what can I do with this negative energy? You might surprise yourself with what you come up with.
If you are feeling motivated to do even better next time, perhaps this boost in your motivation was the reason this happened in your life in the first place? Think big picture, think about the significance of this incident in your life.Your life doesn't end here. This is just a tiny chapter of your life. Let this be a lesson and nothing more. What lesson can you take from this experience to navigate through your life ahead? What can you hold on to? What can you let go of?
Instead of dwelling in the past and sobbing about it, let’s focus on the power of NOW to create a better tomorrow!
