Rejection.

Stings.

But it also cuts deeper than that, a fear of rejection, which is allied closely with a fear of abandonment, is a deep and primordial fear.

Why?

Because we are tribal creatures by nature.

We don’t have sharp claws, big teeth, or a poisonous sting, we have each other.

If you were exiled from your tribe as a hunter-gatherer, it could well be a death sentence. Abandoned as an infant, the same fate could await. Deep within our being, you could argue, hardwired in our DNA, is the relationship between survival and belonging.

In our modern western lives however, we are somewhat removed from the blade edge of this. We can live relatively solitary lives and survive.

But for many of us, the underlying fear is still playing a role in our journey of expressing the full beauty and bounty of our nature.

As children, most of us feel it,

We show some of our distinct colours, we sing a song, tell a joke, wear a new outfit, hairstyle, share something we found interesting. Only to have it shut down, laughed at, rebuked.

We might find ourselves ousted from our peer group, a jealous friend campaigns against us, or a fight breaks out and you are left excommunicated.

We may have been repeatedly told that an aspect of how we show up is unacceptable by a parent or authority figure.

These events are painful, and we learn that to belong, to survive, we need to adapt.

Then we grow up, adapting, often by shutting away much of what makes us distinct, because what makes us distinct makes us stand out, standing out could make us vulnerable to being cast out.

Adaptation in itself is not unhealthy, we have to learn how to be cohesive with society. I am currently trying to help my son Atlas adapt to the fact he can’t keep tripping over his baby sister no matter how funny he finds it.

But, each of us is a unique specimen of the natural world. If we wish to radiate the beauty of that nature, we are called to express it into the world, including our idiosyncrasies, perhaps most importantly.

What if the rejection that we fear is actually crucial for us to find our belonging?

If we think of ourselves like a flower…

If we hold back our petals, for fear that when the light shines on them, we will be rejected by the bees, then we have in fact only succeeded in rejecting ourselves, and in so doing, neutered our chances of attracting the things that we would belong with.

If the flower expresses itself fully, boldly open, then there will be insects that fly up to it, only to realise it's not right for them, flying off in rejection.

But when the right ones come along, and we are fully open, the opportunity for symbiosis is now readily available.

I had actually buried down my fears of rejection, along with most of my fears, to masquerade to myself that I am fearless.

Only to recently realise that this fear was creating dissonance I wasn’t even aware of.

Sometimes not being able to listen properly to my partner's concerns, being reactive to them, because the fear and wound was activated.

Not sharing some of my art with the world, to keep me safe from it being rejected.

Not being slow enough to gain a deeper understanding of a collaborator's discomfort, because of feeling like my creative outputs, and therefore me, was being rejected.

What I am learning is that my unconscious fears of rejection have at times hampered my ability to receive feedback that would support my growth.

Sometimes people reject us because of their own wounds, Sometimes people reject us because we have hurt them, Sometimes people reject what they don’t understand, Sometimes people reject that which reflects what they aren’t ready to see.

All of these situations are painful,

But perhaps the one that cuts the deepest is the rejection we make of our own nature.

By hiding it from the world.

Until the next time,

Peace and Love

Alex