Rejection, Worthiness, and Connection — In a Pot, All Mingled Together

Why does rejection feel so personal? Because it touches our core as human beings — our deep desire for connection and our fear of loneliness. Even when we are physically alone, we can feel connected to the world, yet the fear of being truly lonely often triggers negative thoughts and emotions about our worthiness of connection.

But is our sense of worth really tied to the people we seek connection with? Are those around us the ones we should be trying to connect with in the first place? What if we paused for a moment and carefully examined our experiences of rejection — separating actual facts from interpretations and tracing how we arrived at the feeling of being rejected in the first place?

Through such reflection, we might come to realise that our worth and our connection to the world are not dependent on each other. Or, sometimes, if not even more frequently than that, we might not even want to be connected to the person we are seeking attention from in the first place.