Rejection
By Harry Petsanis and Donna McCance
Rejection is a negative feeling we get when we have not been given approval or acceptance of ourselves or something we want. Rejection is an emotion. It isn’t something that people do to us, it’s the feeling we get when people are being honest with us.
It’s human nature to want to get what we want, and we become disappointed when we don’t get it. The problem is when people don’t get what they want, they shift the blame onto the other person, as if it’s that person’s responsibility to please them.
Honesty is not rejection, it’s honesty. When you are being honest, you are being truthful, free of deceit, and sincere. When you tell someone you are not interested in them, you are just being honest with them. If the other person chooses to feel rejected, it’s up to them to manage their emotions.
The person who feels rejected is the one who is not being honest with themselves, and that’s why they blame the other person. If they were honest with themselves, they wouldn’t feel rejected. They would understand the answer they got was honesty from another person.
People compromise their authenticity by adjusting their behavior so as not to have to deal with people’s emotional immaturity which leads to an emotional response. People embrace false responses because their behavior has conditioned others to be insincere. In other words, people want dishonesty
Honesty that isn’t sugar coated is often viewed as being rude. We’re constantly putting the onus on the individual who is being honest to soften their words and their message to make it more acceptable for the emotionally weak. That’s like asking someone at war to soften their bullets because the enemy's armor isn’t thick enough.
It comes down to emotional maturity. You can’t spend your life dancing around people because they’re emotionally immature and cannot handle the truth. When you start suppressing who you are to make up for other people’s deficiencies, they become your deficiencies.
Feelings of rejection come from a person’s inability to accept honesty and from their lack of emotional maturity. You’re never going to teach someone to grow up when you’re constantly treating them like a baby. You can’t make people feel better when they are feeling rejected, other than giving them what they want, and that’s enabling them and denying your own truth.
Rejection is an emotion that people need to manage. It takes emotional intelligence for a person to say “Yes, that stings, but it’s honesty and I must move on from it.
If you are faced with a situation where someone is pressuring you to give them what they want from you and they are emotionally unstable, you can recommend they seek help, but you are in no way required to jeopardize your own mental health to please someone else. You must stay firm. You are not obligated to enter into or stay in an unhealthy situation because someone else is too emotionally fragile to hear the truth.
Everyone has a right to make up their mind without worrying about how another person is going to receive it. Live your life and be who you are. If people feel rejected and hurt by what you do and say, that’s on them.
About the Authors
Harry Petsanis is a philosopher of human nature, mindset specialist, and lifelong fitness and wellness advisor. He is a writer and author, with three published books: “The Truth is A Lie,” “The Logical Path to Life,” and "Knowing Me from A to Z, A Child's Mindset," which he co-authored with Donna McCance, M.Ed.. Harry has a Bachelor’s Degree in Journalism. He has an intense passion for psychology and the human condition.
Donna McCance, M.Ed. is a business administrator, writer, author, licensed teacher and principal/vice principal with over 20 years experience teaching in elementary education and educational leadership. She has a Masters in Education, Masters in Human Services Management, Bachelors in Business Administration and Associates in Business Administration.
Click here to order Harry Petsanis’s books
The Truth is A Lie" and "The Logical Path To Life"
Go to amazon.com/dp/B09PMHXVFN
to order Harry Petsanis's and Donna McCance's newly published book
"Knowing Me From A to Z, A Child's Mindset"
To learn about Harry Petsanis, go to his website