The medicine in sitting with rejection

Sitting with rejection is a bitter medicine.

Hard to swallow,

hard to sit with.

Yet, it's the best one,

to help break oneself out of people pleasing.

It's a medicine for us, 

people who are trying to unlearn people pleasing.

Some time ago in the past

When I was rejected, 

I never sat with it.

I tried to please people,

to make them happy,

to serve them, what they exactly needed,

resources, reassurance, help, therapy, information, advice, right questions, answers, suggestions, space, to feel their emotions for them

So, they would accommodate me.

Now, it feels bitter 

So bitter that it makes me anxious,

to be rejected.

It's so hard to let people be themselves, 

when that self of them doesn't want me in their life, as a reciprocal relationship,

as a person with needs.

I know,

I had stopped people-pleasing,

aint good for the soul.

It means, to sit with rejection.

To let people be people as they are, towards me too.

How hard,

how bitter

Rejection feels,

to be excluded.

Especially when I thought that all those authentic people will be in my life,

the next second I chose to leave people pleasing,

to be a healthy person.

Yeah, it sucks.

Yet, as I sit with rejection and swallow it,

something breaks,

the hardwired patterns of people pleasing in me.

Something new is emerging, 

space for people to be themselves 

and

space for me to be my best self,

a self that receives love, 

instead of the one that only knows the eager anticipation,

as she waits to be chosen,

and the short-lived high of being chosen, 

after the tireless performance.

A performance where I had memorized the birthdays, likes, dislikes, preferences, all the words they had ever spoken,

to bottle up feelings,

to be helpful at every occasion,

to be an unpaid therapist,

an impeccable customer service agent,

a journal,

a mirror,

everything else other than being a person,

to have a reciprocal relationship.

Sitting with rejection will break the mirror that had become you, 

in the absence of a whole you.