Could YOU unconsciously be setting yourself up for rejection?
Were the seeds of rejection planted in you as you were growing up?
A person growing up with rejection will ultimately internalize that rejection into a belief about themselves. The belief is that they are only worthy of rejection. .Unconsciously this belief gets built into their psyche…. and has disastrous consequences in a relationship.
Bear this statement in mind.
Our behavior is motivated by a belief and our behavior ALWAYS matches our beliefs. |
If your underlying belief is that rejection is what you deserve, you’ll allow yourself to be abused, because this behavior matches what you believe about yourself. That’s how the cycle of abuse gets passed down from one generation to the next.
On the other hand a person who values themself won’t tolerate abuse. After all you can’t let someone treat you badly unless you feel that their abuse is correct and matches what you believe about yourself. .
But what happens when you expect abuse but get unconditional love and acceptance?
That will really put you in a quandary because this ‘love’ doesn’t match what you’ve come to believe about yourself. You (unconsciously) reach a conclusion something like this:
“There must be something wrong with that person to love me when I’m actually only worthy of rejection”
So what do you do?
- You ruin your chances of love by rejecting that person. ‘After all they can’t be worth loving if they think you’re okay’.
- Or you behave in a way that forces the other person to change their mind about you and reject you.
- Or you chase after a person who is ‘unattainable’ and experience rejection
The result: You’re rejected, which only proves that your initial belief was correct.
That might sound crazy, but it’s true. Being unconditionally accepted doesn’t feel right and you have to conclude there’s something wrong with anyone who accepts you unconditionally.
The remedy:.Your behavior matches what you believe, so if you’re going to have any chance of changing your behavior, you’ll have to consciously change your belief about yourself. Change your thinking to something like this:
“…………………. rejected me as I was growing up, but actually that was their problem, rather than mine. I believed them to be speaking the truth, when they rejected me. So I came to believe that I didn’t deserve love. But that was a lie and being a child, I couldn’t be expected to know better.
But as an adult, I now know better. I deserve to be treated with respect and to treat myself and others with respect. I will no longer allow the expectation of rejection to dominate my life, and I will love and respect others as they deserve….”
Make this into a statement of belief that you repeat to yourself or stick up on the wall where you can see it frequently.
Expectations When a person has a history of relationships fraught with fighting and rejection it’s difficult to imagine anything different. A pattern is set in place that seems correct.
Some people enjoy a relationship full of tension purely because the ‘make-up sex’ is so great. I have a friend who loves fighting with her husband for this very reason. The ‘make-up sex’ is terrific! But what a stressful life they lead between the times of ‘make-up sex’!
Actually all that stress is so bad for you as it puts your body into a ‘fight or flight’ response, releasing harmful chemicals into your system.
Moving forward … If someone likes you, stop thinking there must be something wrong with them. Focus on relationships that are peaceful, even if they might initially feel boring. Learn to love and value the other person for who they are.