Interpersonal Psychology: How to Effectively Nullify Getting Rejected

How I came Across this Lesson

I read the Bible not only for spiritual relief from the stresses and cares of my daily life but also for practical reasons, for everyday understanding and meditation, much of which has nothing to do at all with religion.

Regarding dealing with rejection, we all get rejected by at least someone, sometimes politely, and at other times, rudely. Some people will reject our approaches to them for a whole variety of reasons and will do so in a gracious, polite manner. Others will enjoy rubbing our noses in rejection but that’s on them.

Psychology of Some People who Enjoy Rejecting Others

Some folks still protest having come into the world without their prior consent to live a life that they didn’t sign up for. And these are taking revenge against everybody for having been born. And so, they’re spreading around their inner hell.  

There is a category of neurosis based on a sick source that Psychologist Karen Horney labeled Vindictive Triumph. You can read about it in her book titled Our Inner Conflicts. 

As to the original wound that twisted the emotions of the victim who became the vindictive neurotic personality, Karen Horney wrote that this person received some sort of emotional wound, likely a cruel rejection from some other person, and had been a sensitive person who was not prepared to deal with that wound.  And she added that the aftermath of that wounding was severe enough, painful enough to mess with that sensitive person’s head to the point that the neurosis developed.

The neurotic personality who was twisted so ruthlessly now had likely been subjected to some sort of mistreatment earlier on that had not so badly shaken that victim as did this wound.

This wound was likely the last straw that finally broke the camel’s back and made possible the neurosis to twist the sensitive person into a neurotic person seeking triumphs in life that would be achieved as acts of vengeance wrought against all others. 

This is Zero Sum theory on steroids.  For this neurotic person to win in life, everyone else must suffer at his or her hand.  He or she, this neurotic, must take away something from others to gain any life satisfaction, even if the satisfaction is nothing more than an ego trip.

How this Psychology May Apply to You too

So pretty much, you can accurately assume that if someone mistreats you and gets some morbid satisfaction from lowering your self-esteem or making you feel uncomfortable with yourself in their presence, even if you meant no harm to any, that this person has some sort of personality disorder or a mental or emotional disorder of that type, the neurosis based on the need to derive some sort of vindictive triumph not against you specifically but rather, their resentment against the mass of humanity, especially those who love life and other people. 

I myself was One of the Bad Guys and How I Got out of that Life

In my younger years, I was one of these. I resented those who loved life and loved others. I sought help because I knew that my life was going to be just one shot at life and the wasted years would not be given back to me. I sought professional help and got it.  I also wanted what Christians had, joy.

So I became a Christian myself, repented for my resentments, and was spiritually brought to life.  My life has improved. It wasn’t made perfect but I am a lot happier now than when I was younger. I don’t reject myself but love myself a lot. No, I’m not a narcissist but I do love myself and accept myself completely.

How "Vindictive Triumph" Neurotic People Use Rejection as Revenge against Humanity for their own earlier Emotional Wounds

What does this have to do with the rejections you get from others, especially those who enjoy rejecting others? 

Here's a clue:  Wounded people hurt people because deep in their hearts the rejection that they got from someone else in the past is an injury that they feel that all people should have to bear. If they are not happy, no one else should be either.

And if the wound that made them wounded people is a rejection, they will take it upon themselves to spread their inner emotional hell out there with the mass of humanity.

Now that you know why this happened to you, that you got rejected by someone who was already wounded by a rejection of their own and spreads it out to you, who forcibly shares their inner hell with you or anyone unfortunate enough to get in their way, I am providing you with the means to reject the rejections, all the rejections that wounded people would forcibly share with you.

The Bible, the New Testament, I’m reading the Book of Matthew now, for the third time. I read the whole Bible twice already and I am reading it now for the third time.

And no matter how often I read it, I always come across some verse that teaches me something about the psychology of life that I somehow missed the first two times I read the same passage.

How I was Delivered from Being at the Mercy of those Neurotics who Reject Others out of Vindictive Triumph Pleasure

This morning I read Chapter 10 from the book of Matthew.  And this verse made a huge impact on me. It taught me to forever stop fearing rejection from other people.

It is based on instructions that Jesus Christ gave to his apostles before sending them out on their Great Commission before he assigned the Great Commission to other believers upon ascending to Heaven.

 

¹² And when ye come into a house, salute it.

¹³ And if the house is worthy, let your peace come upon it: but if it is not worthy, let your peace return to you.

¹⁴ And whosoever shall not receive you, nor hear your words, when ye depart out of that house or city, shake off the dust of your feet.

^{KJV Bible, Chapter 10: 12-14}

That’s it.  He said to his Apostles that when they enter some city or someone’s house, and if the people who run the city, or the owners of the house refuse to receive the Apostles, refuse to give them a chance for any reason at all, to be heard, that the Apostles bearing this rejection - leave and shake off the rejection as if it were dust that got on their feet while they were interacting with the folks who rejected them.

That lit my lightbulb. It was the eureka moment, a breakthrough.  Getting rejected by someone else was as unpleasant an experience for any of these apostles as it would be for any one of us. What we feel as human beings upon getting rejected would have stung any of Jesus’s Twelve Apostles.

They were as human as any of us.  And Jesus told them to simply shake off the dust from their feet regardless of how painful that rejection would have been upon receiving it.  This is God Himself teaching people how to respond to someone else’s rejection of them.

How You too can Benefit from the Power of this Instruction from Jesus Christ to His Apostles

In effect, Jesus Christ is saying that in the big scheme of things, a rejection is only a mite of dust that someone got on your feet and that the only effective way to get over it is by treating the rejection as what Jesus Christ defines it: a particle of dust that got on your feet. Shake it off and continue walking off.

So what should be your approach in response to getting rejected by someone?

If I’m using a prescriptive verse that I read in the Bible, because that’s what Jesus Christ taught his disciples, his apostles, to apply as a remedy to their getting not received or heard, then I would say, if that prescription works well enough for Jesus to have prescribed in Biblical times, back then, then it follows that such prescription is useful enough for anyone else today to apply as a remedy in response to someone’s rejection of us, for any reason at all.

Shake off, wipe away the rejection from your ears just as you would shake off, or wipe away the dust that got on your feet while you were in the process of interacting with the person who rejected you.

How You Should Use that Biblical Instruction in Order to Disempower Rejections from Those Who would Reject You   

Key: ReFrame the Significance of that Rejection Down to the Insignifance of that Rejection

When you do that, you’re treating the importance of that rejection as nothing more significant than just a speck of dust that got on your feet earlier on.  What about earlier rejections that stung you?  That depends on whether you were aware of what Jesus said when those happened to you. 

Call to You to Act on All Rejections that You Received

If you weren’t as aware of their insignificance then as you are now, you have a whole lot of dust to wipe away, don’t you now? Get cracking on wiping away all that dust away from your ears as though it were dust still on your feet.

By Roberto E. Fiad