It’s a universal experience, the painful sting of rejection. The hurt that comes from being left unchosen; unrequited love, break-ups, job loss, friendship reaches left unreciprocated. We have all been there. We have all tasted that bitter pill.

We go around unconsciously searching for evidence. It started when we were very little. We unconsciously began asking am I loveable? Do I matter? Am I worthy of your gaze? Am I enough? Even though we grew up, a little one in us keeps asking the same questions. We search around us for evidence and all of our experiences unknowingly go in either the ‘Yes Bucket’ or the ‘No Bucket.’

My adult lived experience tells me that as a little one I must have collected enough experiences that went into my ‘No Bucket’ to form an unfortunate and faulty belief.  I had a loving family, plenty of friends and lots of ‘Yes Bucket’ experiences and yet that ‘No Bucket’ conclusion is a powerful force. I created an unconscious mistaken belief and buried it away beneath layers and layers of outward confidence and achievement.

That unconscious sense of wrongness, the worthiness wound that lurks within so many of us, is such an affront to the actual truth of who we are. Our soul knows the incongruence but can’t seem to convince the mind. To deal with this hard-to-bare belief we develop brilliant coping strategies. We focus on being liked, being good, being needed. We master the art of shape-shifting into what ‘they’ want us to be. So much effort expended all stemming from a mistaken conclusion. Yet sometimes, despite our best efforts, ‘they’ reject us anyway.

And yet fortunately no person (or group) outside of us is the arbitrator of our worth. In truth we are each already wholly loved, perfectly worthy, inherently valuable, brilliantly messy and imperfect. No more and no less that anyone else.

Sometimes it magically occurs that two peoples needs, wants, desires, life stages and life goals line up and mirror each other and there is a mutual balanced draw towards one another and it is so sweet when it occurs. We are wired for connection and attachment and so this experience of mutual draw fuels us but it is likewise a mistaken notion that if it happens at all (or the amount that it happens) reveals our level of essential worthiness. It does not. Someone else’s needs and desires have nothing to do with you. Even when what they desire IS you.

In my story I have had to return to this ruth many times. The truth is that I have an inherent worth and wholeness that no amount of affection, attraction, or attention from an other could add to nor detract from. Life, in her wisdom, continues to send occasional potential ‘No bucket’ experiences and I now know that she will continue to do so because that is part of her brilliant healing plan for me. Rather than allow them to overpower me I can view them as opportunities to become conscious, to see that wound that still sneakily hides within, take the healing available in the experience and recenter on the magnificent truth about me (about all of us).

What would happen in the world if we ALL stayed awake to the truth of who we are and who each other is? If we all trusted, implicitly and without fail in our own value, worthiness and lovability and if we had no need to gather any evidence or assurances from outside of us. What would happen if we also knew without question that the person in front of us also had that same level of value, worthiness and lovability (whether or not we were choosing to be with them)? What would happen? Amazing things would happen. An end to unfathomable suffering would happen. Maybe even world peace would happen.

Precious one, do your best to stay rooted in the truth of you. When your life circumstances cause you to forget, draw on the forever, unconditional and guaranteed love is that between you and your Source. (Whom I call God). You are here. That is the only evidence required to know that you have immeasurable worth. Stay tethered to the truth of who you are. You are magnificent exactly as you are. 

Child Stock photos by Vecteezy