Handling the stress of rejection
Personal note
It’s still the beginning of the year, and all around me friends and associates are reaching out to find new ways to make their lives go forward. As I give talks on stress, health, and success, and go to networking meetings and conferences, I meet people who are starting new enterprises.
High hopes can turn to discouragement very easily when rejection is encountered.
It’s a great time to pause, breathe, and choose to use the rejection as a catalyst, rather than as a heavy anchor.
Handling the stress of rejection
Rejection can cause a particularly deep form of anger, because rejection seems to carry with it a heavy load: loss of self-esteem, and even of identity. Rejection can also result in depression.
Sometimes it takes this shock of rejection to make you realize that you may have been asking for toolittle in life and to get moving to do something about it. You may have settled for what you thought you could have, not what you really wanted.
Or you may have convinced yourself that you really wanted a situation or a relationship in order to escape the uncomfortable ambiguity of not having a settled future.
You have, in fact, made a poor choice.
I first learned how to turn the anger of rejection into useful energy some years ago, after being rejected three times when I tried to transfer to a nearby state college from the community college. As an older returning student, this rejection played into my fears that I was somehow inadequate.
After the third rejection, I took a deep breath and took stock of skills and abilities, then said to myself, “How dare they reject me! Why, I’m good.” I then shot off applications to two prestigious universities, one public and one private, that I would never have dared approach before – and got accepted at both, with scholarships.
The energy of anger, racing through my body, shocked me into looking at the situation very differently. And that energy forced me to take constructive action.
You may feel that you’ve been rejected because you’re inferior in some way, but it may be that you and a given situation just don’t match. You may have been deluding yourself that you do match, or will match in the near future if you just hang in there long enough.
Very often, you, and what you offer are rejected because another person is just too busy and involved in his or her own life to pay attention now to you and what you offer.
And you can be rejected because someone else sees you more clearly than you see yourself: as powerful and destined for something better. And it threatens that person. It’s as if they have recognized that the cocoon conceals a butterfly, and you are the potential butterfly.
To take some of the sting out of rejection, try the following steps:
Pause, take a breath, and release your fantasy about what might have been in that situation.
Recognize what you may have been going for is a feeling of safety rather than what you really want, as in “this person or job wouldn’t be my first choice, but it’s safe to ask for because it isn’t too far out of my reach.” Is safety an important enough reward to settle for when you yearn for excitement and appreciation?
Sometimes you don’t get a flat “no.” Instead, you get a situation that drags on and on, leaving you feeling a little drained, a little demeaned, and a little … well, “little.”
Our brains are great at storing negative information, which we can access immediately when we are feeling low. Combat this negativity by keeping a file of all your successes and triumphs, large and small, to review when you need reminders of your true worth. Include notes, cards, and awards. Pull it out whenever you are low. Ask your friends to contribute (positive points only, please) to the same list.
Take action: reach out for more contacts of all kinds.
And when you do, celebrate diversity! Don’t just look for a mate, a client – or any other kind of match – in the “right” category: gender, age, appearance, income, etc. Do show interest and kindness to people of all different kinds, not just the ones you think can lead you to your goals.
Take up activities you’ve kind of wanted to try, but never did before.
Anyone you meet and connect with can open your eyes and connect you to exciting situations of which you had never dreamed.
Remember, if you keep doing what you’ve been doing, you’ll keep getting what you’ve been getting.
To settle for a better-than-nothing relationship, to get stuck doing “okay” work, or to live in a place where you are uncomfortable, to keep applying to the same people, whether they are bosses or clients, for recognition of what you have to offer, is to tell yourself that you’re not deserving of anything more.
Maureen Dowd, the columnist once wrote, “If you settle for less than you think you’re worth, you’ll get even less than you settled for.”
Think about it. Then reach for the stars. Hey, all they can say is “No,” but at a much higher level than you have been experiencing.
And, when you reach your level – the one where you are energetic and enthused – you just might find “yes” is a frequent occurrence.
New Year’s resolutions, will power, and the February Fade
Personal note
Early January found a friend and me in Chicago, that “toddlin’ town,” as the song goes. An exhausting but exciting day in the Chicago Art Institute found us foot-sore and hungry; dinner at the Russian Tea Time was reminiscent of the old Russian Tea Room in New York, where so many dancers gathered.
Our journey to nostalgia started with a train trip from Minneapolis to Chicago (and back, eventually), our stay at the historic Palmer House, and a trip to the original Marshall Field’s store on “that great street,” State Street.
Then it was home and back to work, ready to confront all the challenges the New Year inevitably brings, such as plans for self-improvement, which prompted today’s article.
Lastly, I will be a guest of Dr. Nancy O’Reilly, Psy.D, founder of WomenSpeak.com radio show starting Friday, February 3, 2012.
New Year’s resolutions, will power, and the February Fade
Did you have high hopes for change in January, but found yourself slipping down from the heights as the month progressed? Were you firmly resolved to lose weight, stop smoking, exercise more, eat more vegetables and fewer doughnuts, clean out those crammed closets? And now you’re grabbing doughnuts instead of a walk, eating one forkful of vegetables and convincing yourself that’s enough, jamming more things into your closet, and have stopped stepping on the scale because it doesn’t tell you anything rewarding anyway.
It happens every year. On January 1, the parking lot at my YWCA is always full. Regular members, on their way to the exercise room, walk smugly by the long line of frantic new registrants. The January crowd is annoying for the regulars, who have difficulty locating an empty locker, must wait for each piece of exercise equipment to be free, and stand in line, shivering, for the showers, not to mention the fact that they may have circled for some time before finding an empty parking slot.
But by early February, the crisis period is past. There is plenty of room and plenty of equipment for all – “all” meaning the hardy souls who have somehow managed to turn their initial impulse to better themselves into a habit pattern.
And if you aren’t a member of the group \that’s still chugging along, you feel guilty as heck.
Don’t beat yourself up. It’s not a lack of willpower; it’s a deeply ingrained habit. In fact, unlike our conscious resolutions to change, habits are buried deep in the unconscious part of the brain. Amnesiacs, who can’t remember their own names, occupations, or residence, are still able to speak Urdu, play the flugelhorn, pig out on chips and chocolate, and bite their fingernails. (Assuming they could do these things before amnesia struck.)
Overcoming any behavior this deeply ingrained sounds like a real challenge, and it is – a challenge we often try to meet by instituting complete and instant reform: “I will cut back to 1200 calories per day” or “I resolve to exercise for 1 hour per day 6 days a week.” We then whack ourselves mentally over the head when we don’t follow through.
How can we bring about personal change successfully?
The astonishing advice given by expert Dr. Christine Carter of the Center for Greater Good, University of California at Berkeley (Podcast: Habit Change), is that when your resolutions fail, it’s not because you were not up to the challenge; it was because you didn’t make the challenge easy enough.
Instead of setting up a mountain of responsibility that makes your heart sink every time you contemplate it, she suggests that you break down the early steps of habit change into “easy wins” that she calls “turtle steps.” (You know, those ponderous, slow steps turtles take that nevertheless get them there – probably serenely, too.)
Furthermore, she advises that you make these steps ridiculously easy. She cites the example of herself getting back to exercising after childbirth. Her trainer suggested she start by running for four minutes per day for one week, before attempting to get back to her previous level of exercise. Amazed and a little offended, she asked “Four minutes?” “OK,” he replied, “two minutes.”
In fact, she went on to point out that your first step could be just to get your running clothes on – every day for seven days. For people who have difficulty getting up early, much less running, the first step might be just to get up at 6:30 a.m. instead of 7:00 a.m. – every day until it becomes a habit – before trying to be more active.
Other examples of what she calls “turtle steps” might be the following:
You can initially decide to march in place during a one-commercial break on TV. Add in more commercial breaks over time, and you’re easily up to the minimum of 30 minutes per day!
Have trouble settling down and meditating? Just go to your place of meditation for one minute per day. When you are ready, increase that to two minutes. And so on.
Do you despair of your ability to diet? Then don’t diet. Just cut out one food that you know is bad for you – that package of greasy, salted chips you get with your sandwich, for example. Once it has become easy and automatic to give that up, focus on another food.
These small, easy steps follow very good advice known to those who teach officer training in the military or who train animals: “Never give a command unless you’re sure it will be obeyed.” You don’t train a dog by yelling “Come, Roscoe,” when the dog is running away; you don’t train yourself to perform a good habit when your entire body wants to run the other way.
“Turtle steps” are effective because you can be pretty sure you are able to obey them without encountering overwhelming rebellion from your own body.
After instituting these “turtle steps,” it is important to factor accountability into your plan. You may have an “accountability buddy” you meet with once a week, who will ask firmly “Did you stick to your goal?”
If you don’t have an accountability buddy, have a weekly meeting with yourself. Create a “tracking record,” post it in a prominent place and record the fact that you stuck to your plan every day for one week.
What, you might forget to keep track of your behavior? Your first “turtle step” might be to create a tracking record, such as a journal or a chart, and look at it at the same time every day. Then proceed with your next little step towards habit change.
What keeps you on track so that you take that next step after having successfully completed the first one?
When you stay engaged with the new behavior, you may find that you easily exceed your goal – running longer, or taking stairs as well as running.
What if you slip?
Give up the guilt – it won’t help you make change. In fact you feel you’re a failure, and do less and less….
Say to yourself, “This isn’t quite working. Why?” Adopt a problem solving attitude rather than submerging yourself in shame and guilt, which often call you to kick back, be a sloth, and eat a gallon of Ben & Jerry’s best.
When you do indulge in your bad habit, be mindful of what it is really doing for you. Often the pleasure of indulgence in a bad habit lies in the anticipation, not the actual experience. Ever notice how finishing off an entire chocolate cake or lolling around in your sweats all day watching old movies sounds and feels great at the beginning, but leaves you feeling sluggish and a little sick?
To summarize the advice of Dr.Carter, nationally known expert on parenting (yes, you can help your children develop good habits with her method, too):
Breaking a larger goal into small, totally doable steps is the key to making a lasting change.
Make sure each step is easy enough to allow you to “win.”
Zoom in on one behavior at a time: One small item per week: omit the doughnut, do ten minutes of exercise, add one day per week of exercise rather than starting with six days per week.
Repeat this one change until it becomes a habit before going on to the next step.
And remember, when you’re slipping, it was not easy enough. Go back to an easier step; then work your way forward.
Change is made this way: two steps forward, one step backward. So long as the steps forward exceed the steps backward you are making progress.
And finally, remember to track yourself, but don’t attack yourself.
To hear Dr. Christine Carter, nationally known expert on parenting, and Nurse Rona Renner, on a podcast on habit change, go to http://greatergood.berkeley.
The Dark of the Year and the Dancing Saints
Personal note
Sometime shortly after Thanksgiving, my brain seems to go on vacation. All I can do is wander about, gazing at lights and humming music softly to myself. There may be wisdom percolating in that brain, but getting in touch with it seems to be very effortful. So I just decided to go with the flow, and in that spirit, I offer some of my mental wandering for my last blog post of 2011.
The Dark of the Year and the Dancing Saints
As the days grow shorter and darker, I find myself mentally withdrawing into a kind of warm, personal cave – a cozy one filled with minute lights and small comforts, in which I experience a minimum of demands on me.
Over the years, I have come to realize that the Dark of the Year is not a great time to find solutions to big problems, or to make great creative leaps, much less make magic. It is more like the time experienced by daffodil and tulip bulbs, snug under the ground, quiet, gathering their strength for the big surge that will come as the Earth warms.
No use looking for experiences that will trigger answers to questions – somehow the questions you are asking and answers you are receiving never match. It is instead a time for gathering in experiences that are nourishing and that will fuel that great Springtime leap.
In the spirit of providing ourselves with soul-nourishing experiences, a friend and I went to a Wintersong concert at a church in San Francisco. The concert itself, consisting of songs from Eastern Europe sung by eight charmingly costumed women, was a revelation. We were told that caroling predates Christianity, and consists of songs that fulfill that human need to find light, joy and community in the darker months.
As if that were not enough, the sanctuary in which the concert was held was a revelation in itself. From top to bottom, the walls were covered with vividly colored paintings of saints, as defined by the parishioners, all dancing together. St. Thomas Aquinas, John Coltrane, Florence Nightingale, Anne Frank, Francis of Assisi, Barnabas, Sojourner Truth, Paul of Tarsus, Eleanor Roosevelt, Martha Graham, and more, all joined hands in the dance. Somehow Lady Godiva was in the mix, too, as were several Seraphim, all similarly clothed (or unclothed). As a friend of mine once remarked, “The Lord certainly loves diversity. He created so much of it.”
It was a magic experience. All of these people, spanning centuries and representing a myriad of different belief systems, somehow came together to create a harmonious whole. It may have been pure fantasy, but it was the most hopeful thing I have seen all year.
May we all dance together as harmoniously in 2012, and may the magic of the holiday season grow in you, and burst forth triumphantly as the light returns.
The Best Gift of All
Personal Note
Thanksgiving is over, and all of a sudden I have run out of time. Boxes of decorations are strewn around my living room, lists for gifts and for cards are being drawn up, and food is being gathered in to make sure that friends can be welcomed at any time of the day or night.
One of the boxes I opened contained a box of cards that I have kept over the years because of the sentiments expressed by the giver, and one of those cards is the subject of this week’s newsletter.
The Best Gift of All
Holiday Hints at the Buffet for the Heart-wise
Personal note
Many of us are already planning 2012, dreaming about upcoming success, planning how to pursue life’s goals successfully, and hopefully, blocking out time for ourselves. We may picture ourselves hitting the ground running on January 1 (well, January 2 anyway).
Will we be “lean and mean” on January 2? Or will we face a battle to get our sluggish bodies into shape for what seemed like a glorious quest in November but more like an uphill battle in the New Year?
Here are some helpful hints to stay in shape.
Holiday Hints at the Buffet for the Heart-wise
The holidays are a particular challenge for those of us who know we must be vigilant every day to maintain our health through good eating. (Actually, that’s pretty much everybody.) Here are some of the challenges, and how to meet them.The holiday party, with its buffet of delectable treats, many of them high-fat – cheese plates, crackers, cookies made with real butter, rich drinks such as egg nog – can be faced and handled by using some of the following tricks:
- Drink a glass of skim milk before attending the party. It’s nutritious, filling, and will keep you from giving in and wolfing down too many hors d’oeuvres. And it’s great padding if you decide to have that one alcoholic drink you allow yourself at a party.
- Bring a bottle of sparkling water with you, in case it isn’t available at the party. Fill your glass with this festive-looking drink, or dilute your one glass of wine with it, making two or more bubbly spritzers.
- Station yourself as far away from the table as possible, so that you won’t be continually tempted by the sight and smell of food.
- When you do approach the buffet, fill up on vegetables (easy on the dip) first; then select the richer “goodies.”
- Decide in advance what you will eat, and how much of it. Want to treat yourself to a little bit of cheese? Pick the harder type of cheese (lower in fat). Try putting it on a vegetable, such as a celery stalk, rather than a cracker.
- Avoid automatic eating by keeping your hands occupied with holding a glass (of the above mentioned sparkling water or spritzer) while you are engaged in conversation.
- Don’t try to match the speed or amount that your partner is eating (easy to do), particularly if your partner is larger than you are. After all, would you put the same amount of fuel in a small compact car as you would a big SUV? No? Well, then…
- Do mindful eating: savor each bite by leaving each one at the front of your mouth longer than you usually do. Then slowly let it move through your mouth, noting the point at which that particular food really stimulates your taste buds and enjoying it to the max.
- If you don’t get a real thrill from a certain food, be willing to discard the rest of it uneaten. If you’ve looked the tray over and selected one brownie, be willing to get rid of it if you think it doesn’t taste like the best brownie the world (or at least you) has ever known.
Let a smile be your umbrella
Personal note
On Monday, I glanced at the clock, realized I was late for an appointment, and rushed off to my meeting. The clock was, unfortunately, the only one in the house I had neglected to change to the new time – unless you count the one in the car, which I also had not yet changed. So I arrived very early, but minus the documents I was expected to bring with me.
Remembering to breathe deeply and not take it too seriously, I went back to my office, where I made a phone call that netted me two new, important contacts. Elated, I entered the information into my computer, where I hit a key that sent them off into the Graveyard of Lost Computer Documents. Hanging my head in embarrassment (not easy to do over the phone) I called my informant a second time to get the information.
Clearly, this wasn’t the day I had wanted when I woke up.
Realizing I was in danger of becoming grumpy, and worse yet, of retrieving and reviewing all of the Bad Days in My Life History to convince me that I was right, Life Is Really Pretty Dreary, I reminded myself that there are simple devices you can use to restore good humor and balance to life.
Let a smile be your umbrella…
Here’s how to lift the gloom when you’re suffering from the “grumpies”, a discontented feeling that arises from a series of a series of small, unpleasant episodes that you are in danger of inflating into a really bad mood:
Sit or lie down; take several of those deep belly breaths.
Close your eyes and imagine what a smile feels like – the little lift at the corners of your mouth, the softening of your jaw muscles, the relaxation of your cheeks.
Next, reach far back into your memory for an event where someone gave you support, love, or praise, or where you excelled at something you had attempted. Slowly scroll forward through your memory seeking only such positive episodes, resolutely resisting reminiscing about old resentments or hurts.
As you think about these pleasant memories, think about how grateful you are, and smile at that thought. Let the smile be the response to your good memories, not a forced smile. This genuine smile was called a Duchenne smile by facial expression researcher Paul Ekman, Ph.D, after 19th Century French physician and researcher into muscles, Guillaume Duchenne.
Psychologist Dachter Keltner, in Born To Be Good, says that the Duchenne smile activates the reward, or pleasure, center in the brain, by flooding it with dopamine. The same center responds similarly to chocolate, love, orgasm, alcohol, and even cocaine.
Why not practice smiling frequently? People who are stressed out can calm themselves, slow their heartbeat, and reduce stress hormones in their blood by producing a genuine Duchenne smile, as described by Barbara Frederickson, Ph.D., and Robert Levinson, Ph.D. in a 1998 article in Cognition and Emotion.
Research by the British Dental Health Foundation suggested that smiling can provide the same stimulation as eating chocolate bars.
What a great way to feel good without blowing your budget or your diet!
Not a bad umbrella, for any season!
Persistent Perfectionism
Personal note
On Sunday, we will all “fall back” an hour. What a luxury: to wake up and discover you have an extra hour in your day!
But I have a mental image of the year, and it’s something like this. Right about now we are on a path that tilts, so that we start sliding faster and faster downhill from Halloween, through Thanksgiving, finally crashing into Christmas. Then, a week later, we have to pull ourselves out of the wreck and have one final crash –New Year’s Eve.
Following the holiday season, we must then try to pick up the pieces: the blown diet, the demolished bank account, the disordered home and the general feeling of “blah” we get when we have to do all of this during the darkest days of the year.
Why not make a few small changes now to defeat the worst of the stress, and the accompanying “blahs.”
Defeat Time and Energy Bandits
One of these, which particularly rears its head at the holiday season, is perfectionism.
Now perfectionism is a wonderful trait – in its place. Some of the places where it is advisable to practice perfectionism include brain surgery (or any kind of surgery), pharmacy, air traffic control, operation of any kind of heavy equipment, including motor vehicles, or any other activity that seriously threatens the health and safety of living things.
But true perfectionists extend this way of thinking and behaving far beyond the boundaries of necessity. Relationships, child-rearing, weddings, and holidays are areas where the whole experience would be better for everyone if the perfectionist could just back off.
Christmas can include a hurricane search for exactly the right gift, which is unavailable due to its popularity, or the ultimate holiday decorations and meal, suitable for a photograph on a magazine cover.
“But I’d be letting people down if I didn’t do it,” wailed one of my clients. “Really?” I said. “Have you asked them?” Turns out her family members were delighted to be asked. They hated her frantic search for perfection.
How to dial down your perfectionistic tendencies? Make a list of all the areas in your life where it is necessary for you to be a perfectionist (see discussion above). Then make a list of all the areas where it is merely “desirable,” including filling out income tax returns, making travel reservations, dealing adequatelywith customers or clients. Failure to be perfect here can result in spending money or in wasting time, but it is not life-threatening.
What’s left after the “necessary” and “desirable” areas are the gray areas: being concerned about how you dress, how your home looks, whether you have said something foolish, made a mistake, or somehow displayed your ignorance.
In this context, perfectionism is NOT about setting high expectations or being successful in your endeavors. It is about being concerned about making mistakes and about worrying about what others think. Perfectionism in this arena robs you of joy, of creativity, and of authentic relationships.
Think of it this way – persistent perfectionism is stress, and stress is life-threatening. Any event that you are willing to shorten your life for by having anxiety about had better be an equally life-threatening event. Are dust bunnies, disarranged hair, or verbal mistakes really worth your life?
No Fault De-Stressing
Personal note
My morning paper the other day had an article about a new app for kids: it gives them yoga “moments” with which to handle the stressors of the day.
No Fault De-Stressing
Here’s a different look: we have inherited a nervous system that defaults to a stress response readily, because our primitive ancestors survived by recognizing threat readily and taking action quickly. Those ancestors were dealing with physical danger, such as the proverbial saber tooth tiger. Today our threats are mostly social, so the response is not appropriate. But we’re hard-wired for it. That’s not our fault.
What’s in your Holiday Bucket?
Personal note
This year, my Holiday Stressbuster Program will include this fascinating topic and ways to avoid it, as well as strategies for handling the difficult people who seem to crop up more often at holiday times, tactics for blending people who have very different ideas of how holidays should be celebrated, ways to avoid over-eating and over-spending, and more.For a “taste” of the Holiday Stressbuster program, sign up for my complimentary session on Wednesday, October 19, 7:30 Central Time. It will be chock-full of good information that will help you turn your holiday nightmares into a holiday dream!
What’s in your Holiday Bucket?
Just Breathing
Personal Note
Pumpkins, caramel apples, masks, fancy costumes – Halloween is upon us; can Thanksgiving and Christmas be far behind?
So many choices: Should I buy the bags of candy I really like? No, I might eat too much. But if I buy the ones I don’t like, perhaps no children will come to the door, and then I’ll eat the left-over candy anyway, only I won’t even enjoy it.
“Decision fatigue” is a recently-researched phenomenon that has special meaning during the holidays, when we are faced with even more choices, crowded closer and closer together. The results of decision fatigue include poor judgment, mood swings, splurging, over-indulging…sound familiar?
This year, my Holiday Stressbuster Program will include this fascinating topic and ways to avoid it, as well as strategies for handling the difficult people who seem to crop up more often at holiday times, tactics for blending people who have very different ideas of how holidays should be celebrated, ways to avoid over-eating and over-spending, and more.
For a “taste” of the Holiday Stressbuster program, sign up for my complimentary session on Wednesday, October 19, 7:30 Central Time. It will be chock-full of good information that will help you turn your holiday nightmares into a holiday dream!
Just Breathing
Pause, breathe, choose: I remind my clients (and myself) of this sequence frequently, adding that the response we make to a stressful event is our choice, not a given.To reach the point where we recognize other choices, it is important to be able to distance ourselves from the world and center on our own bodies and minds. Correct breathing is the key here. If you have ever studied voice or a wind instrument, you probably know how to do this already.
If not, here’s a primer: deep breathing doesn’t come from the chest, but from the abdomen. Therefore, the best way to start taking a deep, relaxed breath is to let go of all the muscles you have probably been trying so hard to hold in. Feel the entire front of your body release; if you are sitting down and are not skeleton-thin, you may feel a portion of your lower abdomen touch the very tops of your thighs.
At the moment that this happens, think of your body filling with air, and picture that air reaching all the way down into the bottom of your abdomen. At the same time, you will probably become aware that your entire rib cage is expanding to the side as well as to the front.
Once you have grasped this technique, try the following sequence:
Inhale for four slow counts
Exhale for four slow counts
Stay empty for four slow counts
Your body contains enough oxygen for you to rest comfortably for four slow counts without feeling the slightest bit deprived, yet somehow in this state it is difficult if not impossible to think of anything except your body, especially the center of your body which is involved with breathing. Your consciousness pulls in until the outer world recedes, and you are all alone, comfortably, with yourself. The squirrel wheel of your mind even stops.
Repeat this exercise several times. If you do it for ten minutes, you are taking giant steps towards maintaining physical and mental health, for it not only slows down your thinking but also slows down your nervous system and your heart rate.
In this state, unimportant events somehow slip away. You may find they are replaced by truly creative thoughts about how to plan your next moves.
Once you have learned this technique, you can practice it anywhere. Just a deep breath or two can help you handle a difficult situation with less stress.
Easy, and cheap. What more can you ask for?
