Six Steps to Get Over Rejection Quicker

Posted August 26th, 2015 | Michelle Hollomon

When you’re at soccer practice but none of the other moms are talking to you.

When you find out you didn’t get selected for that job.

When you find porn sites on your husband’s computer.

When you find texts on your wife’s phone from another man.

When you’re single and everybody in the entire universe is married.

When the people you love and count on the most let you down.

Rejection is that dark and sinking feeling that you being you is just not enough. That if you were somehow better, smarter, more interesting, thinner, funnier, more popular, then this kind of rejection wouldn’t happen. That if you were more like someone else and less like you, then you’d be much better off. You start to believe that there must be something wrong with you because all those perfect people out there don’t feel this way.

Rejection. Rejection is what you feel when you show up to your life but the people around you don’t receive you the way you wanted. We all feel it in varying intensity at different times in our lives. No one is immune to it, but some people handle it in resilient ways.  Here are Six Resilient ways to handle the inevitable rejections in your life.

1. Don’t Take it Personally. You may be tempted to become very egocentric and make the rejection all about you. You may try to make sense of the rejection by thinking of all the ways you just don’t measure up. By doing this, you sink further and further into yourself, closing yourself off from helpful reality.

2. Face Reality. Reality will inform you that there are many variables that affect your circumstances and subsequent rejection feelings. Other people’s needs, hang ups, expectations, and behaviors are often influenced by other things than just you. Do you have a part to play in their rejection? Maybe. But be realistic about owning your part, and not theirs.

3. Take Some Personal Time. People who recover from rejection quickly prioritize their personal time to get their thoughts and feelings working for them instead of against them. Maybe you need to journal, or go for a long run, or go for a long drive with your music turned up. Maybe you pray or write a letter to yourself. In essence, you are being your own best friend when you need a best friend the most. Personally, I believe this is the time that God gets to show up as your best friend too.

4. Make a Plan. Rejection can immobilize and de-motivate you, but it is important not to let it. Doing nothing often steals your power. But making a plan gives you your power back. Do you want to acquire more skills, get healthy, reinvent yourself, find a supportive group of friends, start dating, change your dating profile, update your resume, change directions? This is an opportunity for you to figure out what you really want and make a plan to get it.

5. Don’t Reject Yourself. When you feel rejected, you may rehearse all the reasons why you were rejected. Of course, these are all conjectures and assumptions, but none the less, you are tempted to nurse them, sulk and feel down about yourself. Don’t. Just because you have been rejected, don’t worsen the injury by rejecting yourself too. Say, “I feel bad and rejected, and maybe humiliated too. I’ll be damned if I do that to myself. I’m going to learn from this, hold my head high, and not let this turn me into a victim.”

6. Don’t Keep Knocking on Closed Doors. Sometimes, you may find yourself trying and trying and trying to fit in with the wrong crowd, getting the wrong guys to like you, working at a job that’s not a good fit, or getting an abandoning person to stay. It may be time to let go, and try something that is a better fit for you. Don’t work harder at trying to meet other people’s expectations than you work at meeting your own.

Rejection has the power to make you bitter or better, sadder or stronger. You chose you.

What to Do When Bad Things Happen

Posted May 10th, 2015 | Michelle Hollomon

In light of the recent devastation to communities in Houston, Florida, Puerto Rico and now the tragedy in Las Vegas, I wanted to offer help to those affected. Truly, all of us are affected when bad things happen in our world, just some of us are closer to the tragedies than others. For those of you who are pained by the recent events but not sure what to do or how to feel about them, please read the following example and tips that I wrote awhile back.

Stacey’s Story

“Everything is pretty terrible actually.” I ran into a friend at the store, when this tumbled out of her mouth. She had recently been in a car accident and sustained a concussion. As an employee and student, she had to get extensions from her boss and instructors for deliverables and assignments. She said, “I just can’t concentrate. I can’t focus. I can’t get anything done. My life changed in an instant. I’ve been sidelined.”

I was so sad to see this beautiful young woman struggle like this. She was always a real go-getter, a runner, a successful sales person, and now she was stopped in her tracks. Stacey verbalized what she felt as a victim of brain trauma, but she could easily be describing what people everywhere say about trauma in general. Her story is much like injuries to the soul- what I call Soul Holes. Whether you’ve experienced trauma to the brain, the body or the soul, trauma hurts. It affects your functioning, your confidence, and your relationships. Loss, divorce, abuse, theft, assault, bankruptcy, natural disasters all can have traumatizing effects.

She could easily be describing what people everywhere say about trauma in general.

What Trauma Does…

To your Brain: Trauma impacts new learning, focus, concentration, and memory. You may not be able to function after the trauma at the same level you functioned before the trauma. Healing takes time and a lot of effort.

To your Relationships: Trauma affects your ability to trust, cope, and form healthy relationships. Bonding may be more difficult for you because you are wary of something bad happening consciously or unconsciously. Your brain is so occupied with survival, that things like affection, intimacy, and empathy essential to healthy relationships, don’t come naturally.

To your Emotional Health: Trauma disrupts your ability to self-sooth, control your feelings, and your ability to distinguish between safe and unsafe people. Everything inside feels messed up and unstable. You question and doubt yourself and the people around you, and possibly even trust people and places that shouldn’t be trusted. Your flight or flight responses could be locked into over drive leaving you emotionally spent and confused.

To Your Body: PTSD results in tightened muscles, shallow breathing, racing thoughts, rapid heart rate and hyper vigilance. Contrarily, creativity directly affects those symptoms by relaxing the body, deepening the breath, focusing the mind, slowing the heart rate and calming response triggers. Trauma has been linked to heart disease, obesity, addiction, pulmonary illness, diabetes, autoimmune disorders, and chronic pain disorders.

To Your Paradigm: Trauma affects the way you see the world and yourself. You may not see the world as a trustworthy place to grow, in which to take risks and thrive. You may not see yourself as having the ability, the confidence, the worth-whileness to accomplish good things in the world.

 

trillium

Just like the Trauma Flower.

The Trillium is a perennial that grows in the lush forests of the Pacific Northwest. It’s usually found in the wild protected by a canopy of pines and maples. It loves the ample rain fall and blooms in the spring. It’s so special to see on a hike through the forest it just makes you want to pick it. But picking the bloom traumatizes the plant. Picking the bloom retards its growth because the corn is unable to gather enough nutrients from the sun for next year’s bloom. Once traumatized, the flower may never bloom again.

The Trillium is our very own Trauma Flower. It reminds us when our bloom is plucked, we must be very careful to restore ourselves for future blooming. If we don’t take care of the trauma after-math, our insides start to die. Without plenty of attention, healing and nurturing, we can’t be restored to health.

sun through trees

What Will Help You:

Getting Safe: Doing whatever it takes to make your world safe and secure. Your body and soul need rest, recovery time and patience. You may feel effects from the trauma for weeks and months after the traumatic event. This is normal. However, getting yourself physically and emotionally safe is paramount for healing to occur.

Having Choices: Victims of trauma will feel like their choices were taken away, and the trauma was forced upon them. Whether by accident or by will, you went through something in which you had little to no choice. You will need the ability to make choices about your recovery, your resting period, and your healing to feel powerful again.

Being Empowered: If you were traumatized by someone or something, you felt a loss of power and control. You still may feel that way. You may not be able to control your stress level, your emotions, your anger or your drug or alcohol use. You need help to bring back a sense of empowerment. Setting boundaries with the help of safe people will get you back to a state of Empowerment.

Do Something: Those who do something fair better in the long run than those who do not. For example, those who donate money, volunteer to help, give blood, call a friend or relative, make a plan, or organize a crisis response feel less helpless and more confident. The feeling of being able to help someone else through a bad situation can be powerfully healing. Today, in response to the Las Vegas mass shooting, I published this blog and made an apple cobbler for my family. Bringing comfort to the people I care about makes me feel more in control and less helpless when bad things happen.

Having Help and Collaboration: You won’t be able to recover fully on your own. You will need the help of healthy people, experts, people who’ve been there, and people who care. Even though trauma can leave you feeling isolated and ashamed, reach out to helpful people. Allow safe people to help you make decisions about your recovery and your next steps. Opening up to trustworthy people is a wonderful first step in getting “yourself back.”

Having Reliability and Predictability: Trauma can leave your inner and outer world disorganized with lots of loose ends and unfinished business. You can’t expect to get your life back in order right away. Give yourself time and routine. As much as possible, set your calendar with routine and predictability in mind with plenty of margin for rest and self-nurture. Accomplish one small thing a day and congratulate yourself for the movement, no matter how small it is.

Take Heart

What Stacey Did Right:

Asked for Help: Once she learned she wasn’t thinking clearly, she immediately asked her superiors for extra time to complete projects.

Was Patient with Herself: She didn’t expect herself to recover right away. Sure, that would be nice, but she was listening to the doctors about what was realistic to expect. She, like the trillium may need to wait a few seasons before her bloom returns. She understood that growth and healing were happening behind the scenes, even if there was no evidence of it yet.

Talked About It: Though my friend and I hadn’t caught up in awhile, she didn’t hide her recent struggles. She opened up about the real circumstances she experienced. She even saw a counselor to help her prioritize the things that were now important for her.

Didn’t Pretend it Didn’t Happen: My friend could have been tempted to deny the negative affects of her trauma and pretended she could carry on business as usual, but she didn’t. She knew it is always better to face reality than to hide from the truth.

Wasn’t Ashamed: My friend was experiencing weakness, real struggle, and even a sense of failure. But she decided that she wasn’t going to be ashamed of her struggle, she was going to bring it into the light and talk about it.

I know it’s hard.

There are many of us out there that wish we could talk about our trauma as freely as my friend talked about her head injury. Some traumas like abuse, bullying, betrayal, or significant loss are just not that easy to talk about or get help for. I totally get that. I’ve struggled with things in my life that I felt were so taboo to talk about.

But talking about them is exactly what will bring us healing.

Trauma loses its power when its brought into the light. Pain doesn’t seem so big when it’s brought out of hiding. As we feel the pain of trauma in our own lives, and see the pain of trauma in others, let’s give ourselves the space needed for healing, and the will to move forward in a positive direction.

 

Why Do I Feel Insignificant?

Posted April 5th, 2015 | Michelle Hollomon

Have you ever had the feeling that you just didn’t matter? Maybe a time you expressed your opinion and felt dismissed or un-important? How about volunteering your time for an event and not receiving a thank you for your time? Or how about when you were at that party and saw the guy you liked, and how he looked passed you at your taller, prettier best friend? Oh, that’s the worst!

All of us have had the feeling of being unseen before. It’s like, “I swear I’m here in living form, but no one seems to notice or care.”

I was once a part of a church group in which I was un-seen. Looking back, I’m rather embarrassed I stayed  as long as I did, but learning the hard way is my MO. Year after year, I volunteered my time, I hosted events, and started prayer meetings for the group’s members. Damn, I was a good Christian! But I always had this sinking feeling that I was just being tolerated- like a bizarre circus side show act that garnered curiosity and queer glances.

I never truly belonged to the group because I was not truly seen as valuable. True belonging is impossible without being truly seen.

To be seen is to be valued, recognized as a worthwhile individual; to be identified as uniquely separate with personal rights, needs and interests equal to others; to be noticed, counted, and taken interest in. Significance has less to do with performance and behavior, and more to do with inherent human value. It is being seen as human only- not more or less than.

Are you truly seen in your relationships? Do you feel valuable and equal? Do you respect yourself in your relationships by speaking up for your needs, following through with boundaries, and believing yourself to be equal? Let’s explore some examples. 

A young couple marry. The husband’s job takes them across country to start their life together. The wife is unable to find work in her field and becomes depressed. The husband sees the professional sacrifice she has made to be with him, and offers to quit his job and move to another area where she can find acceptable work. She, in turn feels that her needs are seen as important. She appreciates his gesture so much that she determines to stick it out where she is, so that he can continue his career path. Because she feels seen, valued and cared for, she has the strength to continue her sacrifice with contentment. She reinvents herself professionally, and they decide together to heavily invest in her new business start up. Her unique needs are seen, prioritized and resourced. She feels seen as a valuable person.

Way back when I was breaking my neck trying to be seen in the group who just didn’t see me, I didn’t know that I was guilty of not seeing myself. How could they see me as valuable when I didn’t see myself that way? How could I matter to them if I was acting as if I didn’t matter to myself?

Another example of being seen is when a mother sees her child as a valuable person, separate from herself, she is able to see and meet her child’s specific needs. If the child is struggling with her parents’ divorce, and acting out at school, the mother sees her child’s pain as separate from her own, and is able to address it by asking for help from the school counselor, meeting with the teacher, or talking it through with the child. The mother communicates to her child, “I see you. You are important to me, I care that you are hurting. I’m here for you.” Instead of drowning in her own pain, the mother sees her child as important enough to temporarily set her own needs aside, and meet the needs of her child. How many times have divorced mothers dried their eyes before the afternoon school bus arrives so they can give their happiest and healthiest selves to their children?

Sometimes this happens, and sometimes it doesn’t. You may remember growing up with such mental illness, dysfunction, or chemical abuse in your family, that you and your needs were largely ignored. 

Don’t ignore yourself anymore. Don’t treat yourself and your needs un-important anymore. If you start treating yourself as important, one of two things will happen: 1) the people around you will learn how too, or 2)the people around you will drop off and you will begin to attract new, healthier people. Either way, you win.

What ways have you learned to make yourself important? What advice could you give others?

 

Goal Morphing: What to do when you must change goals.

Posted June 25th, 2013 | Michelle Hollomon

It’s half way through your 2013, and time to brush up on your goals. Have they changed since making them at the beginning of the year? Are you right on track, or do you seem helplessly off course? Don’t panic! Successful people know that just because the HOW, WHEN, and WHAT of Goals may change, doesn’t mean the GOAL disappears or loses its integrity. Allowing our strategies to flex and morph to fit current needs is not a failure in anyway.  You can only make decisions and goals based on what you know at the time. Six months ago, you had less information about yourself, about your circumstances, and about your tribe than you do now. These past six months have informed you, educated you and prepared you to make the adjustments your goals need for success.
One goal I made at the beginning of the year was to race in the Iron Girl Seattle Triathlon. I’m not a racer, runner, swimmer or contender of any kind, so this was a pretty hefty challenge. With wet suit in hand, new tires on my college bike, and hundreds of hours on the trail and in the pool, I’m on track to meet my goal this August. This is a goal that is well within my sites.

But that is not the case for every goal I set in January. I walked away from the radio show I hosted,  and I’m counseling fewer hours than I initially planned. I had to make severe cuts (ok, more like rip, thrash and set fire) to the goals I set 6 months ago because new circumstances, new opportunities, and new information came along.  If you’ve had to slash some of your dreams and goals, don’t worry, you’re still on track- or at least close enough to get back on. Goals are mile markers on a map- they are not the final destination, and they are yours to do with what you need. Change them, Specify them, Shelf them, Laser-Beam Focus on them- whatever you need to do to make them work for you. You’re the boss of your goals.

It’s ok to be flexible and make adjustments to the WHAT, WHEN, and HOW of your goals. If you must let some go completely, be sure to boil them down to the essence before you do. That way, you’ll be able to keep the HEART of why you made that goal in the first place.

Here are some things to keep in mind as you re-evaluate, readjust and refocus on your 2013 GOALS.

  • Name the value. What are some of your biggest values? Off the top of your head, what are the things in life that you care most deeply about? Is it family, education, faith, community service? Where does health and personal growth fit into your value system? If you say that personal growth is a value of yours you leave little time or investment for it, then spend some time reevaluating the priority of your values.
  • Name the specific goal. It may be tempting to shoot first several goals that you want in the next year, but it is most realistic to pick one or two. Instead of hoping for the ideal, let’s shoot for the real. What are the top two goals that you’d like to accomplish this year? Ask yourself these questions; what value will accomplishing this goal add to your life? Why is this goal important to you? How will achieving this goal change your life for the better?
  • Name the behaviors needed to reach your goal. What specific actions do you need to take? To reach my goals, for example, I’ll need to schedule one hour in every work day to focus my energy on my specific goal. This will take time, financial investment, and energy. I will not reach my goal if I wait for my schedule to allow for enough time to work on my goal. I must be proactive to schedule a time for myself. I must dictate my calendar, instead of my calendar dictating to me.
  • Name the outcome measure. How will you know when you’ve reached your goal? When evaluating your outcome measures, be sure to set smaller goals that turn into bigger goals. Progress is a series of small increments toward the desired outcome. Each increment of progress is worthwhile and necessary.
  • Name your threat. What are the things that will get you off course? Here are some common ones; fear of failure, lack of financial investment, lack of time investment, lack of support, distractions, and insecurities. You may be tempted to use your time and money for others sayings instead of your goal. You may be tempted to settle for the good, instead of reaching the best. Recognize the threats that will keep you from accomplishing your goals, and plan for them.

What goals have you adjusted? I’d love to hear about them. What goals have you scrapped all together? Which ones are you still working on, and what do you need to be successful?