“Your task is not to seek love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.” ~Rumi
Up to a certain point in my life, I was always seeking approval and validation from everything outside of me. All I ever wanted was to feel loved. I longed for this feeling and wondered how the world could be so cruel as to reject me when I was so loving and available.
I have since learned that I was not as available as I thought.
It has been my experience that everyone that crosses our path is a mirror. They have come because we have called them into our lives to show us something—to teach us how to be more of who we truly are.
Our higher selves crave these experiences and relationships, because ultimately, this journey we call life is all about finding everything we want within us rather than without. It’s about waking up.
I have learned this over many years of things not turning out the way I wanted them to, feeling as though I was a victim and life was just not fair. I felt this way until I finally got it—I finally understood that life is happening for us. Yes, for us.
When I experience rejection in my external world, it is only because there are still places within myself where I am rejecting me. This means I am still vibrating on the same frequency as rejection. As long as I reject me, I will continue to attract people and situations that reject me, because we attract the people, places, and things that are a vibrational match to ourselves.
If I’m conscious about this, I can use these experiences as opportunities to break down the fear that keeps me from fully giving and receiving my own love and love from other people.
I have the choice to sink into my truth and be available to the pain I feel; and then to use it as a tool for healing. By giving it my attention, I can then fully feel it and process it.
When we feel through our charges and allow ourselves to really have the experience, then the charge within us dissolves and no longer attracts more of itself into our lives. This can be hard to accept at first because it is much easier to blame someone else for our pain and sorrow.
But actually that is an illusion, too. In the end, it is much easier and way more productive to take full responsibility for everything that “happens to us.”
If we can live life consciously and authentically—understanding that things do not happen to us, but rather for us—we can use everything that comes in to our as experience to our benefit. We can locate all the barriers that keep us from beauty, love, abundance, intimacy, joy, and good health.
Recently, I confessed my feelings of affection to someone who didn’t feel the same way for me. I’ve avoided this for a long time. I was so afraid of feeling rejected that I pushed my feelings down for almost two years.
However, as I grew and evolved, I considered that the entire relationship was there for me to heal. I was meant to look my fear of rejection in the eyes and learn to love myself through it.
So that is exactly what I did. I came clean. I had external integrity and shared my heart with him in a way I never could have imagined doing just a few short months ago. Now that he knows how deeply I care for him, I feel like my wounds are on the mend.
I continue to have internal integrity and allow myself to feel all the fears his rejection triggered, such as “I‘ll never be good enough,” or “I‘ll never be chosen,” or “I‘ll never get what I want because there is something wrong with me.”
Previously, I was holding myself back in my interactions with him because I was afraid to feel these things. Once I accepted that this relationship was happening for me, I realized I had to risk potential rejection.
If I didn’t because I didn’t feel worthy, my fears would prevent me from attracting the level of intimacy that blossoms from open, honest, loving relationships.
Rejection was the only way through these walls I’d built. It was time to feel the fear and do it anyway, for my own good.
Now, I’m not afraid of rejection because I’m not rejecting me. I can feel gratitude for it, and every other emotion I experience, because all of it is relevant—all of it is there for me to heal my wounds so I can be free.
I’m learning to love myself more as I use my life to break down the barriers within me that keep me from returning to love.
Next time you feel unappreciated, frustrated, or rejected, do yourself a favor and use them as opportunities. Put them in your box of healing tools.
Then ask yourself: how could these people, places, or things show you the barriers within yourself that keep you from experiencing all the love, peace, and joy you long for? Remember—our external world is only a reflection of our internal world.
What does your internal world look like? To change within is to change without. Much love and so much light to you all.
Photo by Dave Morrow’s Custom Creations
About Erin Lanahan
Erin is an Internationally Certified Life Coach, Yoga Instructor, and Motivational Writer and Speaker. Her mission is to inspire as many people as possible to return to their natural state of peace, abundance, health, inspiration & love so they may create the life the deeply desire. Visit her blog and You Tube Page.
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