Part 3: Rebuilding your Psychological Pillars

Phase 2: Start the important work of rebuilding

It is difficult, maybe impossible, to start rebuilding when you’re still in the throws of acute grief. During the early phase, distraction might be more effective than strategic rebuilding. Eventually, when the fog begins to lift and you’re starting to feel glimmers of yourself, it may be time to start asking yourself two important questions: “How did I get here?” And “what do I want my life to look like a year from now”? Answering them will help you start the path of rebuilding psychological needs

Please know, however, that this phase will take time, effort – and importantly, vulnerability. You will need to reach out to new people and try new things. If you are doing it well, you will have lots of opportunities to be outside your comfort zone and you will feel awkward and uncomfortable. If you’re going above and beyond in your efforts, you will undoubtedly experience exclusion again! The difference this time is that you will be entering into these situations intentionally, treating them as part of a personal strategy and keeping your eye on the long game.

Let’s take a look at each domain and field some ideas of how you might address them.

Meaningful Existence: It reeks a bit of toxic positivity to imply that “everything happens for a reason”, and that you should simply silver lining of the bad thing that’s happened to you. Sometimes bad things just happen, people are just mean, and life hurts. In the effort to rebuild meaning, however, it can be helpful to ask yourself a few questions to see what you might learn from your current pain.

Had you seen signs of this rejection coming for awhile? Was the person explicit in their rejection and you refused to see it? Did they send mixed messages (ambiguous rejection) and you discounted the signs? When we experience ambiguous rejection, most of us keep coming back for more, doing our best to adjust in the hopes that we’ll be let in. How can you recognize the signs earlier next time and what would you like to do should you find yourself in that situation again? Getting answers to some of these questions can help you recapture your sense of meaning by learning something from the experience.

Ok, you’ve learned from your experience, but now what? When rejection comes from your social circle or long-term partner, your purpose was in part defined by your relationships with them. Planning get togethers, cooking meals, caring for family members, checking in on friends’ well being – these are all things that give us a reason for getting out of bed in the morning. They give our life an overall sense of direction and purpose. Losing those connections can deeply injure this sense of forward motion. It takes time to rebuild, and it can be difficult – but it is not impossible.

Are there things you have wanted to put time and energy to, but have been putting off? Is there something new that you could do with your time that sounds meaningful. Volunteer work that you’ve always wanted to do? A cause that you care about? A person you wanted to spend time with? A hobby that you want to try? A career change you want to research? Now is the time to start a new adventure or finish an old one. Work this into your schedule, making sure to fulfill your other important responsibilities.

What happens if you can’t think of anything that would feel meaningful? Don’t worry, this is a common experience. Trauma is an assault on the imagination. We can feel numb inside as we try to dissociate from the pain, and when we are numb we struggle to envision much of anything – particularly anything positive.

In these cases, I often work start clients with a simple mindfulness exercise: As you go through your day, notice what feels good and what doesn’t. Notice what is uncomfortable and painful, but pay special attention to what feels nice, even if it’s just a hair better than neutral. Keep a written list.

As you build some skill with this, you may start noticing more often that there are things in life that do, in fact, feel good or meaningful. If you are notice bright spots in your day, use that as data about “what works” to generate positive emotion. Now, think about the future. Start envisioning something you might do later today or tomorrow that you suspect might give you a sense of well being and purpose. Jot those down and try them. Treat it like an experiment. Did it work? Was it a flop? Keep testing and experimenting. You may stay in this stage for quite some time as your recovery solidifies, trying and failing sometimes – succeeding at other times. When you are ready, slowly start to imagine further and further into the future and set yourself some medium to long term goals.

Self-esteem. The best antidote to feeling like a failure is to acknowledge and build competence. Remember what you’re good at and do more of it. Is there room to improve at school or at work? Do it. Would it feel good to focus on your body and build strength and endurance? Do it. Are there areas in your life that have been nagging at you that you would like to improve upon? Now is the time to face these things and make the progress you have been wanting to make. Building competence, particularly in areas that are primarily under your control can be a significant boost to self-esteem and mood. Take care that, at least initially, these efforts don’t entirely depend on being accepted or selected by another person – while it can be an ego boost to make a varsity team, get invited to a party, or get a promotion at work, for the purposes of this exercise you want to find ideas who’s success is measured independently from others’ involvement.

Belongingness: The first step to rebuilding your sense of belongingness is to take stock of your current relationships. Are there people in your life with whom your relationships feel uncomplicated, that you are accepted no matter what? Friends, parents, a sibling you never really gave much time to? If you haven’t already, invest more deeply in those relationships. Initiate get togethers, start an online game, involve them in your life in more meaningful and regular ways.

If there’s no one on that list, that’s ok – know that this is the goal. “No downside” relationships, or at least “low-downside” relationships. These are friendships that mostly feel nurturing and supportive. Humans are complicated, which means relationships are complicated – but there really are people and communities that can leave us feeling uplifted rather than drained and insecure. Believe that if you remain curious, flexible, and a bit courageous, you can find these folks. But how?

Take a look at what is on your list in the first two domains – are there ways you can engage in communities that are working on goals you are already interested in achieving? Advocating for an issue you care about? Find a local group that’s engaging with it and join up. Looking to explore your spirituality? Find a religious community you can plug into. Working on fitness? Join a water aerobics, yoga class or bootcamp that meets regularly and make sure to strike up one conversation each time you go. Curious about pottery? Join a class at your local studio. There are nearly limitless ways to plug into the world if you are willing – in person is ideal, but online is good too if your “thing” doesn’t exist nearby. The important part is joining in community working towards some kind of common goal. When we work with someone on something we care about, we have a sense of shared purpose, often around a set of shared values, which creates natural incentives/pathways for forging a sense of belongingness.

Control. You have the ability to make choices that can directly affect your sense of well-being. Making a plan and being intentional about trying strategies in the first three areas will go a long way to rebuilding your sense of control. A word of caution here – not everything you try will work. Be ready for that. You may have to take it slow and get support because there are times when you may try the thing, but you won’t have the energy for it or it won’t actually feel good. That is ok, part of taking your control back is pacing yourself and understanding that this is a marathon, not a sprint. Marathons take regular effort and some days you’re going to run a short distance, others you will run longer. There are days you will need rest and recovery.

Recap

The research tells us that rejection is a universal experience. In the age of “ghosting”, many of us have even experienced exclusion’s most painful form – ostracism. It hurts when it’s a stranger and is distressing even at the hands of someone we don’t like. It can be devastating when it comes from a friend or loved one. The good news is that, if we set good foundations for recovery and intentionally set about the task of rebuilding, we can not only recover, but come back stronger.

If you are dealing with feelings of exclusion and find that you are having a hard time recovering, I hope you will find a professional who can assist you in this important work.

Bibliography

Freedman G, Williams KD and Beer JS (2016) Softening the Blow of Social Exclusion: The Responsive Theory of Social Exclusion. Front. Psychol. 7:1570. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01570

Lynn Mulvey K, Boswell C, Zheng J. Causes and Consequences of Social Exclusion and Peer Rejection Among Children and Adolescents. Rep Emot Behav Disord Youth. 2017 Summer;17(3):71-75. PMID: 30100820; PMCID: PMC6085085.

Wayne A. Warburton, Kipling D. Williams, David R. Cairns, When ostracism leads to aggression: The moderating effects of control deprivation Journal of Experimental Social Psychology,Volume 42, Issue 2, 2006, Pages 213-220, ISSN 0022-1031, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jesp.2005.03.005

Weir, Kirsten. The pain of social rejection. Monitor on Psychology, 2012, Vol 43, No. 4. Print version: page 50. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/04/rejection

Zhang S, Huang J, Duan H, Turel O and He Q (2021) Almost Everyone Loses Meaning in Life From Social Exclusion, but Some More Than the Others: A Comparison Among Victims, Voluntary, and Forced Rejecters.Front. Psychol. 12:658648. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.658648