Importance of self-care during the stages of rejection?

Rejection, as we have seen in the previous sections, is an indifferent or negative response to a person’s attempts to build a relationship. This can be a family relationship, friendly relationship, romantic relationship or a professional relationship. Rejection can show up and affect a person in different ways and needs to be worked on to prevent further harm on the mental state of the person. To effectively do this, we need to understand that the experience of rejection doesn’t affect us in one singular wave, but in stages. Just like there are 5 stages of grief, there are 5 stages of rejection. Which is a very interesting thing to note because rejection is effectively like grief in the sense that both are due to a loss, grief is the loss of a loved one while rejection is the loss of a possibility of a relationship. The 5 stages of rejection include the following:

• Denial and avoidance: Rejection is something that affects us at a deep level. It causes a breaking of the possibilities regarding that relationship that we had created in our mind. So, our mind can, a lot of times, lead to the use of the defense mechanism of denial and avoidance. This is where we deny the rejection and avoid the reality of the situation. This gives us more time to come to terms and adjust to the truth of the whole situation.
• Anger at others and at self: Once the reality settles into our minds, we tend to turn to anger. This anger can be directed at the other person who rejected us, at ourselves for putting ourself in the situation, or even at the situation as a whole.
• Negotiations, internally and externally: Then, we can move into trying to negotiate a more favorable outcome. These negotiations can be made with the person itself or within our minds, where we revisit the situation and think about what-ifs for the situation in order to avoid the feelings that come with rejection, such as the feeling of disappointment, hurt or betrayal. Even the anger. This is done out of the desire to achieve acceptance, in real life or within our own minds.
• Resignation, lowered self-view and sadness spiral: Once the negotiations prove to be unhelpful, we move into resignation towards the whole situation. Resignation to the reality that there isn’t much else that we can do, that the truth of the situation is the rejection. This can cause us to withdraw from our circles, wanting to just be left alone, away from the world and people “responsible” for the deep pain caused. A lot of times, we can view rejection as an attack on our character as a person and we end up engaging in self-deprecation. This behavior makes our view of our self-worth lower and can take us down a spiral of deep sadness. This sadness, when not worked on to bring forth hope for the future, can even lead to depression.
• Acceptance and moving past: The nature of life is such that newness and hope does come in. This newness and hope needs to come into our lives for us to finally move forward to the next stage, acceptance. Acceptance of the situation, of the feelings and the new thing, gives back our zeal for our life. This new thing brings in hope and helps us to move past the rejection. It can be a new project to work towards, a new crush to impress, a new college to apply for, a new classmate to try and befriend. Sometimes, it occurs on its own, such as the gradual interest in another person. It can also be something that we intentionally choose to focus on because we want to hope, we want to move past the situation, we want to feel happy again, such as intentionally choosing to apply for another college, even if it wasn’t your first choice.

The stages of rejection may move one after the other, back and forth through a few stages or even entirely skip stages based on the situation, our support systems and our personal resilience. But, no matter what stage of rejection we might be in, it is important to prioritise our physical and mental health. A simple way to do this is by engaging in self care.

Self-care is emotional first aid in all situations. It is about engaging in acts that help pay attention to our emotional health. This includes the things that make you feel happy, safe and excited for life. A few common methods of self-care which can help with rejection are as follows:

• Let it out: Giving ourselves the freedom to actually let out and feel every emotion from the rejection without judgement or holding back helps the mind to actually process our feelings and thoughts. This also allows for the mind to come to the acceptance stage a lot faster.
• Be objective: Once we have felt the emotions, it is helpful to look at the situation objectively and make a note of the things that we can take away as a learning. This is a form of self-care as it allows us to delegate the blame according to the situation and helps us to grow as a person, improving our emotional health.
• Compassion: Self care also includes self-loving self-compassion, where we give ourselves enough love to want to grow by gently accepting our role in our rejection but also being kind to ourselves about it. This helps with growth and viewing growth as something to enjoy instead of dread.
• Reminders of true value: God made us and He is the only One who knows our true value and He fully accepts us. He never rejects us. He wants us to be better and keep growing as a person, but He doesn’t reject us. So what He says about us and our purpose is what is true. Whatever others may say about our character, behaviors or thoughts is secondary. Our true value primarily comes from God and others just add to it. So, it is important to go back to God and His view of our value after a rejection which tends to make us question our value as a person.
• Social support: Friends and family who do love and accept you are strong sources of support to overcome the feelings of rejection. Partaking in social connections such as these is a form of self-care too.
• Focus on the positives and have a heart of gratitude: The rejection can try to take over our whole mind because of the painful experience. But, seeking out the positives and being thankful for it can change our perspective from feeling stuck under a dark cloud to welcoming in slivers of sunlight. It acts as a reminder of Who is in control over our lives (Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. James 1:17)
• Try new things: When the focus is entirely on the rejection situation, it can make us feel very negative. But, when we redirect our attention to the newer interests which require effort, focus and time, we get productively distracted. The newer interests also make us feel good about ourselves for doing them. It brings a positive light to our outlook of the world.
• Partake in other forms of self-care: Things that make you feel happy and lift up your self-esteem help regulate thoughts and emotions. These could be as simple as taking a long bath, ordering in your favourite food and watching a comforting movie/reading a book or can even be something more effort requiring travelling to a place you really wanted to go to on a solo trip. Whatever works for you, honors God and His purpose for your life, makes you feel good, and doesn’t affect your finances significantly.
• Self care in the small things: Sometimes, especially in the early stages of overcoming rejection, self care can look like simply choosing to spend time being in the quiet, eating all 3 meals, drinking enough water, doing your day to day work, processing your thoughts and feelings with regards to the rejection, exercising and actually sleeping. That is also okay, as long as it doesn’t become a permanent way of living.
• Take help where help is needed: people were made with skills, callings and gifts to help other people. There are people like mentors, counselors and therapists who have spent their time and energy to hone the skills they’ve been blessed with in order to help us better. So, when we recognize that we might be needing more than we can do by ourselves, it helps to reach out to those who have been trained to help.

The stages of experiencing rejection take a toll on us but actively choosing to engage in self-care in every stage can make it a lot more manageable. Wherever there are still difficulties, there are trained professionals who can help us. We have hope for help and for growth from the situation. In the next section, we’ll be seeing how to deal with rejection in a more advanced manner.

References:

• BetterHelp Editorial Team. (2025, March 20). How to deal with rejection: Strategies for Emotional Resilience.
• Halasyamani, P. S., & Tolman, W. B. (2018). The five stages of rejection. Inorganic Chemistry, 57(9), 4789–4790.
• Murr, K. (2024, December 12). How to Cope with Feelings of Rejection and Abandonment | Awaken Counseling. Awaken Counseling | Marietta, Georgia.
• PsyD, A. M. (2025, December 27). How to deal with rejection. Verywell Mind.
• Wilczynska, A. (2024). Psychological Responses to exclusion: Examining rejection sensitivity pattern in Asian and European patients population. Annals of Psychiatry and Mental Health, 12(1), 1–9.