Few things in life feel worse than being rejected, misunderstood, ignored, misjudged or betrayed, but we’ll all go through moments when we feel at least some of these things, and maybe all of them. Sometimes when I write about these very human experiences, someone will comment that this is just the mind; it’s just our thoughts about these things that are making us suffer and if we didn’t identify with these thoughts, we’d be fine. That’s wonderful. If you’re in that place, you don’t have to read further. Most of us, myself included, will have to grapple with uncomfortable feelings and thoughts from time to time, before we can bring ourselves back to center.

Of course the truth is that no one can make us feel anything unless we let them, and the only reasons we’d allow the actions, feelings or thoughts of someone else to sway us, is if we have tremendous trust and respect for the party in question, or we have doubts about ourselves in the first place. If someone betrays you, that’s a reflection of where they are on their own journey, it’s not a statement about you, or anything lacking in you, but it may take you some time to integrate that and to understand that a person who lies to you is lacking self-respect, at least at this moment in their lives. A person who lies to you is in pain or fear or they are suffering from a lack of integrity. I think for many people, the tendency is to internalize it, though. I get too many emails that contain some variation of the sentence, “Who am I to…” and they end with all kinds of things: follow my dreams, stand up for myself, live a life that feels good to me, speak out about what’s true for me, believe I’m worthy of love?

If you have doubts about whether you’re lovable, it’s going to be very painful when you feel rejected or unseen or misunderstood or ignored, because you’re going to believe these deep doubts you have are true, and that you now have concrete evidence other people can see how you’re lacking as well. However, I believe we’re made of energy, and the energy we’re made of is love. We’re made of the same stuff as the trees and the stars, and I think we’re all coming out of, and returning back to, that same energy, so worthiness isn’t an issue in my view. You are love, as much as any ocean or constellation or gorgeous tree. Anything else you’ve learned to the contrary is just not real. I think for most people, the trick is to unlearn anything that you’ve been taught that makes you doubt your own beauty, your own singular contribution to the whole, your own responsibility to live a life that feels good to you. Otherwise, how will you ever uncover your gifts, which only you can offer?

If and when you feel misjudged, rejected or ignored, come back to yourself. Your wholeness does not exist in anyone else. You may create an incredibly loving relationship with someone, and that may help you to grow and expand in ways you wouldn’t on your own, but I don’t think you’ll be able to participate in a relationship like that if you don’t believe in your heart that you’re special. If you doubt yourself too severely, you’ll doubt anyone else who sees something beautiful within you. If you don’t believe it, no one else can solve that for you, and if you do believe it, no one else can take that from you.

You can’t control what other people will do or want or say or feel or need. You can’t control what life puts in your path, but you can work on the way you respond to what you’re given, and you can do the work to heal those places within you that are raw and in need of your kind attention. If you doubt yourself, let that be the entry point for investigation. Start with why. Why do you doubt yourself? What happened along the way? You strengthen and open yourself from the inside so you can recognize you’re as precious and unique as any fingerprint, any other person made up of 37 trillion or so cells, and you rock the life you’ve been given.

Sending you love,

Ally Hamilton

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