What I learned about rejection at age 11
When I was 11 years old my mom told me she had something she wanted to talk to me about. She sat me down in the living room and explained that my dad wasn’t actually my biological father. Then she talked about an elderly couple I had known my whole life as “Mr and Mrs Peterson” who were actually my grandparents. She said I could meet my biological father whenever I wanted to because he lived not far from town.
If you read my last blog called How To Become More Confident And Fear Less you know that my mom and dad divorced when I was seven. We went from living with my dad, which I didn’t feel was bad at all, to living with my mom and her boyfriend and seeing my dad every other weekend.
Meeting my biological father made my dad seem even more awesome. It was always abundantly clear that my dad loved me the same way he loved my younger brother and sister who are his biological children. My dad gave us three kids lots of exciting and memorable experiences. I wouldn’t say he was strict, but he had firm boundaries and we knew what would upset him. We wanted to please him, but we did fight and bicker a lot, as siblings do.
One of my favourite things about my dad is he was always taking pictures of our adventures, and I was always excited to be in the photos. I am so grateful to have so many pictures of my childhood.
I had never felt unloved or unwanted. That is, until I met my biological father.
When I met my biological father for the first time he was living on the same acreage he lives on today. He had a herd of buffalo and he was a heavy equipment operator. He was gruff and quiet. He didn’t smile. He was living with his wife and her two children from her previous relationship. The vibe in that house was awful. His wife glared at me and didn’t talk to me. I found out later from my grandma that his wife didn’t want him to meet me. She made that abundantly clear the first time I met her when I was 11 years old.
Feeling that negativity from my biological dad’s wife was the first time I felt true rejection. It wasn’t because of not being good enough, or doing something wrong. There was literally nothing I could do to avoid her rejection other than not going into her home, which wasn’t an option. I have put myself in her shoes and tried to understand why a grown woman would treat an 11 year old girl like that, especially in front of her own two children who were a little bit older than me. All I can come up with is that she wanted me to feel so unwelcome and uncomfortable that I wouldn’t come to their home again. My mom helped me understand her concern: that her own two kids, who already weren’t feeling any love from their step dad/my biological father, would be hurt seeing him treat me better.
After talking to my mom about this and hearing her opinion, I weighed my options: fight, flight or freeze. I decided to fight by continuing to visit my biological father. He barely said ten words to me when I was with him and I found his life to be incredibly boring and depressing, so I wasn’t fighting for HIM, specifically. He was a hermit with zero social skills. As the years went by I realized he had no friends and literally didn’t leave his farm other than to get groceries once a month. I wasn’t fighting for my relationship with him. I was fighting for myself and what I believed to be right. I hoped his wife would eventually welcome me into the family, but if she didn’t, I wasn’t going to stop coming around to make her life easier.
Would I have made that decision or had the courage to follow through without my mom cheering me on? Probably not. Am I glad I listened to her and didn’t back down? Absolutely.
Knowing how to handle rejection comes down to accepting that it is not your job to please people. When they aren’t happy with what you’re presenting and they give you the cold shoulder, they are not saying, “GET OUT OF MY LIFE AND NEVER COME BACK BECAUSE I DO NOT LIKE YOU”. When you feel unwelcome or unwanted, it’s not about you. There is something going on in their life that is bothering them and it has nothing to do with you.
Marketing is difficult for most Fempreneurs because it means putting yourself out there and opening up your tender heart to rejection. Marketing involves many steps, and the first one is creating a website to offer our products or services. Then we create videos and images for social media to let people know who we are, why we care about helping our niche people and how we can help them. We invite them to visit our website to learn more.
Have you ever had a negative comment below one of your social media posts?
Have you ever boosted a post on Instagram with a link to your website and a few days into your promotion you look at the ad performance to see only 2 people out of 3000 actually clicked the link in your ad?
These are examples of rejection. We feel like we aren’t the right fit. We feel unwelcome.
Here’s the thing I learned about my biological father’s wife which also works when marketing a business:
If you don’t quit and you actually believe in your mission, you will make progress.
If you’ve ever attended one of my marketing workshops, you’ve heard me say this:
REJECTION DOESN’T MEAN “NO”.
IT MEANS: “NOT LIKE THAT”,
OR “NOT RIGHT NOW”.
I experienced rejection many more times throughout my childhood and teen years simply because of my unique family situation. I’ll share more of the stories and the ways I have rewired my brain (with tons of help) to become a more loving person, both in the ways I love others and myself.
Feeling different and unwelcome at times as a child taught me that my family are the people I choose.
My family members are people who love me for who I am, because I am loyal, funny, adventurous and honest (brutally, at times). Very few of them are my blood relatives.
I am so grateful that I have created a business I can do from anywhere, and that I don’t have to work with anyone who doesn’t feel that I am valuable. I feel incredibly blessed to earn income from having fun conversations with women who I consider to be my family and helping them create awesome marketing material, websites and offers.
It hasn’t been easy, and not everyone can do it. Imposter syndrome is real, but I honestly can’t remember the last time I felt it in my life. The more you stand firm in your power, the gifts you are blessed with and called to share with the world, the less imposter syndrome creeps in.
Having parents who cheered me on and built up my confidence has been a game changer for me. And the rejection I dealt with at a young age, albeit unfortunate and sad, wired me for success. But if that’s not your story, you can still win the fight against rejection and imposter syndrome. I have helped hundreds of Fempreneurs who didn’t have a supportive childhood, or who typically ran away from rejection, achieve big things. I have helped them rewire their brains by:
1. Sharing my own wisdom and stories
2. Introducing them to other powerhouse women in the YYC Fempreneurs Community
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If you need support and guidance to help you rewire your brain’s reaction to rejection so you can create the life and business you want, I’m here to help:
