Navigating Rejection and Building Resilience: A Guide for Highly Sensitive People

How to build a thicker skin as a highly sensitive person...

One of the things I've been working on is rejection.

Because, as Brene Brown says in her latest Netflix special, A Call to Courage, if you boldly go after your dreams — you WILL fail.

She relays a story that when she coaches leaders, they say, "Okay, I'm willing to risk failing."

"No," she responds. "Something's happening between what's coming out of my mouth and what you're hearing. You're not going to *risk* failing — you WILL fail."

How do you handle this as a highly sensitive person?

How do you put your subjective work out into the world and face rejection?

Case in point, I recently received a piece of feedback I'd never gotten in my 20+ year career — it threw me for a loop.

So, I watched Brene's special on repeat.

I heard her sharing about how when the trolls came out after her vulnerability TEDTalk went viral, that she holed up watching Downton Abbey for seven hours and eating copious amounts of peanut butter.

Even though she has two PhD's and the shame spiral she was experiencing is exactly what she was prepared for!

That's when she found Teddy Roosevelt's quote about the Man in the Arena, that it's not the critic who counts — it's the one whose face is "marred by dust & sweat & blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming..."

If you're like me, you grew up in a family where you had to be perfect.

Where you had to perform.

Where you couldn't come home with less than an A+ on any graded assignment.

If you're like me, your parents fought. You experienced chaos and unpredictability from the adults around you. You learned to read the room expertly to prevent destruction from coming your way.

If you're like me, you learned to put other people's needs before you — you learned to 'people please' before that became a popular term in the common vernacular.

And, if you're like me, you're in a service-based industry where the quality of what you create matters because it impacts your revenue.

So, what do you do? How do you build thicker skin?

1) You understand you can't control everything. You weren't supposed to control it when you were young & you sure as hell aren't supposed to control it now. Everyone has an opinion. Everything is subjective. You do your best. You let go of the rest.

2) You understand that contrast is an opportunity for learning. Where can you improve? What do you want less of? More of?

3) You trust that everything is working out for you — even if you can't see it at the moment. You keep showing up, taking the next intentional action step, and trusting that you're good enough, just as you are.

No one is perfect. NO ONE will ever get everything right, especially if you're stepping into the biggest expansion of yourself.

Be wildly you — bold, strong, powerful.

Looking for more channeled clarity with a private coaching session? DM me.