REJECTION

REJECTION: The Workshop

With Leila Elliot and Diana Bird

Bringing loving attention, and transformative tools, to change our experiences of rejection

We all have experienced the sensation of rejection. In fact, it’s a thread that runs through all of our lives. It pops up in unexpected places, creating pain and heartache where we don’t want it to be and causing us to make decisions not from a place of fact and logic, but in emotional reaction.

Rejection is something we rarely talk about beyond the socially acceptable forms of rejection about childhood friendships or being rejected by a lover.

We essentially reject the rejection experience – not considering it a normal, everyday experience in our lives.

We rarely talk about how we are faced with the sensation on a regular, perhaps daily basis, and how it’s become so embedded in us that it deeply affects our behaviour.

Perhaps it’s because we feel like now we are adults, many of us decades into the adulthood experience, we shouldn’t feel rejection. Rejection is only for the playground or tormented love affairs.

It can feel a little pathetic and very shameful.

When we find out a group of our friends has not invited us to something and we feel that sting of not being included – our mind goes to war with us. ‘Don’t be stupid!! You shouldn’t feel that.’ Or it goes to war with them: ‘They’re obviously not good friends! I’m not inviting them now!’

Perhaps we’re in a meeting with our boss and, even though we should get credit for something but someone else does, it can feel like we are bursting into flames of rage.

Rejection can feel like – being left out, being ignored, feeling invisible, feeling unwanted.

That stinging sensation is so unpleasant, and so child-like, that we instantly want to escape it. We justify and intellectualize it. We try to stop thinking about it.

But more than anything – we don’t want to face it.

To face it is to feel vulnerable, powerless, weak – and worse of all unloved and unwanted.

The strange fact, though, about rejection is that it is something that we all experience on a more than regular basis.

From the tiny stings of people ignoring our social media posts, to the heart wrenching, embarrassing pain of watching a parent fawn over a sibling – but not you.

Rejection isn’t logical to our minds (right now).

Rejection doesn’t make sense to us (yet).

Rejection can feel deeply shameful and completely idiotic..

But….

Rejection is a normal part of the human experience. Rejection plays a big role in our lives because it’s part of our primal survival instinct.

Rejection is something that our survival brains and nervous systems are on the lookout for because being part of the group, the tribe, the community is an essential human need.

Back in the day if we were rejected from the group we would face certain death, wandering the savannahs alone with limited ability to look after ourselves.

Humans are wired to need groups, we survive together, not alone.

And that wiring still exists in us. Because even though our societies have evolved to not need groups for basic food, water, shelter needs – we still need other humans for connection.

We humans are group animals, we create so much from the connecting experience of being together – love, peace, a feeling of safety, purpose, calm etc.

So when we get that sense that we are being rejected it sends a powerful signal to the nervous system that says – ALERT ALERT ALERT.

And that is confusing and scary to us.

But without the tools to deal with it – we push it away and try to just get on with our lives.

Suppress the feeling, suppress the pain, shove it away into a darkened closet deep down inside.

Unfortunately it can take a toll on our lives when we don’t know how to deal with the rejection.

It affects our relationships with our loved ones when we perceive them to be rejecting us, so we change how we respond to them.

It can create fear, anger, rage, sadness, grief, despair, loneliness inside of us.

It creates distance and separation with people we love, so we don’t get opportunities for that deep, unconditional loving experience.

It can make us feel suspicious and paranoid of people – and deeply, deeply unwanted.

It can create anger and rage at the world – because we sense no one wants or understands who we are.

In this 4 part live online course we would like to explore with you the experience of rejection. We would like to bring a loving, gentle but illuminating light to how rejection has affected your, our, everyone’s lives.

We would like to give you tools to explore why and how rejection alters your reactions and experiences. To trace back your experiences – and to bring a feeling of relief and freedom to your life.

We can’t banish the experience of rejection from your life – but we can give you the tools to deal with it better so that you can start to deal with these experiences from an empowered, resilient place.

And by doing that you increase the opportunities for authentic loving connections, stronger friendships and a sense that you belong in the world.

You will finish this course with a deep understand of the journey rejection has played in your life and the tools to manage the experiences as you go forward.

You will spend 4 sessions doing gentle but powerful healing work on yourself, in a beautiful container of other people who seek freedom and resilience.

You will be armed with tools to help you when you feel the sting of rejection.

And you will have an enhanced, liberated and empowered vision of yourself and your life.

Workshop details

Time: 10am LA / 1pm NY / 6pm London / 7pm Madrid
Duration: Each session will be between 1 – 2 hours
Dates: Held on Sundays Nov 28th, Dec 5th, 12th & 18th
Price: £290 GBP / approx. $400 US
Tech: Hosted on Zoom / Recorded for you to access anytime

Book your space on the Rejection Workshop email us on dianaepes@gmail.com for a booking form.

Aims of the workshop

To become intimate and familiar with how we experience rejection and the emotions and sensations it creates
To learn how to be with ourselves and find relief from the pain and discomfort of rejection
To understand where the emotional patterns of rejection arise
To learn how to bring healing to the deep pains the sensation of rejection has brought to our lives
To learn techniques on how to work with rejection and when it arises in our life
To learn how to not react in survival when we perceive rejection
To connect with others and learn how we all experience rejection – seeing that it’s a normal part of the human experience

Workshop format

The workshop will be hosted on Zoom. We will send a meeting room link on the day of the first workshop session.
There will be a private Facebook Group for connection between sessions. It’s a great space to share with the group and ask questions.
You will receive a workbook to download with journal/audio prompts so you can get deeper into the understanding and work throughout the course. There is no obligatory homework 🙂

Book your space on the Rejection Workshop

Questions?

We would love to answer any questions you have. Please reach out us on dianaepes@gmail.com

About Diana

I am a Neuro Emotional Coach, helping people unblock unhealthy emotional patterns and release the stress from deep overwhelm. I work with clients on a 1-2-1 basis to create more resilience, freedom and strength.

I came to this work with a lifetime of deep anxiety, constant overwhelmedness and a terrifying frustration of how badly my life was going. I saw my unhealthy emotional patterns being embedded in my children, and felt frustrated at the lack of harmony in our family life. I knew I needed radical change but nothing so far had brought anything other than surface relief.

Discovering the possibilities of how Neuro Emotional work could rewire not only myself and my responses to life, but by osmosis, my family’s, I dived into this work and realised this was what I wanted to share for the rest of my life.

I now feel I have a deep well of inner strength and resilience to deal with the undulating flow of emotional experiences of both my life and my family’s. Most valuable of all, though, has been the ability to teach these skills to my children and know that I am fully, and properly, preparing them for the world.

I am from London, but now live in southern Spain, with my photographer husband and our two children who are 9 and 16.

About Leila

Hello, my name is Leila Elliott.

It is my belief that each of us is born with the necessary wisdom and ability to rewire our brains and repair our hearts from the traumas that each of us have experienced.For those of us (most of us!) who did not receive intelligent emotional support in early childhood and adolescence, our ability to feel and process emotions can be like trying to negotiate in a foreign language we do not speak, and this can lead to a frustrating lack of understanding of ourselves.

This was my experience, and I have sought healing through many different routes, including years of talk therapy, meditation, and other wellness traditions. A fundamental shift for me occurred as I began studying and practicing with Natalie and Nathan at the Center for Emotional Education. In developing an understanding of the science behind the various networks of the brain, what emotions are and how they work in the body, and how our histories affect our emotional awareness, my life changed. This has unlocked a clarity and knowledge of self that has led me towards a healing path. My goal as a Neuro-Emotional coach is to guide clients in finding their own healing and self-understanding by using practices that are informed by neurochemistry.

A little about me: I have a B.A. in Art and literature and a second B.A. in Spanish. I have worked with children and in child development for many years, in both the public and private sector. I am also a freelance researcher, specializing in art and archives. I am thrilled to be entering into this new journey as a Neuro-Emotional guide.

After living in Portland, OR., New York, Mexico, and Los Angeles, I am returning to my hometown of Santa Cruz, California with my husband Ted and our two cats, Gus and Penny.