Rejection

Nobody likes rejection. It sucks. Whether personally or professionally, it can make you feel worthless and make you question yourself or what you have to offer a school or job. It can make you compare yourself to others and wonder what the others had that you didn't. At one time, or many, we have felt the bitch slap of rejection. After all, rejection is part of life. I think the amazing part of rejection is how that individual responds. For me, it's been a learning process, but I am confident to say that today I am in the phase of accepting rejection by seeing it as something good. As I look back on all the instances I have been rejected, I can see myself coping with any of the following:

Rejection Doesn't Have to Be Scary 
Receiving hundreds of rejection letters from social work agencies, non-profits and other jobs I may have applied for was frustrating. I had the experience, I had the degree, but why weren't these people hiring me? I can see now that I was being re-directed, towards something better, in life. I accepted a position that allows me to share my love of swimming and active lifestyle with kids of all ages. Sure, it may not be what my degree is in, but for time being, it's what I love. So, maybe receiving all those rejections was a good thing.

You Can't Be Everything to People, And That's Okay!
Don't chase people in life. Work hard and be you. Live a life that makes you happy, not trying to conform into what makes someone else happy. The right people who belong in your life will come find you and stay. You do you. This is something I continue to work on. Life's a mess, but you learn a lot through the messiness. If someone doesn't appreciate the way you talk or how much you talk, your compassion and caring for all people, then sucks for them, they just let a great person go. Rejection doesn't mean you aren't good enough; it means the other person failed to see what you have to offer.

Build Up Tolerance
After receiving the first, I don't know, say thirty job rejections, I was over it. The more you put yourself out there and be vulnerable to others and receive feedback and criticism, the more you'll build up that tolerance. You'll get to a point, that I did in jobs, where it doesn't hurt when another e-mail comes in and rejects you. Oprah Winfrey said, "I don't want anyone who doesn't want me."

Sometimes We Need a Reminder That We're Human
And sometimes being human sucks. Humans all fear rejection, want attention, crave affection, and dreams of perfection. We're human. We have flaws but those flaws are what makes us, us. Rejection sometimes bumps us out of something that we thought was great and humbles us to see that, yes, we are still human.

It Allows You to (Finally) Stop Obsessing 
In relationships, the question of what are we? Was that a date? Are we a thing? Will he call? Should I call? Does he think I'm annoying? Should I have said or done something differently? We can drive ourselves insane trying to figure out what the other person is feeling of thinking about us. Getting an honest "I'm not into you" or "You're smothering me" is a great way to stop the obsessing. Now we can move on. For me, it's like a big, THANK YOU. It's one less thing I can obsess over.

Your Creative Juices Start Flowing - It Makes a Good Story
I was rejected today...Guess what I did. I wrote a blog post about rejection. The best time, for me, to feel my creative juices running through me is after something bad happens. Today, rejection. And it's not bad, it's God's way of telling me He has a different door. Rejection allows you to open up your mind to emotions and feelings that you may not have had access to while content. Give yourself a chance to grieve, then allow yourself to have amazing rejection-inspired creativity.

I leave you with this:
"Trust that when the answer is no, there's a better yes down the road." 

Stereotype Breaking Dog

So, Roxy, my roommates dog has surely shown a whole lot of different behaviors lately. 

At first, I claimed she was a stalker dog. She walked around the house silently and sat and stared at me while I completed everyday tasks. 

Second, I concluded she was a lazy bum because she sits and sleeps all day. When you let her out in the backyard, she sits and stares (stalker tendencies). 

Thirdly, she wants to be a human. By the way she cuddles on the couch with pillows and the TV remote, and howls like she's trying to have a conversation, she seems like a human. 

Today, my first and second opinions on her were shot down, when I came bursting through the front door, hands full, she proceeded to sprint out of the house and down the snow covered street. I dropped my things and sprinted after her. Four houses down, I caught up with her, grabbed her by her collar and walked her back to our house...until her collar slipped off of her and she went sprinting down the street again. I caught her, more quickly this time, and carried her back to the house. Maybe she just really wanted some bonding time with the snow. Maybe she was howling "Let it Go-The cold never bothered me anyways." 


Whatever the reason, I know Roxy is a track star! Way to break stereotypes, Roxy!

Remember that time....Celiac Disease

Remember that time….when I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease?

I am enlisting a new series to my blog, to try and keep me motivated and honest about how much I say I am going to post. I am calling it, “Remember that time….” The only thing is, not many people remember that time. It’s me sharing my thoughts about how ridiculous and traumatizing that event may be. In this case, remember that time….when I was diagnosed with Celiac Disease?

In fourth grade, I remember driving to the lake house in Mt. Vernon, Ohio. I had just eaten some ice cream and we were going up and down the rolling hills of Ohio to get there. I did not feel well. I opened up the window and threw up all of the side of the car. My grandma self-diagnosed me as Lactose Intolerant. I have been since then. Not too sad about it, there’s a one a day pill for it.

In seventh grade I found out that I was allergic to citric acid as a preservative. I was very unhappy with that verdict. It meant that I could no longer eat fried food, eat processed food, or go out to eat at restaurants. It meant that I could no longer drink PowerAde, Gatorade, Fruit20 or any other sports drink that athletes drink while competing. It was a big problem, I cried a lot but then my view changed and I thought I could change my eating habits and become a healthier person. It’s a preservative, so why not eat all homemade, homegrown, organic healthy options. It was great.

In my freshman year of college, I found out that I was allergic to sodium nitrite and nitrates. If you know anything about these, you will know that I can no longer eat bacon or packaged lunch meat. Not entirely true. I can eat the above, but the cost is about double, nearly triple, the cost of its unhealthier counterpart. Big deal? Not so much. I’ll eat healthier lunch options, I thought.

Six months after my twenty-first birthday, I found out that I was allergic to sulphites, a naturally occurring preservative in preserved fruit and wine. Well, I thought, there goes my chance to find a wine that I like! I wasn’t too disheartened by the allergy, just meant I couldn’t drink wine and some overly priced packaged and preserved fruit.

Sometime when I was a junior in college, I found out that I was allergic to some kinds of aged cheese. That’s all I know. I know I eat cheese and I don’t get sick. As long as I stay away from weird, smelly, moldy cheese, I think I’m okay. No sadness for that one.

So you can see, my life has been crazy. Reading labels, convincing myself that I am doing this because I’m healthy, and I was! I joked around with my sister that by the time I was thirty, I would be allergic to every preservative, forcing me to eat totally organic, unprocessed food. No problem with that, except a social worker doesn’t make enough money for that, so thus the jokes about me marrying an engineer, who could support my weird eating habits came in.

I had never thought about what allergy might come next….but it did. For four months I was so sick. I was tired, my skin itched and itched and I would scratch until skin came off, I had night sweats, I couldn’t sleep at night, my body ached all the time. It may sound ridiculous, but I thought I had cancer. I went to the doctor and they ran every lab test they could think of. Everything was negative. Great that I don’t have cancer, but why did I still feel like shit? So, I went to the allergist. All of my allergies to this point have been self diagnosed. So I knew something had to be wrong. I stated my symptoms, got the back pricked and was negative. He drew blood. Two weeks later, sitting in our lodge at Snowbird Resort in Utah, I recruit my pharmacist sister to decode my results. She laughs and says I have celiac’s disease. I won’t accept the answer until I hear from the doctor. 

Four days later I receive the phone call. I’m devastated. How am I supposed to eat no grains with six other preservative allergies. I still can’t tell you the answer.
Within one week of my diagnosis, I lost 8 pounds. Eight pounds that I didn’t have to lose. Four of those have come back, it’s been three weeks. It helps having a best friend with celiac and her mother who works at Trader Joes, but this isn’t a lifestyle I can support. I’m hungry all the time and don’t have an answer on what to eat. I’m a busy woman, don’t have too much time to make GF meals. But I need to sit down and learn. I need to be healthy, take this disease by its reigns and stop it before 1) I kill myself or 2) I lose a lot of weight. If you didn’t know…Celiac disease kills your insides, so when I eat gluten I’m killing myself. That’s not the way I am meant to go.

I’m learning and this weekend I am going to bake my first ever GF creation…banana bread.

So, remember that time….when I was diagnosed with Celiac disease? It’s a great one…