6 Ways To Heal From Hurt And Rejection (And Move On Gracefully)

I understand how deep pain, buried hurt and emotional turmoil rips relationships apart like you’re on a relentless rollercoaster of emotion. Family is family, whether you love them or hate them. Perhaps you can’t live with them, but can you live without them?

One of the biggest issues in relationships that constantly rears its ugly head is feeling hurt — the hurt we feel when dealing with rejection, from not being accepted for who we are, from not being loved or praised, or from feeling lonely and continually let down.

We all experience these feelings within families at some time or other, but it’s when the hurt becomes excruciating and continual that we need to make some decisions. Perhaps this is you right now suffering such pain and hurt. You’ve tried everything to learn how to heal a broken heart, but nothing works, so you accept life just has to be this way, full of misery.

Well, it doesn’t. There is always another perspective and always another way to feel about a situation, it’s just knowing what to do. Here are a few tips on how to heal a broken heart and protect yourself from the emotional hurt and pain relationships cause:

1. Remember that it isn’t about you.

Don’t take the comments or the arguments personally. Perhaps you are now feeling so insecure after all the scathing remarks you think the world is against you. But in reality, it’s the other person who feels insecure, which is why they often judge, act coldly, and lash out to protect themselves.

To make a change, don’t blame them, react, or give your opinion. Simply acknowledge that you accept their opinion and leave it at that. You are not taking on their negativity, you don’t value their opinion anyway and that’s a choice.

2. Realize that it’s about them.

When you are being constantly let down, judged, hurt, and put down, you have a choice. Perhaps you can leave the relationship. Perhaps you can’t. In which case, you need to be able to look after yourself.

Try to see it this way: the person is acting defensively for themselves and it’s only because they have been continually hurt themselves that they are reacting like this. It isn’t about you at all but them. If you don’t take it personally you won’t get hurt.

3. Accept the situation.

Perhaps you’ve been trying for years to bridge the gap between what you want and what you have. It’s not working so you feel very unhappy. Accepting that you are part of a miserable family, even when you don’t understand it and want the loving family your friend has, will allow you to let go of this "wanting need" and lead a happy life.

There are many things within families that we will never understand. And sometimes we need to just accept the way it is and choose to live our lives differently.

4. Remember that you have a choice.

If you choose not to have a relationship with your family, it is absolutely fine to do this. You do not have to stay if the relationship is too painful. Make the decision because it’s the right thing for you to do, not because someone else tells you what to do.

If you do decide to have contact with the family, you make the decisions on how you feel and on how you maintain the contact.

5. Become the change.

Just because your family is perhaps a living nightmare, you don’t have to be part of this and you can make some changes yourself. Decide what sort of person you want to be and react in a way you want to react, not how family members do.

It could be a time for you to learn and grow from situations. See the situation from a new perspective, and refocus your thoughts on what you can learn and what opportunity might be presenting itself.

6. Leave.

If you decide that the best thing for you is to leave, do not leave the relationship feeling angry and hurt; this will turn into guilt, regret and fear later on. Leave on the grounds that the relationship isn’t working because you value and love yourself more than the relationship is worth, so you don’t leave with negativity in mind to haunt you.

This is about protecting you, looking after your needs as you can’t change others, but it is your responsibility to look after you. You deserve love, happiness, and joy, and if you decide that you can’t enjoy these emotions in your life with your family, it's time to decide to make some changes in your life.

There will always be people who will hurt you either intentionally or be totally unaware of they did. But it’s up to you to decide how you react to them.

Louise Armstrong is a Family Relationship Coach, Counselor and Clinical Hypnotherapist.