How To Deal With Rejection
With A Little Help From The Movies
Image by L.E. Wilson from RedBubble based on work by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay
Rejection hurts. It is a special kind of pain that shatters your reality as it delivers its bitter blow. It attacks you on two very different levels, leaving you with a powerful mixture of confusion and sorrow coursing though your mind and body.
The confusion comes because the reality, the understanding you had that allowed you to envision the positive outcome that you were after and allowed you to feel that you had a good chance, or a strong possibility of obtaining your goal, is completely destroyed. Instead of getting the happy news, the answer you get back is “no.” Not for you. You don’t get the prize. You don’t get the honor. You don’t get the win. Suddenly, you don’t know how things work anymore, how you fit in, how you’ll succeed, and nothing makes sense. It is a disorientating whirlwind, where you can’t find a footing that would help you figure out how and why you were so wrong.
View from the Top (2003) is a comedy directed by Bruno Barreto about Donna Jensen (Gwyneth Paltrow), a woman from a small town without many future prospects who follows the advice of an ex-flight attendant and motivational speaker, Sally Weston (Candice Bergen), to start a new life.
Life Lesson: Know that you are valuable, so don’t settle for less, even if others are trying to keep you down.
🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)
And then there is the sorrow. You have to deal with the sense of loss for what you thought you were going to get, what you thought you deserved, what you worked for, what you prepared for, what you expected. That’s why you put yourself through all these past difficulties and traumas. You saw that it could happen to others, so you thought it could happen to you, too. And you were ready, you spent so much time and energy getting ready for it. But now your dream is left in shatters, smashed right before your eyes.
It’s a double whammy that cuts deeply. It nicks the very core of your identity. It humiliates you and renders you a complete fool for not knowing that your place is at the bottom, not near the top as you had imagined. Of course you have every right to feel hurt, to feel angry. It’s ok.
It’s ok. You are going to be ok. Yes, it’s bad. Oh, how it hurts. How sad. You just wanted some joy, something beautiful to happen to you. It didn’t seem so unreasonable. You see evidence that many other people, tons of people, get to have what you also long for, and it’s nothing really too extraordinary. It’s actually pretty common. But for reasons that you don’t understand, that you don’t want to accept, you don’t get to have what you want.
Legally Blonde (2001) is a comedy directed by Robert Luketic about Elle Woods (Reese Witherspoon), a college student who enters Harvard Law School in an effort to win back her ex-boyfriend, Warner (Matthew Davis), who broke up with her because she didn’t fit his elitist image of a future senator’s wife.
Life Lesson: Learn to see the potential in yourself and in others.
🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)
How does one come to terms with rejection? Obviously a grieving period is needed, to get over the shock, to recover from the blow to the sense of self, and to adjust to the new harsh reality that you didn’t know was there. And then, hopefully, after just a couple of days of mourning for what was, you have to let go of the anger.
So what that someone put you down, and judged you so negatively? You don’t have to keep picking at this wound, making yourself feel rejected over and over again. It’s done. Once is enough. Get yourself to a different environment. Use this information to treat yourself with kindness and find what constructive criticism you can identify that can help you improve your chances in the future.
The Joy Luck Club (1993) is a drama based on the book by Amy Tan and directed by Wayne Wang about the lives of four women friends — Suyuan (Kieu Chinh), Lindo (Tsai Chin), Ying-Ying (France Nuyen), An-Mei (Lisa Lu) — and their mothers and daughters.
Life Lesson: When someone loves you, they see the best in you.
🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)
Yes, you fell on your face today, you are a little bruised, you are shaken, you feel embarrassed. But the road is long, and all you have to do is pick yourself back up, dust off, and put one foot in front of the other. You can keep going, you can keep dreaming, you can keep getting better.
And even if that one thing you want never happens to you, this path—of having joy in your heart anyway as you hold on to your beautiful dreams, as you keep trying as much as possible—is a much better, much happier, path than the one where anger leads.
Wayne’s World (1992) is a comedy directed by Penelope Spheeris about Wayne Campbell (Mike Myers) and Garth Algar (Dana Carvey), two underachieving friends who host a public-access cable show that is bought by a sleazy tv executive, Benjamin Kane (Rob Lowe).
Life Lesson: Be optimistic: You’ll find better solutions.
🍿Movie Scene Link (movie quote)
If you keep the anger you will lose out on the happiness that is down the road because you won’t see it. Don’t do that to yourself. Even though it’s hard, pain will pass, humiliations will fade. Hold yourself up with dignity. Rise above the rejection. Treat it as valuable information you were given, and then keep going. The road is long, and you will feel strong, you will feel whole, and you will find that many rewards await.
Rejection is temporary. How you grow from it and how you embrace new understandings will help you immensely for the rest of your life.
The movies mentioned above all show how to deal with various kinds of rejection and how to thrive in spite of it. May they be of comfort if that is what you need today.
Visit the moviewise catalogue—a searchable database of one sentence movie summaries, movie quotes, and movie wisdom—for movie recommendations.
Also visit the moviewise store. Get a t-shirt, bag, or pillow with your favorite #LifeLesson from a movie. Reply to this or leave a comment below to make a request.
I've subscribed your pub and I'm very optimistic to receive movie recommendations along with life lessons.
Well, tbh I haven't seen any of these mentioned movies but one thing that I trully appreciate that your piece has provided enough motivation for today's generation's teens and even adults how to deal with rejections with life.
The way you narrated the lessons from the above mentioned movies is very extraordinary 😊