#0017 With the Pain of Recognition Comes Awareness; Or, Taking the sting out of rejection, part five
Nonidentical twin kitties, Carol Dweck, and the Oregon Trail
I’ve written previously about the Autonomic Nervous System (ANS), which takes care of functions such as heartbeat and breathing. Consider the ANS as effortless autopilot. Embedded in the ANS is the Sympathetic Nervous System (SNS) and the Parasympathetic Nervous System (PNS). The (definitely nonidentical) twin to Fight, Flight, Freeze (SNS) is Rest and Digest (PNS).
When we receive a rejection, we might feel:
stuck in the blinding light of oncoming traffic or
the urge to duke it out with the rejector or
the prey instinct to run away, fly off, flee.
Yup, that’s the SNS twin dominating.
For most of us, we’ve been trained to have the SNS twin step up. Maybe in school the teachers assumed a few kids had innate talents while the rest of us just wouldn’t shine (that’s a fixed mindset), so we caused trouble at recess: Fight. Perhaps a parent shamed us for not making the team the first year we tried out, so we ran away from home: Flight. Sometimes well-meaning advice from creatives for creatives (write 1,000 words every day) just sets us up to feel bad and stop trying: Freeze. Whether from family, the creative culture, or the larger society, our SNS reactions to rejections get deeper with repetition.
It’s important to understand our starting point, the baseline, before we make changes.
With this awareness of repeated SNS reactions to rejection, you can begin to recognize the deep ruts carved into your mind. You can then use this realization to your benefit.
Remember the ANS is an effortless autopilot? Replace “effortless” with “thoughtless,” and you’ll see, with a bit of thought, that you can take control. And you actually already know how to allow the PNS twin — with its Rest and Digest — to be in charge.
By transitioning from SNS to PNS reactions, we allow ourselves the grace to approach rejection in better ways. I’ll dive into details on how to switch reactions in upcoming posts.
Next time: Taking the sting out of rejection, Part Six