Reclaiming Self-Love in the Face of Rejection

Rejection can be devastating. For anyone.

Jennifer Lopez is a household name. From her music, to her movies, to her show in Vegas, she seems to have done it all. One would think with so much success she would have an overflowing fountain of self-esteem. But the release of her new album and her video This Is Me…Now is testimony to the struggles she experienced after her breakup with Ben Affleck.

She reveals that she lost herself so much that she always needed to be in a relationship in order to feel secure. Like her, many people who experience a breakup can feel torn down, and whatever confidence, self-esteem, and self-worth they may have had before and during their relationship can be completely dissipated. and lost. How can one find and recover self-love in the face of it?

When you are a child, you learn to love and feel good about yourself based on the affirmation that you get externally from parents or significant caregivers. As a result, you develop healthy narcissism from feeling loved, admired, and valued. Over time, you internalize that affirmation to become able to provide it for yourself.

However, if you miss out on receiving it, you may continue to need and seek out approval from others, because you are not able to sustain it on your own. You might believe you are not smart enough, clever enough, thin enough, pretty enough, or that you are just simply not good enough. How do you reclaim and rebuild your sense of self and identity so that you do not need to always be in a relationship to have a positive self-image?

It can sometimes take the demise of a relationship to realize how much of yourself got lost in the experience. Whatever strengths you thought you had—being funny, for example, or feeling pretty, successful at work, comfortable in your body, or any other source of well-being you might have had in the past—can get demolished and leave you doubting all those qualities. One person can cause chaos and wreak havoc with your self-esteem to make you doubt yourself.

Whatever you feel is not your strongest point is what an ex can make you feel inadequate about. It might be something you are already grappling with. Perhaps you never felt you could jump into a current-events conversation and your ex belittled you for not reading the newspaper every morning. Or perhaps your ex created doubt about something you never worried about before.

The first step to overcoming self-doubt is to take a pulse on your insecurities. That is where you will find what needs enhancing to strengthen your self-esteem. Don’t feel you’re funny enough? Think about taking a comedy or improv class. Feel you could be better-read? Join a book club. Don’t feel good in your body? Consider a realistic exercise plan, take a yoga class, start walking, or review your diet and make some changes there.

It can be especially helpful to involve yourself in social activities such as a dance class, a bridge-playing group, or sport such as tennis or pickle ball that involves other people. Social interaction is very important in making you feel liked and accepted, which will lead you to feel good about yourself.

By taking such steps you can hold onto yourself as you go into your next relationship with a renewed sense of confidence and desirability. That way, you won't have to go from one relationship to another in order to keep finding yourself.