When we feel rejected then this is a great opportunity to see the extent we are seeking validation in an another person or a community. Why do we seek validation externally? Because in some way we feel a deficiency or lacking in ourselves. To see this requires great honesty and a deep inward looking.

Our initial instinct in the face of rejection may be defensive. We may reason to ourselves why the source of rejection has failed to see the merit in us or in what we have offered. This is normal and it may feel totally justifiable. However, if we patiently open to the feeling of rejection with curiosity, genuinely wishing to see the entire process we may actually start to feel a sense of relief and a movement of attention from outside to inside. If now the worst has happened and we have been rejected we can now take a little rest from seeking approval and ask ourselves in this moment - what is really lacking here? Now that we have been rejected, what is now become deficient in the reality of this moment? Is this moment not a totality? While we are hoping for validation from others, how can we see the true totality of our own whole nature as it unfolds in this moment? The very act of reaching outside ourselves for validation simultaneously reinforces the belief we can only be completed by something external and our own inherent perfect nature becomes something we only hear about in the words of others.

Life is amazing. Life always gives us precisely what we need. Rejection for everyone is inevitable as long as we seek what is true outside of ourselves. When life slaps us when we are hoping to be appraised as special, it is a great gift and reality check. Life is saying - just stop and look at your wonderful reality arising right now - Look, your own perfect nature is shining in everything - Is life not already giving us everything we need to be content? Our reality is not sometimes more or less full of reality. It is always complete, always whole. Why look to another, whether a teacher or student to tell us that the story we create about being incomplete is valid?