I love coffee houses, restaurant buffets and ice cream shops with their varying foods and flavors.
While I appreciate their wide selection, I don’t care for all the choices offered. Do you? Coffee comes in varying blends and ice cream shops have fifty plus flavors but I don’t like them all.
Everyone’s preferences and tastes are different. That’s why restaurants have menus. The same applies with people.
You won’t be everyone’s favorite flavor. I won’t either and that’s okay. I only wish I’d accepted this years earlier.
Some people won’t prefer you for reasons you may never know. It’s hard not to take it personally. No one likes to be rejected, passed over, avoided or ignored.
But if not addressed, that wound becomes an embedded offense that will steal your peace, rock your confidence and make you question your worth.
You begin to obsess, worry and wonder why they don’t like you. Then you become consumed with obtaining their approval, gaining their friendship, earning their love.
I know this from experience. Chasing, spending and running myself ragged until I was exhausted, angry and resentful.
It was only when I reached my breaking point that I was able to reframe their rejection.
I chose to believe I was simply not their preferred flavor but it wasn’t personal. Nothing more. It didn’t mean I wasn’t good enough, lovable or valued.
If you’ve ever experienced rejection you know what I’m talking about. Like ice cream, you’ll be some people’s favorite flavor but not so much for others.
Please don’t invest time, tears, money or your identity trying to change their preference. Respect their choice and keep valuing and appreciating who you are as you are.
If you want to know what true freedom feels like, this is it. Everyone won’t like us and we may never know why. Trying to figure that out is futile.
And I can tell you from experience that trying to win their affections or approval will only drive them further away and you deeper into exhaustion or debt.
It’s amazing the freedom that comes when we stop trying to be everyone’s favorite flavor!
Sandra Hubbard
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