Thank You for Rejecting Me (Part 2): The Alchemy

How Grief Became my Bridge to Transformation

“The wound is where the light enters.” - Rumi

I’ve always been a thinker. I like to ask “why” and this curiosity has led me to some beautiful realizations, but it also has kept me stuck, caught in loops of over-analysis, spiraling into a past that couldn’t be changed. I’ve spent hours, days, months replaying memories like a favorite movie reel, one I put on auto-repeat.

So the end of this relationship was no different. I watched that movie reel on a loop, analyzing every word, re-experiencing every emotion felt, and grieving all the lost opportunities and “what-ifs” that never came to fruition.

The crack from the rejection had become the wound were the light was beginning to enter.

Broke but Not Broken

After the break-up, the grief forced its way to the surface. I’ve never been good at grieving a loss. My childhood had built me into a soldier of love, armed by the ability to compartmentalize and shutdown my emotions to get through the pain. But this time the grief broke through because I wasn’t just losing a relationship, I was losing something that had helped me thrive and expand, to be seen and feel alive again, and it’s loss felt unsurmountable.

I couldn’t just brush it off and keep going like I always had. I’ve spent most my life relying on others to tell me my worth. I never felt good enough to expect it, there was always a part of myself that I traded to receive attention, affection, and love. My role had always been to be quiet, be helpful, and not be a burden, and in return, others would dictate my value through their inclusion, their attention, and their love. So much of my life was dependent on living in service to others that I barely knew myself.

I was continually breaking myself to pieces trying to earn a place in people’s lives. I thought if I was patient enough, supportive enough, easygoing enough... maybe I’d prove that I was lovable and would finally be chosen. It was exhausting. And it never did, and never was, going to work.

The rejection lit a fire under every truth I had long accepted about my invisibility in peoples lives. It forced me to look honestly at who I had been in relationships and more importantly, Why? And once I allowed myself the space and time to dig into the wound, the more I uncovered. And the deeper I dug, the more the external need for someone to tell me what I was worth began to lose its power over me.

Sinking into Silence

The expansion of space to question “Why” took time. It was a journey where I oscillated between the courage to change and the comfort of falling back into the habit of relying on other for my worth; both extremes exasperated by the complete silence between us after the relationship ended.

Although we were not in contact, there was always a place in me that hoped that our paths would cross again. But the silence that followed after the relationship wasn’t just absence, it was deafening silence. There were no breadcrumbs offered. No mixed signals through text. No door cracked open for a possible return. I was not going to be saved from myself by a reconciliation regardless of how much I mentally thought about it. The finality and the silence were the confirmation that I didn’t want to accept, but deeply needed.

I was a sinking pebble surrounded by the silence of still water. It felt like swimming to the bottom of the pool, sitting on the bottom, and viewing the world beneath the surface. The weight of it cracked the wound wide open, allowing the grief to rise layer by layer, so the healing could start to take root. Outside voices and images were muffled and distorted. It became a forced sanctuary where in that stillness, clarity began to filter in like beams of light through the water.

The “everything is fine” mask was not holding and in the private moments I was a mess. I began to have big releases through crying. Something I seldom allowed myself to do. And once it began, it was difficult to stop. There were so many layers that began to peel away. Years of the parts of me that I had ignored, for how easily I had accepted so little. I grieved for the little girl who grew into the woman still feeling so disposable to people, so worthless, and believing that she didn’t matter to people, and was often an afterthought.

But as the sorrow left my body, my mind began to clear. Space opened up for reflection, for life, and for peace. Eventually, the grieving slowed and instead of thinking about him endlessly, I began thinking of him less and less, until the space in me that was so firmly occupied by him was replaced by Me, My feelings, and My hopes. It became a story less about him and more about the transformation that came through the pain.

The Alchemy of Self-Worth

The transformation arrived in pieces. For every part of me that I had given so easily to others, I slowly reclaimed by showing myself compassion, accepting myself fully, forgiving myself, and offering myself the love I had once desperately begged to receive from others. The pieces came back to me through journal entries, meditations, long walks, countless tears, and deep breaths.

I practiced loving-kindness and sent it to him, to myself, to the girl I used to be who didn’t know better. I sat with the discomfort, the loneliness, and the quiet. I read books that fed my spirit. I stopped compartmentalizing and shutting down to numb the pain. I gave myself permission to feel everything.

I peeled away the layers I no longer needed, shedding the beliefs that no longer served me. I stopped trying to outrun the feelings and instead invited them to teach me: about the stories I told myself, the masks I wore and why, and the core belief I have carried since childhood, that love had to be earned.

In those quiet moments, I finally stopped asking what he felt and started asking what I needed, I was becoming my own person again. I didn’t just survive that heartbreak. I alchemized it. And somewhere in the middle of the grieving and transforming, I built my self-worth.

The rejection? That was the catalyst.

The silence that came after? That was stillness that I didn’t know I needed.

And the transformation? The gift to the little girl who had survived it all.

With Gratitude

And then… I wrote the letter (excerpt below). And I sent it. And I was glad I did.

I hope this letter finds you doing well. Please know that I am sending this letter from my heart and that i have no expectations of outcome or have any ulterior motives. I want you to know how grateful I am to have had you in my life. What I felt for you was never casual and I experienced a connection with you that I never had with anyone in my life. My soul recognized your soul and was so happy to know you again.

I saw the fear, loneliness, and anger inside of you because it was inside of me too. You were my mirror. I saw through the mask you wore to hide the pain because I wore the same mask.

You were such a great teacher for me. I’ve grown so much as a person since our time together and I am grateful to you for being the catalyst for that. The sorrow I experienced after you was an opening for me to heal, grow spiritually, and work through some deeply ingrained insecurities and feelings of worthlessness that I have had since childhood.

He was the catalyst that finally helped me to face the places inside where I felt unworthy, unwanted, and unseen.

I didn’t send the letter to get a response. But I wanted him to know how truly grateful I was for how much he helped me grow. Even if he never realized it, or ever thought about me again.

I didn’t send the letter for closure. I didn’t need it. By the time I wrote it, I had already transformed and outgrew him. The door was closed and this time ….I didn’t leave it cracked open.

This story isn’t about him. It’s about who I became after him. Whole. Worthy. And finally free.

Reflect With Me:

Have you ever experienced a rejection that ended up becoming your redirection

What lesson finally felt complete once you found gratitude for it?

Be Well,

Nicole