Your boyfriend hangs out with his friends while asking you to go shopping with your friends. You feel left out.
While your colleagues plan for dinner; you are not asked. You feel left out.
When someone around hosts any event without consulting you, you feel that to be an insult. That can be anyone in your family or friends. You feel if you have done something wrong or if you have mistakenly hurt anyone. You keep on wondering what’s the reason that kept you away from being invited.
You feel left out because you feel you have done something. Deliberate or not, you suddenly feel you are left out. You suffer from an inferiority complex making yourself even more left out.
This happens especially with those whom you like. When they keep you out of conversations, plannings, invitations or any sort of events, you feel they want to avoid you. However, you never contemplate if such actions from their ends are intentional or unintentional. You just feel you are no more important to them.
So, how to deal with being left out?
Well, feeling left out is common; social exclusion is a natural thing. However, one underlying thing you need to realise is that it has got nothing to do with you.
If you have remained the same and have not taken any steps, yet feeling left out, then it has something to do with the opposite person. It might happen that you have deliberately or unintentionally ended up hurting or disrespecting someone. You might be rejected or excluded from any of his/her plans.
However, if that is not the case, then it is simply the actions and thoughts of the other person. You have no control over that.
3 Ways To Cope With Feeling Left Out
So, here are the best ways you can stay calm and in control in such a situation. You need to remain positive.
1.Accept it
This is the hardest part and the most indispensable one. It’s okay to feel sad when others exclude you, no matter if that is intentional or not. If you see your colleagues enjoying a group coffee every morning or a badminton session amidst work hours, you can feel annoyed. You can also feel miserable when your friends create a group without you.
In such cases, just take deep breaths, listen to soothing music, try to tame your mind saying that it’s okay. The best words you can say to yourself is “it’s okay, I deserve way more and it’s their loss to not include me.” Take a small walk and treat yourself with an ice cream or a spa. Just let it go because such things are not so serious in life.
2.Try talking to someone you trust
Certainly, it doesn’t mean venting out your disappointment on someone. That will just make you vulnerable to others. If you are feeling left out, just sitting on those thoughts will make you even more melancholy. Loneliness can grasp you and push you towards depression. Scroll through your contact list and find someone whom you can just ring up and talk to anytime. In fact, that same friend can make you feel included with a hearty talk. This will help you realise how valuable you are to those who understand you.
3.Do not assume
Presuming it is the easiest thing to do. When you are hurt with someone else’s actions, you tend to assume certain factors about the situation. Let’s say, your friends’ group suddenly planned for an early morning ride, and you were not informed. You assume that they totally forgot about you or wanted to exclude you as you are not informed. But the fact is your friends know that you work late night and hence are not a morning person. They didn’t want to snatch you away from a good sleep and nice rest. While your thought to feel alone and upset is natural. On the other hand, your friends’ thoughts are genuine. They have planned a late day plan with you since you couldn’t make it to the early morning.
So, what are the Ways to Cope when You Feel Left Out in such scenarios?
The best thing to do here is to think logically and understand why they have done that. Do not let overthinking run rampant within you, pushing you into anxiety. Such an emotional situation makes it even hard for you to accept the situation with reasonable explanations.
1.Validate the situation
Like we were saying in the above point, instead of just assuming, validate the situation. True that you can not evade the feeling of being left out, but you can certainly find out the reason for such an action from the opposite side. In the previous instance, you can ring up your friend and ask why they left you out knowing that you guys are closely knit. Only in that way will you find out that they didn’t want to disturb you. Talking to the person in a transparent way is the best thing to take you out of this situation. This will not just soothe you from feeling dejected but will also reveal the truth freeing you from wrong assumptions.
2.Benefit of doubt
Feeling glum is totally natural when you are rejected. However, it can be just an oversight or a wrong perception of the situation. If you suffer from low self-esteem, it's natural to be suspicious of any and every situation. However, it might be a result of your wrong interpretation of the other person’s intent.
3.Bring self confidence
This point is unbeatable. Restabilising your self confidence will not just instill an inner strength in you forever but will also take you out of the feeling of being desolate. Not just will you be able to withstand the feeling of rejection, but also help you create your social circles.
4.Do not conclude
It’s easy to draw conclusions saying that the person is at fault for not including you. It’s very easy to point your finger at someone blaming him/her. However, it is wise to not jump into a worse case scenario, even though such a pattern is very common for the majority.
5.Practice meditation
Meditation or Mindful meditation help you feel in balance and relaxed. It’s not about being able to cope up with such a mental emotion once or twice. You need to groom yourself and grow in a way to be able to recover from this situation for every time. Only meditating will be able to heal you from such negative emotions.
6.Reach out to a mental expert
Contact a life coach, a counsellor or an emotional health expert who can help you with lifestyle changes. These will bring about holistic changes in you to be able to keep your mind in peace.
Recap
So, feeling socially excluded is totally natural. You can feel that it doesn’t matter to them, and you may be left feeling lonely. You need to accept and realise that not all family members or friends do not exclude you with deliberation. If you are feeling left out, follow the above practices. You will feel fine in a comprehensive and robust way forever.
Reach out to Dr Paras, a known emotional coach, who has helped many to cope up with various emotional disturbances and negative thought patterns.
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