Work with my coach Chris revealed years ago that my Achilles heal has always been my feeling of rejection. Experienced first in kindergarten, my eyes were severely crossed. Blindness in my left eye at birth was the cause. We know how children can be unintentionally cruel. My grammar school friends unknowingly were. I was pointed at. Laughed at. You get it. Rejected. I now know the “stories” I told myself then as a child that remained with me for a long time. Despite the fact that three operations before age 10 successfully straightened my eyes? I held onto the feeling that my eyes were still not right. I was still “cross eyed. For years to come. Interesting how early life experiences remain with us. Even though they may be decades in our past. All this led to an anger that stayed with me through high school. Actually drove success I had playing football, even baseball. But also contributed to emotional challenges later in life that I write about more specifically in a book I’m writing.

If I had it to do all over again, I would not have deflected the sadness, the loneliness I felt at the time. I would have coped. Felt the hurt more deeply and understood personal growth is in large part a process of working through the pain of the emotional wounds we all have suffered early in life. I just finished reading a chapter on marriage from David Brooks new book, The Second Mountain. Here he describes the dance of courtship. The “Stages of Intimacy.” As I read them, I remember painfully my early issues with girls. The fear of them rejecting the “cross eyed guy.” I tried wearing sunglasses. I thought they allowed others to see the rest of me. Rather focusing on my impairment. Didn’t work. Eventually, the glasses had to come off. And there I was. These defining “stories” that continued to play out in my mind remained. I sat outside groups. Watching Tom and Wilson and Donny my fraternity brothers in college with their pretty dates. Not me.

Five or six beers to numb my feelings … dateless, rejected. Fast forward. I married a stunningly beautiful blond. She saw through my image of myself. Saw me as I really was. Even tells me to this day how handsome I was then… am still today. Has for now forty eight years been a daily reminder it’s all been Ok. She didn’t reject me. Her love and acceptance erased the many years of feeling rejected.

As the “stories” I tell myself have changed, so have I. Regrets? Yes. All those years lost. The pain and rejection that birthed so much doubt and lack of confidence. No more. The sadness of the past has been replaced with a joy that would probably never been without all the rejection. Fascinating. It’s so hard to understand life’s challenges when we’re in their midst?

The “Why me?” s … “If only” s … despair can consume our thoughts. They did mine. But I found if I could embrace those small fleeting moments when I felt a little, ever so little … better? Eventually I could peel away the layers of doubt and shame that had muffled me for so long.Today? I still have glimpses of that little boy with bad eyes. But now more with appreciation than regret. Perhaps you can relate. Working through challenges … softening the emotional pain we all have faced. Can make a big difference.