The Pain and Trauma is the Same

Reputation damage and rejection from it is similar to physical pain

Pain, earned or not, to reputation can be traumatic and emotionally crippling. This doesn’t get much attention despite the extreme nature of the suffering.

Did you know…

“According to a recent study: The emotional pain we feel when we get rejected registers in our brains very similarly to physical pain. In other words, we are wired to experience rejection, practically any rejection, as a highly painful experience,” writes Guy Winch, a psychologist and author, in his Get Wrong Do Right newsletter.

When reputation damage is severe enough, rejection surely follows. And more than rejection can happen: mocking, punishment, ostracization, etc.

The pain may not be a traumatic physical injury yet the resulting rejection can lead to feelings of physical-like suffering, heavy sadness, unworthiness, depression or rage.

All hurt.

If someone has crashed their reputation due to selfishness, observers may not care about the pain being experienced by the offender. Ok, understandable maybe.

Yet if a person’s reputation has been hurt, maybe maliciously due to the behavior of others, then we should consider stopping and caring about about the pain being lived, stand against the rejection and support them in receiving the comprehensive care they very likely need and crave to survive, endure and recover.

Emotional pain requires immediate attention, attention and healing too.

Compassion is a great gift and “get well soon” gesture to offer these people.

Michael Toebe writes “Reputation Notes” and is the founder and specialist at Reputation Quality, a practice that serves and assists successful people and organizations in further building reputation as an asset and responsibly, ethically protecting, restoring or reconstructing it.

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