The pain of rejection

When people experience social rejection, the same areas of the brain get activated as when they feel physical pain.*

Imagine showing up every day to work despite a persistent headache and:

🔹trying to focus
🔹contributing with your ideas
🔹attempting to use your talents and creativity

It takes a toll.

We all need to take responsibility and work towards finding concrete behavioral cures to create a response to the feeling of not #belonging.

In additional to systemic changes that need to be addressed in the first place, we can increase the feeling of `#inclusion by individual behavior.

Among other, these are simple yet effective ways to make people feel seen and included:

🔹applying #microaffirmations
🔹using inclusive language
🔹demonstrating #allyship
🔹being authentically curious 
🔹appreciating people for their unique contributions

Source: Naomi Eisenberger, Matthew Lieberman, Kipling D Williams “Does Rejection Hurt? An fMRI Study of Social Exclusion”

#diversity #różnorodność