Inside the Turmoil: Unraveling the Raw Truths of Love and Rejection in Alison Kinney’s Bold Memoir
Kinney details interesting research into how rejections impact our brains, how children can un-learn their drive to reject their peers almost as easily as they learn it in the first place, and why some people — think “school shooters, incels, or insurrectionists” — respond to perceived rejection with violence. Turns out the answer to that last one is mainly due to narcissism, Kinney writes.
She also makes the argument throughout her book that rejection can elicit hope and strengthen community. Which seems like a head-scratcher until she tells you the story of the Oglála Lakhóta Tribes’ fight against U.S. government plans to explode fireworks over Mount Rushmore on the Fourth of July. Not only had foresters urged against the fireworks because they caused wildfires, but the Tribes said the action violated a treaty they had signed with the U.S. in the 1800s that promised them the land for their “absolute and undisturbed use.” As Kinney details tribal members’ spirited and unending protests, she notes, “Fighting injustice is a kind of rejection based on radical acceptance of other people’s integrity, strength, vulnerability; of solidarity, empathy, and shared visions for a better future.”
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