How To Overcome The Fear Of Rejection

Stop limiting your growth by giving undeserved credit to the past

A Female Sitting on Chair and Looking AwayPhoto by Amar Preciado

We’ve all experienced rejection at some point in our lives. For a species that is wired to be social, but also for one that learns through trial and error — rejection is almost a ‘must’ in our evolutionary trajectory.

We come alone in this beautiful world, and we leave alone. Throughout our lives, despite the people and objects that populate our day-to-day existence — we keep carrying this loneliness with ourselves, no matter where we are.

Being wired for survival, but also being social creatures — we don’t forget pain, especially the pain of having been rejected by our fellow human beings.

Pain is our greatest teachers, and Nature makes it this way by surrounding painful memories with fears — fear always exists in relationship to a painful memory.

Because most of us were too young when we were first rejected, the pain that has surrounded the experience is intense. Children register events very vividly, and quite intensely too. So we’ve learned to cope with this fear, and the pain of being rejected — by conforming.

If people don’t like us, we’ll please them. That’s when we lose every bit of what makes us – us, in exchange for social validation, a deal of disgust. And disgusting it is; because living this way makes us lose touch with our soul. The rest of our life is spent conforming, and following every damn trend.

We were once bold, innocent, open. Now, we’re passive, rigid, closed.

That’s where most people stop. And that’s how they limit their growth.

Unless we take the time to pay attention to our feelings, unless we learn to give them a voice — we’ll remain frustrated, and passive.

We’ll try to overcompensate for these disharmonious energies through distractions; sex, food, alcohol or parties. We’ll overdo things. We’ll push our senses to their limits. And we’ll affect our health negatively.

All this, just because we didn’t want to feel that pain, once again.

We’re all on a healing journey. Being born human means learning along the way.

Eventually we’ll get tired of our games, and we’ll want to get ourselves out of this lie we’ve accepted as the only way to live.

And that’s when we’ll have to face our fears. If you’re at this stage of your life now. If you especially want to heal yourself regarding your fear of being rejected, this is what you can do:

Step 1. Give yourself the permission to be rejected, once again

This might seem scary, but it shouldn’t. The past is trapped in you. At some point, you’ve registered intense emotions and images regarding this experience. You probably didn’t have all the answers to life, no one does. Yet, in labeling the experience as such, that’s what we exactly do – we assume we have all the answers to life. Again. It’s impossible.

Having been less mature than you are now, you also gave the experience more intensity than it had. And while you’re a beautiful and more mature soul today, you keep living according to this past pattern.

And to undo it, the first step is to give yourself the permission to relive the experience of being rejected. But here’s the funny thing. You will realize that most people are nicer than your fear of rejection makes you believe. Don’t give up though!

Step 2. Once it happened, remain aware of your feelings and thoughts

Your past (thoughts and feelings; reactions) will want to pull you back into survival mode by forcing you to act like you always did. It’ll feel really hard not to just do it, but don’t give in.

Being fully aware while the experience is taking place is key to this process. It’s when you rewrite your beliefs about the situation.

By being aware, you’ll realize that it’s not that ‘bad’. You’ll feel a bit disappointed too because you’ve given this monster much more credit than it deserved and now, you realize that it’s a toy and that it’s time to throw it away.

And that’s it.

You thought it would be more complicated?

I’m sorry but it’s not. You’re the owner of your mind and body. If schools don’t teach us how to use them; we have to do it ourselves.

And the great thing about it?

Once you’ve fully allowed yourself to experience this whole situation — you won’t feel slowed down by your fears anymore. You’ll retrieve your sense of awe about the world. And it’ll encourage you to keep going — to keep exploring your infinite possibilities.