#219: How a Fear of Rejection Keeps Us From What We Want Most

(upbeat music) - You're listening to On Attachment, a place to learn about how attachment shapes the way we experience relationships, and where you'll gain the guidance, knowledge, and practical tools to overcome insecurity and build healthy, thriving relationships. I'm your host, Relationship Coach Stephanie Ric, and I'm really glad you're here. Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. In today's episode, we are talking all about rejection and how a fear of rejection, which I think is something many of us struggle with, can actually keep us from what we want most, and that can feel like a bit of a cruel irony, but I think it's a really important one to dig into. A lot of us will associate rejection with dating, and while it can certainly show up there, and is maybe most obvious and most acute there, because we feel like we're sort of auditioning for someone's love and attention and approval, I actually think that the fear of rejection goes far deeper than that, and has branches into many different areas of life, and probably if you're someone who really struggles with a fear of rejection, I'm sure it reaches into every area of life, whether you realize it or not. And certainly, I think it follows us into romantic relationships, even when we're in a committed relationship, the fear of rejection can persist, and it can really shape how we show up, whether we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, whether we take risks, and all of that can really determine whether we get what we want and what we need. And so we're going to be exploring that today, how and where it shows up, and possibly some unexpected ways or ways that you haven't really connected the dots that your fear of rejection is driving that, how it interfaces with other fears that are really common for folks with anxious attachment patterns, and how you might start reframing this fear, and creating more safety internally, so that you're not so hyper-vigilant all the time, so that you're not anticipating rejection everywhere you look, so that you can stop internalizing everyone else's behavior as being about you, and so that you can start taking even baby steps towards more of what you want through being more vulnerable and really putting yourself out there. Because as we'll talk about today, it really can be a self-fulfilling prophecy that we don't go after what we want, because we're so scared that we might fail or that we might be rejected, and then lo and behold, we don't get what we want. So the outcome is almost guaranteed in not going after the thing. Before we get into today's episode, a reminder for anyone who has maybe missed it in the past couple of weeks, that my 28-day Secure Self Challenge is coming back in January, we'll be kicking off on the 12th of January, runs for 28-days, go figure, and it's all about building self-worths, so we go through four pillars of self-worth, self-compassion, self-regulation, self-advocacy, and self-trust, and we spend a week on each. There will be daily audio lessons, a pop-up community, a couple of live calls with me. It's a really, really great one, kind of short and sweet, really doable, and always gets beautiful feedback over on it four times now, I think. So if you're interested in joining the Secure Self Challenge, I would absolutely love to have you, and you can find the link to join in the show notes or by heading directly to my website. Second quick announcement, I actually can't believe that I haven't shared this on the podcast yet, but I created a new free resource, probably a month or more ago now. I've shared it on Instagram a lot, but I created a new resource called the Anxious Attachment Pep Talks, and they are around three minutes each, and there are six of them, and it's totally free. You download it, and Pep Talks are things like, what to do when your partner's in a bad mood, or when you're stuck in jealousy and comparison, or when you sense that someone's pulling away from you and you're spiraling, and it's basically me in your ears saying, look, here's what's happening, here's what you need to do about it, and it's a bit of a pattern interrupt. So these have already been downloaded well over a thousand times, and again, I've gotten really beautiful feedback. So if you're interested in getting access to the Anxious Attachment Pep Talks, and my intention for these is that I can add to it along the way and respond to people's requests and feedback, so it can be a bit of a living library of Pep Talks from me, for those moments when you're really in the thick of it, and you just need something to cut through all of the noise. The link to download those Pep Talks is also in the show notes, and can also be found on my website. So go check those out, they're a great resource. Okay, so let's talk about the fear of rejection, and how being ruled by this fear actually keeps us from the things that we want most. Now, I think it's really important to acknowledge at the outset that nobody really likes rejection, or if they do, they are certainly outliers. It is very normal human natural to feel hurt by rejection, to shy away from it, that it might bring us into contact with fear, shame, embarrassment, humiliation, all sorts of uncomfortable feelings that we are evolutionarily wired to stay away from. And so I think a kind of normal natural level of aversion towards rejection is not something that we need to pathologize or make ourselves wrong for. And at the same time, I think we can acknowledge that for many of us, it goes beyond what we might call a normal amount of rejection sensitivity or aversion. And it crosses over into really holding us back from the things that we want. It feels crippling, it feels overwhelming, it feels like we couldn't possibly do something if there's any risk of rejection attached to it. So whether that's in dating and we're absolutely terrified of being rejected by someone, and if the person that we went on two dates we were to say that actually they're not feeling a spark, we'd go into a total spiral and meltdown and we'd feel terrible about ourselves or we're scared to put ourselves forward for an opportunity at work because if we were to not get it, that would be such a blow to our sense of self, and self-esteem and self-worth, or even in friendships, I think. We can shy away from maybe opening ourselves up to friends or trying to build friendship that can feel really vulnerable, expressing that we'd like to spend more time with someone or inviting people to things. We can be so afraid of them saying no, or maybe not wanting the friendship in the same way that we do, we can fear that people don't really like us. And all of that can lead us to hold back from pursuing what we really desire for ourselves because we're so afraid of what might happen if we would or not get it. The other big one when it comes to rejection is in relationships themselves. And as I said in the introduction, I think we can treat rejection as a dating thing and then think that it ceases to apply in relationships once they're established, but I think that rejection can be very present in relationships. For example, every time that you bite your tongue rather than expressing a need or desire or maybe you don't reach out for connection or intimacy or you don't speak up for what you want. So much of that is grounded in this fear of, what if this isn't received in the way that I'm hoping, what if the person doesn't respond the way I want them to? What will that mean about me? And so I just freeze up a shy away from it and I prefer not to take the risk rather than to risk rejection or disappointment because that feels too painful. So as you can see, this has a lot of applications that shows up in a lot of places. And I think the common thread in amongst all of that is risk aversion coupled with the tendency to internalize other people's behavior or choices or desires as being a function of our worth or a comment on our values. So if a friend is not available or too busy, it's because they don't like us. Or if we don't get the promotion we were hoping for it work, it's because we're not smart enough or no one values our contributions. Or in dating, if that person doesn't want to go on a second or third day, it's because we're unattractive or they thought that we were weird or awkward or we said too much in the date and in relationships, if someone can't meet our needs, it's because our needs are wrong and so we just have to bury them. Note the tendency there to make everything about us and our deficiencies and our not enoughness rather than just seeing that as a fact of life that sometimes we get what we want and other times we don't. That doesn't have to mean anything about us. And also recognizing that other people's willingness and capacity is not for us to control or manage or be responsible for. The other really important piece when it comes to the fear of rejection is that, and I've spoken about this before, I think at the heart of a fear of rejection is a deep rejection of self and a deep self criticism, a deep sense of unworthiness and not enoughness. And in this way, I think there is a real interplay and interconnectedness between the rejection wound and the unworthiness wound and for anxiously attached people, people with that pattern, that makes a lot of sense because they tend to go hand in hand for us. We feel like we're not enough, we feel like we have to prove, we feel like we have to tiptoe and we tend to be so self-critical and so hard on ourselves. We tend to feel so unworthy that rejection is not just something that happens relationally, it feels like it's holding a mirror up, it's a confirmation of our worst fears that we are, in fact, not good enough, not attractive enough, not likable, that people don't want to meet our needs, maybe that we're asking too much, we're too sensitive. All of those things tend to be beliefs that we already hold about ourselves. And so the rejection piece is less about what this person thinks of me and more about they have become the confirmation of what my greatest fear is about myself, or what I already think of me. And that's the piece that we often want to avoid or want to hide from is our own in the dialogue and finding external confirmation of that. So instead of putting all of that out there, putting that in the open and risking having all of that exposed in a way that feels so tender and vulnerable, we just keep working and trying and pushing and proving and doing all of the things behind the scenes, hoping that we'll earn our worth in that way without ever having to sort of test it or without ever having to release control or put ourselves out there in a way that feels so vulnerable because we just don't really want to face the possibility of someone else mirroring back to us the very, very painful stories that we're already harboring about ourselves. And I think it's so important here to really recognize how much of a self-fulfilling prophecy that is how much of a loop we get stuck in there. We're so afraid of rejection, so we don't voice the need and instead we maybe just burn ourselves out in overgiving and prioritising everyone and hoping that they take a hint, but they don't and so the need goes unmet and we feel hurt and rejected and that leads us to feel even worse about ourselves and even more vulnerable and more sensitive to rejection. And so we're even less likely to take the risk to open ourselves up to voice the need because we're now even more convinced that someone's not going to meet us there or that they don't care about us. And so we get smaller and smaller at the same time as we get more and more hurt and more and more resentful and it just spirals into a really unhelpful and healthy place where that fear of rejection and that risk of version around vulnerability is keeping us from the thing that we most desire for ourselves, which is to be seen and to be known and to be responded to, to feel that sense of attunement, to have someone show up for us and say like, yes, you matter to me, your needs matter to me and I'm here for you. We don't realize that we might be blocking that in really real ways because we are so terrified that someone won't be able to meet us there. And yet our behavior is actually creating confirmation of that story that is keeping us stuck. So what do we do about all this and how do we start shifting? There's big, deep, old for many of us pattern around rejection. I think there are a few pieces. There's some mindset stuff, some nervous system stuff and I think there's just some getting out there and ripping the band aid off kind of stuff, almost desensitising ourselves to rejection. I do think that focusing on building self-worth I probably sound like a broken record 'cause it's my solution to everything but I do think that it is a solution to a lot of these things because the more comfortable we are in ourselves and we can say like, I like who I am. Maybe I'm not totally in love with myself but I like who I am and I'm comfortable in who I am. I see my value, I think I'm a good person and I think I bring things to the table. I trust that people like me, all of those things that allows us to soften some of those deeply self-rejecting self-critical stories which in turn makes us less likely to interpret those stories everywhere. It's sort of like if you're really self-conscious about something in your appearance and if you look at a photo, your eyes go there straight away even though no one else would notice it. The same is true, I think when we're so hyper attuned to our perceived deficiencies, we see them everywhere and we assume that everyone else sees them everywhere and that they're the reason for everything. So I think the more that we build a solid foundation within ourselves who are like, you know what? I'm okay with who I am, I like myself, I am proud of how I show up. Then those really painful stories start to fall away and the sensitivity to rejection feels much less acute because we're less likely to take everyone's behavior personally as confirmation of our deep-seated feelings of unworthiness because those just have less power over us. I think another key piece is recognizing that if someone doesn't want to go on a date with you or doesn't want to be close friends with you or someone in a relationship, can't or won't meet needs that feel really important to you, that's not a rejection of you as a person. It is a function of their differing preferences or capacity, right? In the same way that we can't do everything and be everything to everyone and we don't like every single person ever and that doesn't mean anything other than like we've all got limited bandwidth and we've all got our own preferences. And of course, like there can be a bit of a sting there and it can feel a bit personal, but just reminding ourselves that I don't have to make this all about me. I don't have to take this very, very personally. I don't want to go on a date with everyone. I don't want to be best friends with everyone. I can't meet everyone's needs. Some things will work for me, others won't. I think it allows us to make that all a bit more neutral and a bit less putting ourselves at the center of it and making it mean something about who we are. So when we can kind of zoom out from that and get a bit more comfortable with like, well, yeah, of course, that's true, right? Of course, I'm not for everyone and everyone's not for me. That can feel a bit less like a personal failing if whatever the thing is doesn't work out the way that you were hoping. And I think last but not least, as I said, there is an element of actually just getting into the arena of ripping the bandaid off, of taking the risk because we can like do all of the mindset work in the world, but for our nervous system, we actually need to show it. That rejection can be safe, that we can experience something like that and not die. And as with so many things, when we never run the experiment, we never get to disprove the story. So if you are so locked in this frozen state of I could never possibly say those words or express that thing to my partner or ask for this or tell them about this fear, then you never get to experience the healing that might come from that actually going better than you thought it would. And you only ever get to hold onto the story as it is because you're never giving yourself the opportunity to disprove it and for another story to emerge. So a nervous system really learns through show rather than tell, which is why the mindset work can only go so far. We actually do have to take action. We have to have the experiences that then register in our system as, oh, another way is possible and this is what that could feel like. So I hope that that's given you something to think about. If you're someone who struggles with rejection, as I'm sure, probably 95% of people listening are recognizing that oftentimes it's a self-worth problem and we are projecting our worst fears and our most painful beliefs about our own shortcomings and we're perceiving them everywhere through every rejection begins more. We assume that that's the reason and so it just collects evidence in favour of all of that and realizing that as we start to shift those stories and build self-worth and becomes someone that we really like and are proud of being that all of that tends to solve itself much of the time because that little loop is less active and we can sort of step out of that self-fulfilling prophecy reminding yourself that rejection is not a personal failing. It's just sometimes a compatibility theory. It's a personal preference thing. It's a capacity thing. None of that has to be about you and your worth and your value that's just life being, life and people being people and again, I think as we become more comfortable in ourselves we can sort of take that with a grain of salt and not be overly self-centered or dramatic about it. We can sort of let it wash over us, water off a ducts back rather than spiraling into an emotional heap or melt down over it. And last but not least, you really do have to get out there and take risks and disprove these old stories and old patterns through action rather than just thinking positive thoughts because that's really where the change happens. So Sydney, a lot of love, hope it's been helpful and that it's been a good reminder of all of the ways that our fear can actually directly block us from the thing that we want most, which for many of us is love, connection and a felt sense of safety and our relationship. So, Sydney, you lots of love and I look forward to seeing you again next time. Thanks for joining me for this episode of On Attachment. If you want to go deeper on all things attachment, love and relationships, you can find me on Instagram @stefiny_reg, or at stefinyreg.com. And if you enjoyed this episode, I'd be so grateful if you could leave a review and a five-star rating. It really does help so much. Thanks again for being here and I hope to see you again soon. (upbeat music)