Fear of Rejection:

For some fear of rejection can come from a lack of self-confidence.

It does seem that we magnify it a lot because out of 5 times we may be rejected once but we feel so devastated that we were rejected that we don’t ever want to try again. Personally I greatly dislike the negative feelings of rejection, but…

For any success to come about we must get out of that Comfort Zone and face what it is that we must do, and we must have courage enough to know that we could face rejection.

As a teenager I was rejected on a few occasions by females. It got so that I refused to ask any out, or even approach a female because I didn’t liked it when they said no. So I became afraid of approaching females and instead I got on with my life. People would joke that the only way for a female to get me was that she had to run as fast as I was running away from them.

If our parents rejected us, and other people, then we can have trouble facing up to life and what we need to do as adults because we have tasted the horrible taste of rejection from many people and we can feel worthless, and it seems like the next time will definitely be just another rejection and more bad feelings and less confidence.

We can fear rejection so much that we come to crave people’s acceptance. We will go to great lengths to make other people happy, while neglecting our own happiness, and fool ourselves to believing that we are humble, hard-working, and charitable for doing good deeds, when in reality we are really terrified of being alone. So we ignore our happiness and help others because we are scared that they will run away or reject us.

If we accuse people of rejecting us and our friends don’t like this new and abusive behavior, they go away. He or she may say, “I know that you all hate me. Nobody loves me and really wants to help me.” But when people are tired of hearing this and feel that they cannot take all this negative talk anymore and go away, the person who fears rejection can then say, “I told you so, they all rejected me. They didn’t really care.” The person feared rejection so much that they became antisocial, hard to know, or hard to live with, and then was rejected, and this made them feel that they were right all alone.

We can fear losing the approval of other people. It seems much more comfortable to fit in with what everyone else is doing and just follow along. Stepping out of the box causes some to admire us and some to reject us, often more will reject us, but those left over are far more worthy than the multitudes that reject us.

We may often seek people’s constant approval to make us feel that we are worthy and will not be rejected by them. We may be searching for reassurance all the time. But this is a form of slavery, and internal misery. We can’t please everyone. And to a fair degree we must all do certain things for ourself as well.

If we are over-mothered as a child we have an adult making all our choices and decisions for us and when it comes to making our own choices we have a fear of choosing for ourself, and a fear of taking charge of our own life, or of taking any sort of real or challenging risks. This type of person’s comfort zone is having the mother choose for them. They must break free and have a go on their own, or they risk life itself. A people-pleaser is like a zombie, or a follower of the masses, easily seduced and easily weakened, easily led and used and abused, etc.

Those who are driven by fears can “see things in people that don’t exist”. It can be a “look”, a “comment”, something that this person did, etc. And they can come to distrust people because their fear is uppermost in their mind. Of course if they think that a comment was threatening (even though it wasn’t) they can then grow even more fears based on something that didn’t exist in the first place, and then the fear grows more and more causing much strife, distrust and unhappiness.

People with fear “read” people wrong, and then make judgments, comments, anger etc on what they fear the most. Fear of rejection is real, and very powerful, soul destroying and removes good people from our lives. It makes what we fear come true, in the end fear of rejection will cause everyone to reject us except those who control us.

Fear of rejection can cause people to stop trying, or to fear trying so much that they want to try but won’t take those first steps to make it happen. Fear of rejection stops a person from taking up opportunities. They let blessings and good opportunities pass by because they are too frightened of being rejected or of failure.

Be aware that if we expect rejection, then we see it everywhere. It haunts the soul, and destroys the life.

What is the “other side of the coin” for you?

On one side you may fear rejection and you have been concentrating on that.

But what about if you were not rejected?

Then what? Does life change for you? Does it get better? Will you be happier? Will you get a long awaited dream? Will you be happy? Will you find true love?

Fear of rejection causes us to turn away from the very life-changing things that bring us heaven on earth.

Before you give up, please at least try.

A thought to consider is who gave you that original fear. Did someone give you a fear of a person? Did you through mental illness create a fear that didn’t exist? What brought about this fear of rejection that you have anyway?

If you have done someone wrong and really hurt that person and you find that person wants to avoid you (an obvious reaction because he or she does not want to get hurt again), but you now have realized your mistake, then you need face up to what you have done wrong, apologize honestly, and show that you have repented by apologizing with your true honest loving feelings. Honestly, very few people will reject an honest apology, especially a good person with a good heart will always accept a true apology and will truly forgive that person.

Look deeper into your fears. Find out where they false ones have come from. Question yourself (and possibly other people) to find out about how this all came about. And do look at the other side of the coin, what amazing good things could possibly come to you if you were not rejected. Look at the positives.

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All the best from

James M Sandbrook.
November 27, 2014.