Eliminating Rejection
I recently had a really good discussion with a group of guys from Brojo. We discussed eliminating rejection from social context and general connection with other people. The reason I have picked up this topic is that rejection plays a significant role in building my self-confidence. In particular, the fear of rejection creates obstacles in my consciousness which make's me choose not to act on the things which I know are helpful to my confidence and my future life. Rejection among other things is in the way of me living shamelessly and I want to see if I can eliminate the feeling or at least make friends with it. My goal is become less fearful of it and choose to act upon the things which will enhance my life and make my confidence rock solid.
The question I asked myself was what us rejection in the first place? It is funny to see that time and again the external factors make themselves known for all the things that relate to how confident the person is. There were a lot of ideas about what rejection is, in particular: ideas that are not accepted by family or friends; ghosting - the interaction slowly dissolves without an explanation; not having your expectations met, having future outcome attached to the interaction and the biggest of them all that was our fantasies not being realised.
Fantasies
Having fantasies seemed to be a major point of our conversation. We challenged the idea behind why we have fantasies and whether or not they are helpful for us to create an authentic relationship with the other people. In a way fantasies serve a purpose, they help us create a future vision, something to look forward to. However, if we don't act upon them or we are too emotionally attached to the fantasy things can go badly for us in terms of building courage and having self-respect. An example if a guy likes a particular girl, he might create fantasies about them being together, walking along the beaches holding hands, having amazing sex etc. The fantasy can seem so real that the guy would be too scared to ask a girl out because he doesn't want to kill that fantasy, so fear erodes his courage to act. However, if he does build courage and asks her out, but is too attached to her saying yes, he is in danger of being so hurt, that it might put him off from asking other girls out in the future. He doesn't have enough self-respect to be willing to let the decision of the other person not dictate his own actions.
Self Acceptance
In order to eliminate rejection, we concluded that one should accept themselves first. What that means is creating a life which you would not trade with anyone, because you enjoy it so much that it won't change a thing when someone rejects you or doesn't accept you for who you are. Guys also suggested that living by your values would significantly reduce the concept of rejection from your mind. Honesty is a big value, and also owning your honesty will polarize the bad fit people in your life.
Not Good Enough
I think the biggest takeaway for me from this discussion is that rejection is really something that I create in my mind because there is something I want to get from someone else. Once I don't get that thing, I experience all kinds of yuck feelings and I label it as rejection. It creates the feelings of anxiety, because of which I will choose not to do the same action in the future. All of these adds up to my "not good enough" story, and this in itself is a contributing factor to feeling the fear of rejection. In short, I want to get something, and I feel like I don't deserve it. Perfect recipe for never taking action and feeling the fear of rejection.
To conclude our discussion we agreed that killing our fantasies and having a greater purpose than trying to get something from the other person seems like a way forward to build that confidence and eliminate rejection.
