We fear losing approval from others. Fear of rejection is widespread. In tribal times, being rejected from the safety of a group actually meant death and that’s where I think this primordial instinct comes in man. No wonder, many of us are so desperate to fit in.
Fear keeps us alert and safe — like the beam from a far-off light asking us to go towards it and also at the same time warning us of the dangers in the darkness. But too much fear, like a super-beam of light can cause the loss of the very thing we feared losing, which is our inborn instinct to be adventurous.
And this may be especially true when it comes to fear of rejection. But fact is that seeking reassurance is a dead end. Reassurance needs to be found from within. Why? Because any look, word, or action from others can be warped and wrongly interpreted as an upcoming rejection, when it’s not necessarily true. The saying that “there’s nothing to fear but fear itself” is nothing but a “self-fulfilling” prophecy. It’s a false idea about a situation that makes the person with the belief act in such a way that the false idea comes true. You wrongly believe your partner is rejecting you; you become defensive, anxious and perhaps angry. Eventually, these behaviours may bring about the feared rejection, which wasn’t there to begin with. When someone wrongly believes a group will reject them, they start feeling angry with the group, and the group rejects them. Now the person feels they were right from the very beginning, telling themselves, “I knew it!”
Your beliefs always work around possible rejection, which influences your behaviour, which in turn influences your actions. Ever noticed how people having emotional problems often seem to sayhow they, don’t want to feel? Fair enough, but at some point you need to work out how you do want to feel. Imagine someone trying to learn a new language and spending all their time focusing on how they don’t want to not study it.
Some people just want to be proved right — even if that means a bad outcome. Expecting the worst for them can act as an excellent emotional insurance policy.
