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We’ve previously talked about just how powerful an emotion fear can be. A very strong fear that many people experience is the fear of being rejected. For example, imagine a shy young gentleman about to ask a lady friend out for a date for the first time. You can almost imagine him, red faced, stuttering, shifting nervously. He’s full of fear that he may be rejected and having his hopes dashed.
The fear of being rejected is absolute. Because of it, some folks are apprehensive about taking chances or trying something new. In order to protect themselves from potential rejection, they live really solitary lives. Psychologists have ascertained that the fear of rejection is among the most common trouble spots in married relationships. Because of this fearfulness, one mate may not commit the whole self to the union. There’s an emotional withholding. A healthy marital or long term romantic relationship must be founded on consummate giving from each party. It can not embody the position of “I desire your love and devotion, as much as I can get; but I will not give you mine for fear that I’ll get hurt.”
We hear a good deal about equal giving in marriage. But equal just isn’t enough. Fifty-fifty giving constitutes a competition based on self preservation. One component of the fear of rejection is the concern over the loss of someone else’s approval. This exists in every aspect of human relationships. It explains why folks are inclined to cringe away from conveying original ideas and adapt blindly to the median thinking of the absolute majority.
In our society we bear a neurotic demand to be “normal.” An individual, attempting to be conventional, will mislay confidence in his power to think for himself and sacrifice his genuine identity. How much more gratifying it is on an authentic and spiritual level to be spontaneous instead of average! Think for a moment of all the amazing works of art created by Leonardo Da Vinci, Michelangelo, Monet, Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock to name a few…the art that never would have graced our existence if those artists had followed conventional thinking or were stymied by the fear of rejection.
“Our greatest glory is not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.”
~ Confucious
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Tags: conventional thinking · fear of rejection · self doubt · Self Esteem1 Comment
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[...] takes a lot of effort not to be our authentic self. We can easily become actors playing a role, trying to impress other people. In contrast, an authentic person has more energy, because he’s not giving his energy to [...]