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If there was ever a psychological trait that was considered to be a part of human nature, it’s the fear of rejection.
In the thousands of comments people have posted on my various blogs, in conversations with friends over a lifetime, and in hearing people speak in more seminars than I can count, the fear of rejection is probably the most frequent complaint I’ve heard. And, obviously, if virtually everyone has this fear, it must be human nature. Right?
Not necessarily.
There are at least two possible explanations for most people having this specific psychological trait: it could be human nature and it also could be the result of most people having the beliefs and conditionings that cause a fear of rejection.
What beliefs and conditionings cause a fear of rejection?
After having worked with hundreds of clients with the fear of rejection, my colleagues and I have compiled a list of the beliefs and conditionings that usually cause this common problem. Take a look at them and see what conclusions you draw from the list.
- I’m not good enough.
- I’m not important.
- What makes me good enough and important is having people think well of me.
- If I make a mistake or fail I’ll be rejected.
- Conditioning: Fear associated with criticism and judgment.
- Conditioning: Fear associated with not meeting expectations.
- Conditioning: Fear associated with rejection.
If you are at all familiar with how beliefs are formed in early childhood as a result of interactions with parents, you’ll realize why most people form these beliefs and conditionings. (For details, see my blog posts, https://www.mortylefkoe.com/092209/# and https://www.mortylefkoe.com/wonderful-parents/#) If most people form the beliefs and conditionings that cause a fear of rejection, most people will fear rejection—not because they were born with the fear, but because most people have the beliefs and conditionings that cause the problem.
How can I be so sure that this list of beliefs and conditionings are responsible for the fear of rejection? Because hundreds of people who had the fear eliminated the fear when they eliminated these beliefs and conditionings. In some cases there might have been a few additional ones, but for most people these were sufficient to free themselves from the fear of rejection for good.
Fear of rejection can be deadly
Fearing rejection can lead people to not pursuing their dreams, being afraid to take chances, doing things they would not ordinarily do in order to get the approval of others, and generally worrying about rejection before they do anything. It is not a pleasant way to live.
Get rid of a few specific beliefs and conditionings and discover that your real human nature is to act without concern for rejection.
Please leave your comments and questions here about today’s post. I read all posts and answer as many as I can.
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If you haven’t yet eliminated at least one of your limiting self-esteem beliefs using the Lefkoe Belief Process, go to http://recreateyourlife.com/fearofrejection where you can eliminate one negative belief free.
For information about eliminating 23 of the most common limiting beliefs and conditionings—which cause eight of the most common problems in our lives including a lack of confidence—and get a separate video of the WAIR? Process, please check out: http://recreateyourlife.com/naturalconfidence.
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copyright ©2012 Morty Lefkoe
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Hi Morty
I picked up on this
“The meaning you are giving someone’s comments and/or behavior is causing your emotional response. Get rid of the beliefs causing the meaning and the emotions will go away”.
Now I have your programme and it works. I have benefitted much by it. All too easy for me to extrapolate on this however I have noticed that the more I rave about how well it worked for me (which I want to and have done a lot) the more they tend to run away. When I say “It works and I benefitted a lot” it sounds less than it really has been.
M life has changed. People say they can see or feel something different in me. I feel different being much more confident than before.
When I tell people about it they defend their beliefs fervently. It is almost like a baby sucking a comforter. Take it away even for a minute and the wailing noise starts all over. How on earth can you get people to just do it and trust? That’s all that is required.
I have a tremendous admiration for you and Shelley as you portray her – you are doing more to change the world than most people I know all put together. Also your constancy and love of humanity is breathtaking.
Thank you for changing my life Morty – I love you too.
Jackie
Hi Morty, thank you for answering. Unfortunately I don’t understand the answer either :-), must be a bad time right now. Never mind, I still fear rejection, although I have eliminated the beliefs you mention. It’s even worse now, because earlier I at least had my beliefs that would “explain” why they rejected me (I am not good enough, I am not important etc.). It may sound weird, but it was kind of comforting to have a reason for why it happens. Now these reasons are gone, but it is still painful to be rejected. So what now? Get used to it?
Hi Joseann,
Getting “rejected” is how someone’s behavior “occurs” to you. Having someone not want to spend time with you is not inherently scary or upsetting.
The meaning you are going someone’s comments and/or behavior is causing your emotional response. Get rid of the beliefs causing the meaning and the emotions will go away.
Call us to make an appointment for a session or for more information at (415) 506-4472. There is no reason to continue to live with your problem.
Many people have totally gotten rid of it.
Love,Morty
Hi Morty,
normally I understand your posts very well, but this one I have difficulties to understand. How can a belief “I am not good enough” cause a fear of rejection? Isn’t the belief “I am not good enough” a consequence of being rejected? Just like “I am not important”? Isn’t it more that there is a belief like “If I do something that will make them reject me, then…and here comes the consequences of what “being rejected MEANS” to the person in question. I understood that we are social creatures and being rejected translates into being excluded and isolated and that means danger on a very profound “Human nature level” especially for kids. So when I get rejected by people I depend on or want to be with, it feels really threatening and is painful. In my admittedly limited understanding, the pain from rejection causes me to form beliefs (give it meaning) and then, in the future, I become afraid of being rejected because whenever it happens, my beliefs that “I am not good enough” or “unimportant” or “unworthy” or “not lovable” get activated, depending on what I get rejected for. I found for myself that eliminating the belief “I am not good enough” in general has not alleviated that issue. Somehow I feel rejection is like a re-installer of beliefs whenever it happens, because, if I was “good enough” or “important” or “worthy” or “lovable”, why would I get rejected?
Hi Joseann,
No one belief causes the fear of rejection, or any other problem for that matter. Getting rid of that belief will not stop the problem. But it is one of the beliefs, because if you are not good enough, then people will not want to be around you, they will reject you. So that belief is one of the beliefs that could lead to a fear of rejection.
If you eliminate the belief, then getting rejected would not be sufficient to reform the belief. One event didn’t cause the belief to begin with; only a pattern of behavior, over and over, leads to beliefs being formed.
And it is a child forming the negative self-esteem beliefs; adults wouldn’t necessarily form the same beliefs that children do, with similar evidence, because adults are not dependent on their parents for survival and they have a fully-formed cerebral cortex that enables them to think more rationally.
Love, Morty
And yes, interactions with parents as you mention is an important part. It’s funny how we are ‘taught’ certain things through this and create it through our life until we can let go of it!
-Ben
Definately, fear of rejection is a major issue to get rid of.
I agree it goes back to the beliefs, but if you go deeper than that, i’ve found it important to deal with the past memories (most likely as a child) where these beliefs and learnings were formed and to transform them into something positive.
And doing that is where i’ve found the most power lies. Though letting go of the thoughts and emotions that come up is important too and may be needed before you can access the deeper stuff.
-Ben
I’m glad you included the list. It’s funny if I had to pick from the list I would have picked the first two. Next I tried reading them all aloud, and those two had no charge… The surprise, I had trouble voicing the third one…
Bon Dia Morty,
your insights are incredibly helpful to me. One of the things I now realize I have been struggling with is fear of rejection. Though I am at first sight a very sociable person, with lots of friends, I know now I have always held back a part of myself out of fear of being rejected/hurt. To others and myself this looks like independence (hey, I don’t need anyone, really) but because of you I know it is just another survival strategy. I have been able to see through the meaning I give to events (my friend does not return my call immediately, so he/she must be fed up with me. That’s it: I will never call again) I now take the event as it is and not take everything so personally. This has made my life soooo much easier, thanks for that.
One more thing: I hear people saying their beliefs don’t go away, but is it possible that we are so conditioned that we automatically keep feeling the old way long after the belief is gone, unless we question it? To take the same example: I would still sometimes hear myself saying: mmm, I feel sad, cuz so and so didn’t call yet. And then I would think: do I really feel sad? No, actually not. I feel fine. Like: years after you have quit smoking, you may feel: mmm, that was a nice meal, I would like a cigarette now. But if you really think about it, that is not even true. It’s more like an automatic reaction, but if you question it, it will go away.
Love, B.
Hi Bianca,
Conditioning has nothing to do with beliefs. When beliefs are really eliminated then you will not feel that they are true. You might have similar beliefs that have not yet been eliminated and mistake them, you could have a negative sense, etc. — but if a belief has been eliminated, it will be gone.
Love, Morty
Being rejected is painful. But most often the pain lasts from 1 hour to 1 year. But fear of rejection, though not very painful lasts and lasts and lasts. What is more painful, we create a mental burden by associating old rejections with the new one. Another bad thing is that most of us start hating people who are rejecting us in our imagination. We all reject in almost same fashion and sometimes they have reasons. I can’t call an ugly web site a nice website. But at the same time I feel that, the creator of that site is not visually trained and my expectation should be modest and humble.
The same should be applicable while I am thinking of myself. Expectation should be modest and humble. I cant stop my flow for achieving the quality. If I am not good enough or if my work is not good enough that’s great. That doesn’t make someone feel unworthy….
Hi Joe,
Neither rejection nor thoughts about being rejected can cause fear. The fear is the result of beliefs and conditioning. Eliminate them and the fear will disappear.
Love,Morty
It seems to me as if you are creating a new belief system in me as your writing is so logical and powerful. I like to ask you about OCD pure O. I think certain beliefs and conditionings are responsible for the obsessive compulsive psychological condition to which I don’t like to say as disorder. Don’t you think one can work on obsessive-compulsive pure o condition by removing certain beliefs & conditionings. Your suggestions in this regard are highly sought.
Hi Joe,
Neither rejection nor thoughts about being rejected can cause fear. The fear is the result of beliefs and conditioning. Eliminate them and the fear will disappear.
Love,Morty
Hi Susheel,
Yes, I agree that OCD can be dealt with by eliminating beliefs and conditionings. And I think conditionings are especially important for OCD.
Love, Morty
This was a good post. I’ve been living a certain way most of my life. I didn’t consider it to be a fear of rejection. However, over the past year I have realized my socially destructive pattern of keeping safe by isolating myself more and more over time. I think my fear comes from a childhood abandonment issue, I never thought of it worded as rejection. I will need to work on this.
Thanks Morty,
I’ve been using your natural confidence course, and having done just the first few beliefs, I have already noticed significant changes in my ability to easily speak with others. Thank you for sharing this information!
I NEEDED THIS TODAY
For some reason, some of the words of the beliefs & conditions were cut off under the picture on my computer. Is it just my computer, or did anyone else experience this problem?
Hi Marion,
Sorry you are having difficulties reading the post. It’s fine on my browser. Try another browser or close your browser and open it again.
Love,Morty
Thank you, Morty, for sharing this. I work with children in a daycare-institution, pt with children, that a bilangual. Is educated for and have worked with children since 1990, so especially your thougths about which effect adults and their actions have on childrens beliefs, I find very interesting. And find my job is very important in order to give alternative ways to the children. And for some of them – make them have a chance to define themselves with other beliefs, that their parents bring them up with :-)
Doug, what your wrote helps me too. Thank you for sharing. Olivia
Morty, I just read your post and one of the beliefs struck me, the one about other peoples’ opinion of me making me ‘good enough’.
I played around with that for a while using your process and the following came out
“I don’t accept that I have to accept the meanings that I was given in that context. Those meanings were created in response to the situation that arose at the
time. If I had been raised in an ideal situation I would have created other meanigns.
Therefore, these meanings are not real, they are not the only interpretation and I don’t have to live by them.
At this point I felt a release, a sense of cognitive freedom:
I choose to live by meanigns that I can enjoy:
I am brave
I am strong
I love God
God loves me
I have a place on this earth
My thoughts are not stupid
you don’t necessarily know more than me
if we disagree, we disagree
I love and live by the teachings of Jesus the christ, you can do what you want but I want to persuade you this isa good way…
I have a right to an opinion
This is a real step forward for me because for years I had a lurking fear of disagreeing with other people.
Thanks.
Doug
So true Morty. Being a blogger has forced me to come face to face with my fear of rejection. Having guest posts rejected or ideas in my posts rejected was something that I had to face and ultimately get beyond it.
I don’t let it stop me from doing what I have to do. People reject us, our ideas and so on and I can’t control that but I can control my thoughts and beliefs about rejection.
Can you bring new stuff out, this is just a rehash.
Thanks you.
Hi Terry,
Thanks for reading my posts so carefully that this seems like a “rehash” to you. I saw it as a slightly different slant on an issue that is important to so many people. I had never listed the beliefs and conditionings that commonly cause the fear before and now that people are learning how to eliminate beleifs on their own, I thought the list might be useful.
In any case, I’m sorry that this post was not as valuable to you as others have been.
I’ll do what I can to make future posts more useful.
Thanks for taking the time to let me know what you think.
Love, Morty
Well Morty,
You can feel great in knowing that Terry must really love your stuff. She’s been with you long enough to know it’s rehash. I think that’s great.
As it’s all still new to me.
I’d love a tidbid more specific to the fear of rejection, infringing, feeling like a fraud, etc. – all those thoughts assoc. with direct marketing. Such beliefs have seriously stunned my productivity. The more calls/sales I made, the more these feelings took over. Instead of feeling great about my growth I was worried and waiting to be “found out.” now to the point that business is on hold. I simply can’t pick up the phone and have a successful conversation.
Ange
Hi Ange,
The fear of rejection, feeling like a fraud, etc. are all the result of beliefs and conditioning. Eliminate them and the feelings will disappear.
You can eliminate a few beliefs free at http://recreateyourlife.com so you can see how the belief-elimination process works.
If you like it, you can get our Natural Confidence program that will help you eliminate most of the beliefs that cause your problems. You can get information about that program at http://naturalconfidenceprogram.com.
Love,Morty
Can you bring new stuff out, this is just a rehash.
Thanks you.