How To Finally Stop Fearing Rejection

Welcome to Shrink for the Shy Guy. This is the show for you. If you are sick and tired of being held back by fear, self doubt, social anxiety, shyness, anything that's stopping you from you being you. I'm going to share the most powerful tools and resources that I've been discovering over the last 15 years on my journey to eradicate social anxiety and instill confidence first in myself and then in every single person that I meet on my journey. You're gonna learn these tools and how to apply them in your life now so that you can become the most free, powerful, bold, authentic version of you. Hey, welcome to today's episode of the show. Today we're gonna be talking about how to stop fearing rejection for real. Not just saying, I'm not afraid, I'm not scared of rejection, but then meanwhile avoiding it in a thousand ways in our lives. Not going to the party, not opening up, not sharing, not asking for what we want, not being real, not taking any risks. I'm not afraid. I'm just busy. No, I mean truly getting to be not afraid of rejection. And it is possible. And I'm excited to share in this episode not just how to do it intellectually, but practices that you can do, we can do together right now to really help you get to peace with rejection. So let's do it. This is really fitting because the biggest fear of nice people is that someone's gonna say no to them or reject them. And rejection doesn't just mean saying no to a request of yours. They might, you might feel like they reject you as a person, right? So they don't like you, they dismiss you, they don't want to be your friend, they look down upon you. This really goes into the realm of judgment and what they will think, which is the, you know, the terrifying realm for the nice person. I know because I lived in that cage of fear of what they are going to think of me, they rejecting me. And this is a very fitting episode because right now we have just a few more days left. Depends on when you're listening to this for the super early bird ticket for Not Nice Live, which is a three day virtual event. And we're going to be going way deeper with this over three days to help you neutralize that fear at the most profound levels. And I'm not going to hold back. I'm going to guide you in this episode on how to do it. But you know, like anything else, this is about practice. This is about mastery. If you really want to get this, you got to practice it. You Got to learn it at a higher level. And that's what we can do when we have three days together. So you can go to drzeze.com and then click on the events tab. So it'S-R-A Z I Z dot com, click on the Events tab and then you'll see this. It's called not nice. Live. Get your ticket. Now we have. It's 80% off of the normal rate when it's the super early bird. And if you're getting this a little bit later and it's just the regular early bird, it's still absolutely worth it. You still save off the regular price. And I mean, this investment, you know, if you could just shift how you felt in one area of your life, if you just stopped being afraid of rejection and dating or at work, would that be worth the investment for you? In my experience, nothing compares to the freedom, the social freedom of being you. So check that out. I would love to spend that time with you. I'm going to be teaching it live with you. So it's a. You'll feel it very different than recordings and reading of a book and other things, which can be helpful. But nothing compares to that immersion. So let's talk about how to get free from this fear of rejection. And the first place to start with is deconstructing rejection. What is happening if I were to say you got rejected? I think I told this story maybe in my first book, the Solution to Social Anxiety. But we went down to Los Angeles every summer to spend about a week with my cousins down there. They're similar ages to us, two boys as well, me and my brother. So boy pack running around. And one summer we got down there and my cousin had this saying. He's probably about 8 years old and his phrase of the week was rejected. And the way he'd say it, you know, you're playing volleyball in the pool and he spikes the ball on you or beats you in some game. Because we used to play a lot of games together when we were cousins down there. And he would say, rejected, rejected, rejected, rejected. It was funny because I actually just told that story to my kids last week. That's why I'm thinking about it and laughing. And so now all week I've heard them walking around being like, rejected, rejected, rejected. I'm like, good, that lives on, that needs to live on. So what's happening when you get rejected? Rejected, rejected. Other than super cool phrase like that going through your mind? Well, what's happening is two things. One is it could Be. There is a. There is a denial of your request, spoken or unspoken right. Isn't that what objection is? So if you have a request, hey, do you want to buy my thing? Hey, do you want to join this. Hey, do you want to join me for Saturday to go to the movie? Hey, do to. You want. Do you want to go on a date? Hey, do you want to hire me? Whatever the request is, hey, can I have a donut for free at the donut store? And the person says no, then you've been rejected. Now, their no could be a. They ignore you, they turn away, they look away. You send an email to someone asking for an inter. You know, hey, I want to take you out to lunch and learn about your business. And they don't reply. That counts as a no as well, right? They're not directly saying it, but they're. They're communicating a no there. It's a denial of your request to spend time to get the donut to do the thing. Now, this can also show up more broadly where you're talking to someone and you're hoping they're gonna like you. And they don't seem to like you. They want to go talk to somebody else. You didn't make a specific request there. Hey, please like me. But that's what you were hoping for. It's an implicit request that means not spoken. And then when that is denied, they turn away, they walk away. They seem to have not be interested in you. You can still feel that same rejection, right? You know what I'm talking about. So these are the things that we fear. So a rejection in its simplest form is information that is coming from outside of you to you, that's communicating a no to your request. And usually our request is our desire. It's what I want. I want this person to say yes. I want this person to give me the thing. I want this person to want to date me. I want this person to like me. And now that request is being met with a no, and I'm not getting what I want. So are you with me so far? That's what rejection is. That's one. That's the occurrence of rejection. But there's another part of it, and the other part is what goes on inside. We just talked about the outer part. Then there's the inner part of rejection, and the inner part is what you do with that information, and that makes all the difference. That's where the freedom is gonna lie, because you do not have control over whether someone says yes or no. And I know this One kind of rubs people the wrong way because they're like, yeah, but if I was more suave or if I was better at sales or if I was sexier, if I was funnier, if I was better dressed, if I was richer, if I was smarter, if I was something or other, then I would have got a yes. And, you know, maybe. Maybe, you know, you can improve your skill in different areas and get more yeses, but it doesn't mean you're gonna always get a yes. My kids and I are playing this dice game recently. It's called High Risk. It's fun. It's a little. You got these little mountain climbers, they go up this mountain, and the way the game works is you. It's kind of like, you can let it ride. So you roll these dice, and if you, you know, move your guys a certain amount, you can take more risk to try to move them further. But if you let it ride too many times, your guy falls and goes back to the beginning, right? So it's a game about risk. But sometimes the boys will stop. You know, they roll their dice, and instead of rolling it again and going for broke, they say, okay, I'm not going to go anymore. I'm going to play it more conservatively and keep my guys on the mountain. But then they'll say, sometimes, but let's just. Let's just say if I roll, let's see what would have happened. Even though they're not letting it ride, I'm like, okay, it's kind of meaningless, but sure, what would have happened? And that's what we're telling ourselves. Like, oh, yeah, totally. They totally would have liked me. They totally would have said yes. If I'd done that, I should have done this. And it seems like that's actual learning occurring and maybe, but usually it's not. Usually it's this illusion of control that I. If I was just perfect, if I was just this way or that way, I would always get a yes. That's what we think. And it's totally unrealistic and totally absurd, but we stick. We're sticking to it. So you don't have control of what comes. The information that comes to you. Then what happens is it goes into your system and you take it and it's off to the races. And this is where all of the suffering or all of the freedom occurs. What do you do with that information? How do you respond to that? What do you make that mean about you, about your life, about your future? And there are a couple of patterns. I'VE seen that make rejection really, really scary. So we're afraid of it. And again, you might think you're afraid of the person saying no. That's just raw data. That's information that's neutral. Then what makes it so charged is, is your experience of it inside. And it might seem like it's just happening. Like, oh, I get rejected and I just feel all this stuff. You are actually doing something with it. And it's about becoming aware and conscious of what you're doing so you can change it. So what are you doing? Can you think of a moment maybe recently where someone said no to you? Maybe it's not recent because you've been avoiding getting no's for a long time, but my goal for you, and we had an episode about this not that long ago, just the beginning of the year, which is called yes, Lives in the Land of no is actually the very first episode of 2024. Go check it out. Came out on January 3rd. Yes lives in the Land of no. My vision for you for this year and for the rest of your life is to seek out no's as rapidly as possible. I learned that many years ago in business to actually set no goals. How many no's can I get this month? Not numbers, not sales, not this. How many no's can I get? Because yes lives in the land of no and I know that I'm getting a lot of no's, then those yeses are going to come and it helps me let go and become more outcome independent of needing every next person to say yes. Even though it's statistically totally impossible, our mind still wants that, partly because we're running such an unpleasant pattern. So what do you do? What did you do with that no? First things first. People tell me, I just feel bad. It's like this sinking feeling and you want. You can tune in for yourself. If you really imagine that recent no, you might start to feel it. Maybe it's fresh for you. What do you feel? It's like a pain. Usually it's like my heart hurts, it burns. Sometimes people feel anxious. Ah. Oh no. Something bad has happened. Something bad is going to happen. I'm not safe. I'm not okay. Sometimes people feel embarrassed or ashamed or humiliated. Oh no. Oh no. I'm not enough. Everyone's going to see that I'm not enough. I failed. I failed. That's not okay. I'm insufficient, I'm deficient. I'm not enough. And it seems like that's how it is, but that is your perception it's not even your perception. It's a perception that you are choosing to view the situation from. And if you had a different perspective, you would feel something entirely different. But first we have to see it for what it is. And then the way out is this fascinating aikido like flow where you don't try to fight it at all, you just go limp. You know, I met this guy who was an aikido master and I was asking about his experience and he'd studied it for like 15, 20 years. I was like, have you ever, did you ever get into a fight? Because that's, because I'm cool like that. That's what I'm going to ask the aikido master. Like, did you ever actually get. Did you ever use your aikido in the streets? He's like, actually, as a matter of fact, I did. I was like, well, tell me about it. So he was in. Was he also a cook? I feel like he was somewhere where he was cooking somewhere in like a, in like a commercial location. Not just his kitchen. This, I don't know. That part of the story is a little vague for me because I don't remember exactly the setting. But he's in some place, some, you know, commercial building, and these three guys break in to rob the place, like busting through the door and you know, burly looking dudes. And maybe they thought no one was there. I don't know what they were trying to steal. I don't remember all the details. This is a long time ago. I had this conversation. But in any case, they see him and then they, they go at him and one of them grabs him and is like. They're kind of. They tussle a little bit and then one of them gets him and has him in a headlock. Now, I'm not a fighter. I've never been really involved in any fighting. I don't train any fighting. And I just know that a headlock is bad. I know that much that when you're in headlock you're in trouble. And he's like. He started to feel himself getting choked out and he actually, interestingly enough, had done a training with his master and he's like a. Whatever. I don't know if aikido has black belts, but he's the equivalent of that, right? He's advanced. And not that long ago though, he'd done a training on how to get out of headlocks. Sometimes things are flowing just as they should without us even knowing it. Right. So I said, what did you Do. He said, the way you get out of a headlock is everything in you wants to struggle and fight and strain and claw and grab and poke. And you actually go totally limp, completely limp. And there's this reaction when you do that, that the other person actually somewhat changes what they're doing because they're confused. It happens really fast, kind of unconsciously. And then there's a moment where you can, like, slide out. And so he did, and then now he's free. Freaking aikido master, like, sweeps the legs of one of them, knocks one of them down, gets away and runs into, like, a back room where he can lock himself in there, and they can't get in through the door, and he's safe. And then he, you know, calls the police, and then they run off and, you know, survives. And that is what we want to do when that pattern of rejection is occurring. You want to go limp. You want to let yourself feel it burn, feel the fear, feel the sadness, feel the torment, feel the anything else. And just watch. Let it rip. And also just watch your mind go crazy trying to control the feelings. They might criticize you, like, oh, you should have done better. Just watch that. And then bring your attention back right into your breath and your body. And the mantra here is, resist nothing. Oh, you should have done better. And so they would have said yes, Surrendering to the feeling of fear, surrendering to the party that feels like it needs to control everything. Surrendering to that. They said no. And how do you do this? You just say yes. Yes to their no. No, I don't want. I want to say no to their no. Okay, well, I don't know if that's going to really change anything. They said no. And like aikido, right, it's aligning yourself with life, with what just happened and all the feelings. And sometimes people try this and they say, okay, if I say yes, and I accept it, then I won't feel any suffering anymore, right? Well, yeah, but that doesn't. It might happen instantly, but it might also be a practice, because underneath that frustration or that fear or that grasping, there's pain. I need something out there to be okay. I. And in that case, I put my hand on my heart. You can do this right now if you like to. I'll breathe right in the center of my chest and I'll remind myself, I don't need anything out there to be a certain way right now to feel okay in here. Because all of our fears are fears of feelings. It's not the person saying no to You. It's how you're gonna feel about them saying no to you. And how you feel about them saying no to you is. It's not actually that bad. It's that you have all this memory. Oh, my God. I remember when I was rejected when I was 9 and 12 and 16 and 18. It's the story you have about how unlovable you are, or you project into the future. Oh, my God. If that person said no, and that person said no. Oh. Ugh. Oh, my God. 85 people after this are gonna say no to me. I'm never gonna have what I want. And so now you're suffering from a memory or you're suffering from a fantasy, and neither of them is even real. This is a powerful tool I learned in a meditation practice where you have your hands on your lap and you're bringing your focus to your breath. In this case, you could bring yourself to your breath or just the sensations that are happening right now. And every time you catch yourself going into the past, oh, this happened, and, oh, I'm that. And I never was gay, and I've always been bad at this, you just tap your left index finger against your leg and say, paste memory. Actually, that was a memory. And then if you go into the future, oh, it's never going to change. Well, it's probably not going to work because we get real discouraged upon the face of a rejection, typically. Right? It's not like, well, I'm sure the next one's going to work out. We're like, no, God, all this, this trend continues. It's over. So we just tap, when we go to the future, tap the right index finger against the leg and say, fantasy, memory. Fantasy, man. You keep catching them and coming right back to here. Because here is where the freedom lies. Your awareness. You watching without needing to change or fix or solve and just be with and observe the sensations ripping through your body, your mind going crazy. What will happen after a little few minutes, maybe a little longer than you want, maybe not one minute, but maybe 15 minutes, give or take. Everything will calm down and you'll start to feel a little more okay. It's okay that they said no. I'm not saying you're skipping down the street, clicking your heels like, yay. But maybe it's, you know, it's okay. They said, no, it's okay that I feel about that. It's okay that I feel anxious. It's okay that I feel sad. And then when it's okay that you feel anxious or you feel sad, guess what. Happens to the anxiety or the sadness, it passes too, because you stop resisting it. And then the storm clears and you say, you know what? I'm going to go talk to somebody else. And if your mind locks into like, yeah, the next one's going to go bad. Just remember this. This is the most profound thing I've discovered for freeing myself from worry about the future. Three magical words. I don't know. I truly don't know. And anytime you think you know the future with certainty, that's not about the future. That's about you wanting a feeling of certainty because it gives you a sense of solidity, power, or ground, even though it's false. So let's talk about how to turn this into action. Time for action. Action, action. Your action step is going to be to actually practice this being with this. If you'd like some guided ability to do this, check out Go Go to not nice book.com notnicebook.com and then enter your your name and email there. And right when you do that, on the next page you go to, there'll be a bunch of resources. And one of them is called Peace Process Audio. And this will guide you for about 20 minutes through a process of surrendering to what is. And so that will really help guide you if you want some specific, you know, moment to moment instruction on how to do what I'm talking about here. But when you do, this rejection will no longer overwhelm you. And then it no longer starts. It stops scaring you so much. It's like, oh, okay, yeah, I can go do things. Maybe you're a little nervous. Sometimes it feels high stakes, maybe it's uncomfortable, but you know you can handle it. You know you can navigate through it. And that's where all our anxiety and fear really comes from. It's not the uncomfortable sensations. It's that. The feeling that I can't handle it, that something's wrong. And when you really get that, you can handle it and nothing's wrong. This is. This is the way yes lives in the land of no. Then there's freedom. And if this is hitting home for you, you're resonating with me. You've listened my podcast for any length of time or read my books, and you've never had an experience with me. I invite you to take the leap to join me for three days in this virtual event. Not nice Live. Because, man, it will shift things for you in new ways. Even if you've read the book, even if you think you get this stuff intellectually, I don't want you to get it intellectually and be able to pass a test. I want you to get it viscerally in your emotion and knowing it in your core and living it in your life. And that's what we get to do together when we immerse in that way. And part of that's the exercises you're going to do, part of that's the community that you're around seeing other people doing it. Part of it's the inspiration, the agitation and the energy you're going to get. Sometimes you're going to be excited listening to me, sometimes you're going to be pissed off listening to me because I'm highlighting patterns in your life that you know you need to change. And lastly, there's just something about being together live, even though it's virtual. It's a real life, real time experience, right? It's not recorded. We're there together and there's something about that that happens where there's a transmission of information, knowledge, energy that just clicks things to a higher level. So I would love to share that with you. If you want to check that out, you know where to do it. Drazeez.com thanks for being with me today. Until we speak again May have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. Talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Aziz. If you know anyone who can benefit from what you've just heard, please let them know and send them a link to shrinkforthshyguy.com for free blogs, ebooks and training videos related to overcoming shyness and increasing confidence, go to socialconfidencecenter.com.