Taking The Sting Out Of Rejection (Part 2)

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 going to 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. Welcome today's episode of the show. Today we're going to be talking about taking the sting out of rejection. Part 2. If you did not listen to part 1, then stop. Stop listening to this and go back and listen to part one. Because it is truly essential to really make what I'm going to share in this episode stick. Now, if you, you know, have already listened to both of them and are coming back as a refresher to listen to this one, because there's a guided process in it. Great, great, great, great. But if you have not listened to that first one ever, I would suggest that now, because you will get the most out of this, because in that one we helped you uncover what is it that you're doing when you get rejected? What do you do with that information? And that's the first place we want to start here, is seeing the no as information. And that note could be delivered directly or indirectly. They say no, or they just don't respond, or, and it can be delivered sweetly or. Or painfully harshly. Right? But regardless that no is information, they're saying, no, I'm not available. No, I'm not here to buy your thing or hire you or be your friend or date you. And that could be a very small no, like, no, I don't want to sign your petition or whatever. Or it could be a huge no, like, no, I don't want to spend my life with you, even though we've been dating for five years and now I'm breaking up with you. And obviously the. The impact of the bigger ones is going to be stronger and it's going to tend to activate these default patterns more. And just a quick reminder, the default patterns are that most people have when they get a no, the way they take that information in at first, until they've practiced or trained themselves to do something different, is, number one, the no means that there's something bad about me, something wrong with me. Number two, is because there's something wrong with me. I'm never gonna insert what you truly want here. Find love, have success, money, freedom, happiness. And then three really bad things are gonna happen. My life's gonna have a lot of pain and suffering in the future because of this. So, yeah, yikes. So no wonder we feel terrible. And so we have to catch that. So the first thing we're gonna do here is say, okay, no is information. It's neutral. And everything else is my own. What I'm doing with it, and you can call it playfully, I don't mean this in a dismissive way or to invalidate you, but let's say this, but I'd say to myself that all of that is my drama. I bring a lot of drama to the no, because. And this is an interesting definition of confidence that I've come up with a little while back and in the last six months is confidence is the ability to do the next thing without all the drama. And so if you wanted to get a new job and you're going to do a bunch of different interviews, you know, let's say you're. You're. You're qualified and you might need to build your. Your confidence in interviews or whatever it is you need to do to get. To get a job. But ultimately you probably need to go on, you know, enough interviews and interview well. So if you just do Hail Mary, I'm gonna do one interview. And if I get it, great. Otherwise I'm doomed forever. Well, well, that's the setup, right? So we know rationally if we remove all the drama, we say, well, maybe I gotta go on five interviews or 10 interviews. And eventually, I mean, I worked with a client who had went on 30 interviews. Of course we made some tweaks and he was able to, like, in the next five interviews, get a job because he was. It was something about the way he was showing up, where he was downplaying. He didn't have enough confidence in the interviews. But even if you show up with a lot of confidence, doesn't mean you get it. There's a lot of other factors going on. Decision makers, politics, whatever. They have to hire someone with a different kind of name than you got right. My brother is in. In the legal field and was. Is being considered for a judge. And there's all kinds of weird stuff going on there with people are, you know, politics between counties and, you know, all is someone. We have to hire a certain amount of people of different genders and races, and there's all kinds of things going on that are beyond your control, even if you're confident in there. So you need to show up to more. And of course, we all know in dating and relationships, are you going to meet the love of your life on the first person you talk to at a barbecue? Probably not. So you need to ask multiple people out. You need to approach people, connect, see if there's a spark, all that, right? So we know all these things involve a lot of repetition and same thing in anything in business that you want to create lots of rejections along the way so confidence will be able to do the next thing without all the drama. Talk to the person, connect, see if they want to do spend time with you. If they don't, okay, no, go to the next person. Okay, no, go to the next person. And we could just do that without all the drama. Eventually you would find someone, you'd find someone to connect with, to love. You'd find someone that would hire, you'd find someone to buy your stuff, whatever it is you want to do. Right? So the problem is not the nos, the problem is the drama that we bring to it. And that drama is the default rejection pattern. So what we want to do is we want to like a balloon, suck out, deflate all the drama and have the no become just a clean, clear, okay, all right. There a no. Let's go to the next thing. So how do we do that? Well, the reason why it doesn't feel neutral and it feels very dramatic and painful and awful is because we've stacked a lot of need onto the specific situation or person. So let's go. It's not just a person. There's a whole thing behind that. Let's illuminate that. So let's say I want you to hire me. Let's have you be my friend. Let's do that one. Let's say I want you to be my friend. I talk to you, I connect with you, we go out and there's some people that I've never met you before, and it's a friend of a friend kind of thing. And there you are, and we have this great conversation. And if you're into dating right now, think of it as dating. And I really enjoy that conversation. And then I'm like, oh man, I'd love to hang out with this person. And so I asked for contact information, email, phone number, whatever, and the person says, well, you know, either they do one of two things, right? They let's say they do the like, oh, yeah, totally, totally, here's my number. And they give you the number. And so you message them nothing. And then you're persistent, right? So you're like, well, I don't know if they're busy or whatever. You message them again, hey, we're going out to this thing. You want to join? Nothing. Not even like a, oh, hey, thanks for the invite. It was great meeting you. Not available. No, no, no, no. Just ghosted. Like, did I even get the right number? Did they give me a fake number? Ghosted. Okay, now enter the drama, right? Oh, I'm not enough. Oh, I'm a loser. Oh, this is gonna go on forever, right? But what's behind that and why we don't just have no drama is because I. It goes from. It would be great to spend time with this person and look, there might be some disappointment there. Disappointment is a natural feeling. There's nothing wrong with this disappointment. It's not a bad default rejection pattern. Like, what's wrong with you? You shouldn't be disappointed about anything. In life, we want things. There's a bright energy and an excitement and an enthusiasm and an opening of our heart to like, oh, can I get the present? Can I get what I want in my life? And then when we don't like you, you didn't get the present. The person didn't. You know, your. Your parents gave you nothing. Or you open the present up and it was socks, and you're like, I thought it was going to be the toy car. That deflation feeling is normal in life, but it's not that bad. Passes very quickly. These default rejection patterns don't pass. They last. They persist. So it's okay to let yourself, you know, just feel some disappointment, like, oh, man, really like that person. But the suffering, the drama comes from not that I want this or I would like this. It's I need this with a teeth gritting capital N. And you feel it. You feel it in your chest, in your stomach, in your core, in your solar plexus, in your jaw, in your head, in your gut. I need this. And there's an anxiety if you don't have it. There's a desperation, there's a fear. And what's behind it is not just this person. You might think, I need this person to be my friend or I need this person to date me. But what's behind that is I need that social connection. I need friends. I need a friend. I need someone to love me or for me to love someone, right? I need someone to be in a relationship with. So it's that that person is representative of this larger thing that I think is missing in my life and that I need. I need this place to hire me or I'm not going to have money to survive. And that intense need, you could call that an attachment, a grasping, creates a huge amount of charge, emotional charge. The more we need something to go a certain way, even if it's just a freaking game you're playing. You're playing a game of pickup basketball or a board game with a friend or a video game, and you need to not lose. You need to win. You need this point to go in. You need this. You're watching a football game and you. You need them to score because you're gambling money on it or whatever, right? There's a lot of drama, which is why people gamble, by the way, on football games. I mean, some people might gamble as a. As a investment strategy, but obviously that's doomed. But people gamble because it makes the game more dramatic, right? They want the drama there. And in this case, what I'm suggesting is you don't want the drama in your life. You actually want to deflate the drama. And so the way that we do that is we get to a place more of not, yes, I want this, but I don't need it. I don't need it to be okay. And I consider this the fundamental error in our perception of life, which is, I need something out there to be a certain way for me to feel okay. And I cannot feel okay otherwise. And the truth is that perpetuates. So that becomes real for you. I don't feel okay. I'm not okay. See, that doesn't happen. And we keep on not getting what we want, but when we shift and we're like, I'm okay now. I'm okay either way, then more people can say yes, because we're not having all this turbulence inside all this drama, which is sending out a very mixed message to people around us. It's also this strange kind of control thing that we're doing, right? Because I need something from you now I'm going to control you to get what I need. And humans have a. It's called psychic leaning. When someone's needing something from you, you feel it and you want to get away. It's an aversion response, probably a healthy one, too, because we don't want to be manipulated. We don't want to be a vehicle for someone else to just get what they need and extract it from us. Now, I'm not saying there's anything wrong with wanting connection, with having needs, with loving I mean, yes, we do in a sense need other humans. I'm not saying you shouldn't need things. I'm saying this intensity that we put of I need this now to feel okay or I'm going to die is not real. It's an illusion. So, yes, over time. Do you need relationships in your life? I would say yeah. I mean, all the research points towards that. If you're totally isolated as a human, you suffer greatly. So, yes, you do. You know, do you need food to survive? Sure, yes, Right. Unless you're a Breatharian. But I don't think that's even a real thing. I have not taken the time on the Internet to actually search if there's any scientific evidence of it. I doubt, I doubt it though. But maybe, you know, if you're a Breatharian, you got some insights, send me an email. But we need these things. But the sense of like, I need to eat a meal now or I'm going to die, that's probably not true. You could probably skip dinner. I mean, you could probably do a fast and not eat for like seven days, depending on how much body fat you got on, you'd be fine. Right. So it'd be very uncomfortable, but you could do it. So that's an illusion that we need this. And we especially don't need the connection, the yes. From this one person or else. So we want to deflate the drama by letting go of the need. Then we want to let ourselves just be with. Become more okay with whatever that turbulence is that's stirred up without needing to feed it. And I remembered just as I was recording this that I want to actually guide you through a quick process of this. So this is best experienced if you can tune into a rejection. Right. Or tune into an area where you feel like, you know, you're. You are not. You need something and you're not getting it because it could work the same. But maybe you had a no recently. Maybe someone didn't get back to you, find something to focus on that makes this so much more powerful. Because if you just kind of listen in and there's nothing you're thinking about, it's like, well, I don't know, this is relaxing, I guess, but can see if you can really find something. You might even need to pause this to do it. Okay. All right. So I'm going to assume that you have something you could focus on. A place or maybe even a place you're just afraid of getting rejected and you haven't even gotten rejected here yet. That works too. Okay. So now I want you to focus on that person that said no to you, or the person you imagine is going to say no to you, And bring that to your awareness. That person, that situation, whatever just happened, even if it was a little while back. And then if you can close your eyes as you do this, do so if you're driving or in the gym or whatever, just keep your eyes open and try to practice along as you go. What I want you to do is start by bringing your attention to your breath and your body. Because this is not the kind of thing we quickly think our way out of. It's something you, like, feel your way through. So take a full breath in, and as you let that out, bring more attention down out of your mind into your body. And even into the space around your body, too. So not just straight in, but also around, in front of your body, behind your body, all around you, like three feet out, all the way to your skin and inside your skin. And somewhere you will feel. Most likely, for me, it's often in my solar plexus, in my chest somewhere. There's like a tightness, there's a constriction, there's a squeezing. This is where the signal of I need something different to be okay is being experienced. What I want you to do is take your hand and just put it right on whatever spot is most tight. Squeezing, unsettled, uncomfortable, painful in your body right now. And breathe right into your. Where your hand is, and just let everything go soft for a second. Let your face go soft, your jaw, your belly. Soften your belly with the next breath. And then find the part inside of you that. That tightness that's almost screaming out like, I need something. I need something to be okay. I need this. I need them to say yes, I need. I need. Ah, right. Bring your attention right to that part that feels desperate. And embrace it with your own breath, your own attention. Just submerse it in love. You're basically holding it. And I know it's not, maybe not a physical being that you can hold, but you are in the same way that you might hold a friend who's struggling. They broke up, right? You're right there with them. Like, yeah, I see that. I see that. You. You feel like you need this. I need it, yeah. Oh, it's like deep empathy. Now. Deep empathy is different than total agreement. Like, I need this. I can't handle it. You don't say, like, yeah, you're right. You can't handle it. We're gonna die. You don't get swept away by the drama. You're with it. Like, I know, I see you, I'm here with you. And there's a profound thing that happens. This is interpersonally where when we are seen and held in our challenge, there can be a relief of, oh, I'm okay. I am okay right now. And that's the message to be conveying right now. Not with a heady trying to talk yourself out of it, but with the deep heart based, somatic, body based, loving, compassionate. But basically the message you're saying is like, look, we are okay. And then you can just try gently repeating this to yourself, I know it feels like I need. And then just say what it feels like you need. So repeat that. If I know it feels like it feels like I need. I need, you know, this person to have said yes. I need this person to like me. I need this job. I need this. I know. And just say whatever it is. And the deeper truth is, I'm okay either way. And then let that settle in your body and breathe for a moment. That's right. And just gently repeat that again. I know it seems like I need whatever you need. And the deeper truth is I'll be okay either way. I'm good either way. And you are. That's the deeper truth. And good in the sense of like, I can feel good, I'm okay. But also good is in the sense of the antidote to shame. You're not bad, you're not wrong. Such a distorted, inhuman illusion that somehow if you were good, you'd never get a no. Or that your goodness can even be measured in the yeses and no's you get. What if your goodness is beyond that? What if your goodness is the same worthiness to be here on this planet, just like the trees outside your window? Is one tree good and one tree bad? It's kind of almost humorous. This tree over here, this guy's a bad seed. He's a loser tree. All the other trees ganging up on him, right? Absurd. It hasn't exist. Right? To exist deserves to be here. Why? Because it's here. Here I am growing. I'm not just talking about trees, talking about you and me, all of us. So I'm going to invite you to stay in this. And that's going to be. This is where you basically are doing. Your action step for today's episode is to be with this and just stay with it as the episode ends as long as you'd like. You can go back through and listen to the guided part again as you need to to keep finding your way to a sense of safety and peace and okayness. And feelings might arise. You don't need to rush them. Maybe there's a deep longing. Maybe there's a hurt. There's a fear. Just meet them all. Keep practicing and this too is allowed. And keep staying out of your mind. Stay in your body and be with the sensations. And each time you're with something uncomfortable, you're sending this powerful message of I am okay. I'm okay. With whatever feelings arise, I'm okay. That's truly you're not going to be okay just because that person said yes. Because now they could say no tomorrow. And you're not okay, right? The okayness is more stable than that. It's right here. It's always here. It's just a different frequency that you get to tap into right now with this practice. And you get to feel it. Beautiful. Thanks for being with me today. Until we speak again, may I have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks for listening to Shrink for the shy guy with Dr. Azeez. 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.