Tolerate Rejection & Disapproval (A Life Of Confidence Skill 2/4)

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. Hey, welcome to today's episode of the show. Today we're going to be diving more into the skills for a life of confidence. And this is going to be building on what you learned in the last episode. If you have not listened to that episode, you may want to consider pausing this one and going back one episode to the previous episode, which is all about one of the core skills for confidence, which is tolerating failure. And today we're going to build on that and talk about tolerating rejection and disapproval. You're going to learn about how that's different than sort of general failure and even more importantly, how to handle it emotionally. Because at the end of the day, that's what matters most is most of us maybe can intellectually say, like, yeah, it's okay if people don't like me, but inside we're like, oh my God, I'm dying. So we're going to cover that today and you're going to leave here feeling more resilient, more free, because if you can tolerate disapproval and rejection, man, you can really become so much more liberated. And also I'll be mentioning something that you may want to be taking part of, which is a program, a newer program that I've created. It's a 90 day immersion program called Total Social Freedom, which is focused on you being the most free, bold version of you. In fact, what I call the headwind, which is that fear of disapproval or rejection. That course is entirely designed to help you be like, free of that in the biggest way possible, more than you've ever experienced. And the 90 day immersion part of it's going to get you into more action in three months than you've done in the last three years. That's my intention. So if you're interested in that, go to shrinkforthshyguy.com shrinkforthshyguy.com and under this episode, there'll be a link to apply or learn More about the program, total social freedom. And if you'd like to apply to to be a part of that, then you can follow that through. So let's talk about tolerating disapproval and rejection and why this is so important. So we were talking about failure in the last episode and how we must be willing to fail. Because if you take an action and you get an outcome, the outcome is going to be either what you want, which you call success, or what you don't want, which you call failure. Now, certain kinds of actions that happen are involve other people. So a failure. I'm trying to swing the golf club and I don't hit the ball, that's a failure. But that doesn't really involve other people, although other people might be watching you, in which case it falls into this category. But then a lot of the actions we take are going to be, I want to ask that person out, or I want to spend time with that person as a friend, or I want to impress that work colleague, or I want to get that new contact for my business, or I want to make that sale, or I want to connect with that group before the meeting and fit in or whatever it is. We want to do stuff with other people and there's a certain kind of failure that we really don't like. An outcome that we don't want, that we really don't like, which is that someone doesn't like us, someone doesn't want to do what we want to do with them. So in that case, if I want to hang out with these people before the meeting, they don't want to hang out with me, or they don't include me, or I want to go out with this person, they don't want to go out with me. I want people to laugh at my joke, they don't laugh at my joke. So it could be a full scale rejection, like get away from me, or smaller, like they're less friendly or they take digs at me or other things like that. Right. So it's kind of a spectrum there. And behind that is like, oh, they don't like me. Or even worse, they're upset with me, they angry at me, they hate me. Those are sort of the extreme end of the spectrum that we confined, maybe almost intolerable. And yet what I'm saying in this episode is if you want to have a life of confidence where you want to be fully, freely, boldly, authentically yourself, you want to feel alive, you want to feel uncaged, you want to be able to create the life that you Want on your terms. I think that's the game that we're all going for here. That's what we're playing, right? That's why you're here. That's why you listen to this show. In order to do that, you have to be willing and able to tolerate disapproval, rejection, people disliking you. So the reason I'm just. This might sound obvious to you, but most of us kind of unconsciously are going through the day with kind of this bargain that we're trying to make with life, which is if I play by all the rules, if I'm nice, if I'm how I'm supposed to be or how I think other people want me to be, then no one will dislike me. Or that's kind of the pleaser's approach. You could also use the perfectionist approach. Well, if I'm just like really, really, really am, that no one could judge me, no one could dislike me. So everything I do has to be really, really amazing. My clothes have to be perfect. This project has to be perfect. My body has to be perfect. My articulation has to be perfect. My eye contact, my hair has to be perfect. My track record has to be perfect. I don't know why I'm so anxious. And behind both of those, whether it's the pleaser or the perfectionist, there's this attempt to get everyone to like me because I'm going to be so great or so pleasing. I mean, how could you dislike me? If I give you everything that you want and smile and nod and laugh at your jokes and I'm just very accommodating, how could you possibly dislike me? And those approaches have. They might give you a little bit of an illusion that they're working because if you are really pleasing to somebody and you never say no to them, maybe they don't get upset with you, but it's not creating a really lasting, healthy dynamic and it's burning you up inside. And ultimately you probably will have some dysfunction that results. Maybe you withdraw, maybe you blow up, maybe you become pouty and sullen. Maybe you just resent them a ton in your head and give yourself stomach aches because you're so angry without knowing it. I mean, something, something awry is going to go, so that's not going to work. And pleasing everybody's not going to work. Avoiding all contact so you don't have to have anyone dislike you. That's not going to work. That's not going to get you the love life that you want, the career Life that you want, the relationships that you want. And a lot of people that I work with on some level, that's the strategy they've been running. And as soon as they start to work with me and we break it down, they're like, oh yeah, that's not going to work. I'm like, I know it's not going to work. That's what we're here to do is to change that. But until we see it, it kind of just goes under the radar. We have some BS story on top, like, well, I haven't been dating because I'm too busy and it's been three years and I'm just too busy. And yet I ultimately in telling you I have a goal to connect and have a great relationship, maybe have a family, but I haven't done anything about it because I'm too busy at work. It's a BS story. What's underneath is I'm afraid. I'm afraid of that dislike, I'm afraid of that disapproval, I'm afraid of that rejection. So I don't take the action. So I don't have the confidence and I don't get the results. You see how this is all coming together here. So we must develop that skill, that ability. So how do we do that? Well, there's kind of some perspectives that we can hold that will help us and then there's like just an emotional resilience that we can build up. So let's go with some of those perspectives. You know, one is I talk about this in my book not nice, I'm not for everybody. This one is super powerful and super valuable if you just remind yourself of that. So when someone is upset with you, you can just pause and take a breath and remember, I'm not for everybody. Now this might be the case if someone doesn't like you, someone doesn't want to be your friend, someone doesn't want to date you, like that kind of thing, right? If your spouse is currently upset with you because you didn't follow through on something, you can't be like, listen baby, I'm not for everybody, alright? That's not the right use case for this. It's gotta be when someone, it's just, you know, I get someone doesn't like me online, which does happen. Shockingly. I know, who knew? This guy sucks or whatever. It's like, hey, I'm not for everybody. And there's people that really like what I'm doing and putting out there. So hey, I'm gonna talk to them because those are the ones that I'm trying to reach. I'm not trying to get all the people that don't like me to like me. I'm trying to reach the people that could benefit from what I got. And that should be the same for you, right? You don't need everyone to want to date you. You just want your people. That's your interest. You don't need everyone to be your friend. You don't need everyone to hire you. You don't need everyone to buy from you. You really don't. Now, we think that we do need it on some level. There's like an emotional grasping, right? So I would make it conscious to say, I want X. I don't need X. I do that all the time with myself. This really helps with getting fixated and grasping, which is actually a lot of our pain and our emotional pain around the rejection and the disapproval. It's not that that person's dislike of you is so horrendously bad. It's very rare that we're in situations where someone is coming at us being like, you son of a bitch, so angry. I mean, that might happen, but when it does, it's almost so startling that it's almost like a whole different experience. And you're like, whoa, I kind of kicked into a new way of being because that was so out of the ordinary. But generally it's just our own minds. We're afraid. And that person maybe just doesn't respond to us or says, hey, I'm upset and something. And then we fill in the gaps like, oh my gosh, oh, they hate me. Oh, I'm so terrible. And that's what we want to catch and to see through and to see, you know, what all this pain and suffering I'm having is not just that this impact is so intense in my life, it's because I am attached. I'm grasping. There's a part of me that's clenched around needing everybody to like me. And I think it's really helpful just to narrate out loud. I want this person to like me, but I don't need this person to like me. A little while back, I was in a dynamic with some situation in business where I needed a response from somebody and they weren't getting back to me and they were kind of doing the run around and it was really frustrating and I felt like, ah, I'm so angry. Like, they're not. I need help on this, and they're not doing it and they're kind of leaving me out to dry. Here. And I was really angry. And then I had a moment of just pausing and saying, okay, I want this person to do this thing for me in the business, like we talked about, but I don't need that. Do you see the difference? Like, if this person flakes and they don't follow through, I'm gonna find another way. I don't need anything from this one person. I want it. Hell, yeah, I want it, but I don't need it. And to me, that brings me back to my full, resourceful self, which is like, hey, if it's not, it's about. There's many paths to get to where I want to get to here. So I'm going to find a new path. I don't need anything from this person. That's a very powerful place to come from. So that's another perspective that can really help you. So let's talk about some of the emotional capacity, too. And this one I've touched on in other episodes. But basically, one of the most powerful things we can do with any emotion is, is to build our capacity to mindfully be with it without needing to run away, squirm, attack it, fix it, or any other sort of thrashing, dropping, resistance, and allowing. Sometimes they call this surrendering or allowing or acceptance. There's many different words, but they're all pointing towards the same thing. So instead of talking about this one, let's demo this one. Is there anyone in your life that if they were to be upset with you temporarily, you'd be very uncomfortable or moderately uncomfortable? You might even be able to think back to a time where this happened. You know, maybe there was a rejection happening. Or, you know, it could have been a total rejection, like, I don't want to be with you anymore. I don't want to date you, or something. Or it could have been like a temporary upset in a friendship or in a business relationship or something like that. Or maybe even a future thing, like, oh, my gosh, if this person got upset with me in the future, I'd be so nervous. Whatever it is, whatever comes to mind, just pick a person who could be upset with you or reject you or disapprove of you, and pull up, imagine that, and imagine that person and imagine them being upset with you or remember it or whatever it is, and see if it can start to trigger some of that discomfort. Right now? Yes, right now. We're steering into an impromptu action step here in this episode. Okay. Sometimes when I do this with people just imagining it, it starts to trigger some of those feelings and that's my point here. That's what I would like. Because then you can practice how to be with those. And the way to be with them is truly that to be with them, to allow them. So notice the feeling as it arises and observe it. Observe it from, not like your brain thinking about it, but from your experience of it. You know, in acceptance and commitment therapy, they call this, you know, getting out of your head and getting into your life. So maybe you feel it in your body. Take a full breath in right now and almost breathe into your whole core, your stomach, your chest, and let yourself feel more, more in your body, feel the sensation of that discomfort and then notice often there'll be some tension or resisting or fighting. So that comes in the form of tightening our stomach, tightening our jaw, tensing our back. Just soften, soften your belly, soften your jaw, soften your spine and your face. Just allow the sensation of the feeling, allow the disapproval to be there. Like, yeah, someone doesn't like me or is upset with me. Yeah, I feel this nervous, quivery feeling inside. And you don't have to narrate that all you could, but it's more just you're observing it and you're allowing it. And of course our mind is like, oh, God, how long is this gonna last? It's been 30 seconds. Can I get rid of this thing now? And that's the million dollar breakthrough for this skill. When you really are like, no, this can be here and it will pass. And it's powerful and it's life changing. In fact, if you want to, I do a. It's called a peace process. It's a guided meditation around this. So it's about 20 minutes. And you can get it if you go to notnicebook.com notnicebook.com and scroll down to the bottom. There's an audio version of that where you can have me guide you longer on that, but that's the gist of it. And if you practice that consistently in your life, you can tolerate any feeling and start to find your way to more and more peace, more and more freedom, faster and faster. So this is what we need to develop. This is what we need to do in order to be able to tolerate that discomfort and that disapproval. So we have some perspectives you can use, we have some emotional tools you can use. And of course, you can use this same approach when it comes to failure as well. Right. And what I found is if you practice this and you get more able to be with it, you're not trying to Figure it out or fix it. All of a sudden, a better perspective will emerge for you, a better way to look at it, and that's a great thing. As you're settling, as you're feeling the feelings, you can ask yourself, what am I believing right now? Or how am I seeing this right now? What we're trying to get at is what perspective am I looking at this thing from? And usually when there's a lot of suffering, there's a lot of stories in there, right? Like, oh, my God, this person doesn't like me. No one ever likes me. I'm never gonna find friends. I'm gonna be alone forever. I can't handle the lonely feeling. Oh, my God, it's so bad. I'm gonna be a lonely old man or a lonely old woman. And we're just kind of off to the races and we're feeling all that as if it's true, but it's not. It's just a story in our head. And so we want to say, what perspective? What am I believing right now, huh? Believing I'll be alone forever? Wow. Yeah, that is painful. That's a painful story. And that's something I'll say all the time. I'll say it to myself. I'll say it to clients when they share something. As I'll say, oh, wow, that's a painful story. And it's true. And it's a form of empathy. And it's also highlighting that it's not the reality, it's a creation. But when we believe that creation, it's very painful. So that's what we want to catch in ourselves. And you can start to change that story. Is there a different perspective? Is there a different way to see this? What else could I. What's another perspective I might be able to look at this from? And that starts to soften and create new ways of being and more, perhaps a perspective that's more tolerant, more loving, more patient, more compassionate, more encouraging. What perspective would you have if it was a kid or a friend or a sibling that you cared about? Usually it's more compassionate than we treat ourselves. So tons of great tools here. Again, if you want to go further, go to shrinkforthshyguy.com and, oh, actually, if you want to go further with the peace process, go to notnicebook.com and if you want to go further with that program I mentioned earlier called Total Social Freedom, I highly recommend that you can go to shrinkforthshyguy.com, and underneath this episode, there is A link that you can click on, you can learn all about the program, how it works, and then set up a time if you want to apply and see if it's gonna be a good fit for you. But that program is really powerful. We're seeing some great results with it. I'm very excited about it. And if this episode appeals to you, this show appeals to you, I think you would really love that and going further with this. So speaking of going further, we're not going to go anywhere until we complete with your action step. Time for action. Action, action. I'd say your action step would be to take what we just did in this episode and set aside some time to do it a little bit longer. You know, we did it for about five minutes, so maybe set aside 10 minutes and maybe it'll naturally occur for you today. You know, it depends on how much you're bumping into your edge there or how much you're experiencing a fear of disapproval or, or actual disapproval. But set aside some time and just practice. And you want to go along with that peace process audio and not nicebook.com, that's fine. You just want to do it. Just kind of. You have a sense of it already. Just be mindful that sometimes if we're not used to doing it, we can just get really stuck in our heads and we're like, okay, I'm going to sit here and you're resisting the feeling and when's it going to be over? And story to story to story and commentary and fighting with the person in your head and then hating yourself. If that's happening, then follow along with the audio because you might need to build up some capacity or muscle there skill there with this so you can really be with your feelings in a more open and spacious way, which is extremely liberating. Okay, fantastic. Thanks for being with me today. A true pleasure. You are awesome. I love and appreciate you. Thank you for being with me. And until we speak again, may you have the courage to be who you are and to know on a deep level that you're awesome.

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