Young woman feeling judged by peers

Effects Of The Fear Of Rejection

#6 IN MY CHAPTER-BY-CHAPTER JOURNEY THROUGH ROBERT MCGEE’S BEST-SELLING BOOK, THE SEARCH FOR SIGNIFICANCE.

“For am I now seeking the favor or man, or of God? Or am I striving to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.”

Galatians 1:10

According to this scripture we can ultimately seek either the approval of men or the approval of God as the basis of our self-worth. We cannot seek both. God wants to be the Lord of our lives, and He is unwilling to share that rightful lordship with anyone else. Therefore, the only way we can overcome the fear of rejection is to value the constant approval of God over the conditional approval of other people.

Our God-given instinct to survive compels us to avoid pain. Knowing that rejection and disapproval bring pain, we will continue our attempts to win the esteem of others whenever possible. The good news is that we are fully pleasing to God. We need not be devestated when others respond to us in a negative way.

As we grow in our relationship with God, the Holy Spirit will continue teaching us how to apply the liberating truth to different aspects of our lives at an increasingly deeper level. With spiritual maturity, we will more often be able to identify these areas and choose to find our significance in God’s unconditional love and complete acceptance of us. Changes in our value system take honesty, objectivity, and prolonged persistent application of God’s word.

Before we examine God’s solution to our fear of rejection, we must first identify and understand how this fear is manifested in our lives.

  • Anger, resentment, and hostility. Anger us usually our most common response to rejection. Some of us are not honest about our anger. We may deny its existence, suppress it, nd assume that it will go away. Because we value the opinions of others so much, when they do not think of us as they “should,” it hurts. And because it hurts, we get angry, become resentful, and may ev en become bitter.
  • Being easily manipulated. Those who believe their self-worth is based on the approval of others are likely to do virtually anything to please people. They truly believe that they will be well liked if they agree to every request of those whoa re,consciously or not, manipulating them. Many of those people despise those who are being manipulated and resent wha tthey feel they have to do to earn their approval.
  • Codependence. In families affected by dependency on alcohol, drugs, work, or any other compulsions, family members often develop behavioral patterns to rescue the dependent person from the consequences of his or her behavior. This compulsive rescuing, called codependency, allows teh dependent person to continue acting destructively and keeps him or her in need of being habitually rescued and enabled so that the pattern continues.
  • Avoidance of people. One of the most common ways people react to their fear of rejection is to avoid others, thereby avoiding the risk of rejection. Most people try to avoid the risk or rejection by having only superficial relationships. They may interact with others, and they may be considered socially adept because they know how to make friends easily. But their friends never really know them because they hide behind a wall of words, smiles, and activities. These people are usually quite lonely in the midst of all their relationships and activities because they feel that no one really understands them.
  • Control. In an effort to avoid being hurt, some people constantly try to maintain control of others and dominate situations they face. They have become skilled in exercising control by dispensing approval or disapproval, unwilling to let others be themselves and make their own decisions without their consent. Because such people are actually very insecure, lack of control is an unacceptable threat to them.
  • Depression. Depression is the result of a deep sense ofloss or repressed, pent-up anger. When anger is not handled properly, the body and mind respond to its intense pressure, and the emotions and sense of purpose become dulled.
  • Repeating of negative messages. One of the most interesting facets of our behavior is that we often repeat the very messages that hurt us the most. We do this even after the person who delivered the message the first time is no longer there — perhaps even dead. We continue to repeat to ourselves the most hurtful messages we have heard. How much of the pain we experience related to our repeating those hurtful, negative messages?
  • Hypersensitivity to the opinions of others. Many times people actually project their own negative feelings about themselves on others around them. In this way, wherever they go
  • Lack of feeling. Some people are so fearful of their own emotions that they don’t allow themselves to be sensitive to the emotions of others. They simply approach life as though people are just actors in a play, fulfilling a role to the best of our ability.

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