Being rejected has always been a problem for humans.
Early on in our evolution, rejection would have been absolute. Being thrown out of the safety of the village and being left to fend for yourself.
But even though nowadays the consequences are rarely as drastic as that, the fear lives on.
It can manifest itself in all sorts of ways – relationships and your job for instance.
But one of the almost unspoken versions of this fear is being rejected by society.
Unless you’re an out-and-out freak, it’s unlikely that the whole of society will reject you.
But it could be someone declining the option to become your friend or de-friending you.
At that stage, our minds work overtime and all sorts of conspiracy theories come into play.
It doesn’t matter whether we think they’re valid or not.
Just that there’s the possibility of them being there.
Compounded by the fact that although we’ve got more “friends” than ever before, most of them are virtual friends.
The modern day equivalent of our childhood imaginary friend except it’s other people answering back on Facebook.
The first stage to overcoming your fear of being rejected by society is to do the personal equivalent of a fact check.
News channels do these regularly but there’s no reason we can’t do the same to ourselves.
Define your meaning of society:
Is it the chat room that’s gone quiet?
Is it someone you know doesn’t answer one of your posts or messages?
Have you gone into teenager mode where the whole world is automatically against you because someone, somewhere, said “no” once too often?
Because you can’t easily overcome a fear if it’s nebulous.
It’s much easier to tackle it if you can get it to take some kind of form in your mind.
So – without sending yourself into further distress – work out where your fear is lurking.
Chances are it will be in several places.
The adult equivalent of those monsters under the bed that vanished when your parents turned the bedroom light on.
And, weirdly, fear can vanish just as fast.
But it’s worth figuring out where it is.
Especially with something as all-encompassing as “society”
So decide what your fear represents – what society means to you.
Because that will help you get rid of the fear.
Some people find just the discovery process is enough.
Once they realise what the issue is, it’s actually so small and trivial that it just goes away of its own accord.
But if that doesn’t work, it’s time for stage two.
Incidentally, chances are your fear will be the composite of lots of smaller things. Each of which are contributing to it in some way.
That’s usual.
And it’s good news because it means you can select just one component of your fear and obliterate that (probably) tiny part.
In essence, you’re bullying your fear.
But in a socially acceptable way because the fear isn’t a real thing. It’s just a part of your mindset.
So go ahead and enjoy dissecting a small component of your fear and throwing it away.
Over the next few hours or days, pick on the next weakest parts.
You’ll be chipping away at your fear and weakening it.
Choosing the weakest parts of it isn’t cowardly.
It’s just common sense
Because they’re the easiest bits to get rid of.
Get rid of enough of them and (before you’ve got rid of the whole fear of being rejected by society) your fear will give up and stop bugging you.
Try it.
And take the opportunity to pierce any conspiracy theories that are nearby.
The unanswered message probably just means the other person was away from their screen or just plain missed the message. It’s easy to click that X, especially if you’ve got a bunch of messages.
Likewise, anyone with a busy feed may not even have noticed your reply. Facebook is getting ever-better at hiding things its software doesn’t think are important.
There’s almost certainly a plausible explanation for the things that your mind thought were you being rejected by anyone and everyone.
And if you still need help, download a hypnosis track and play it to yourself a few times.
It works well and helps get your mind back to normal fast.
Click this link, download the track, listen to it and you’ll be well on your way to overcoming your fear of being rejected by society.
But it could be someone declining the option to become your friend or de-friending you.
