Which Do You Fear More – Rejection or Suffering?
It’s not the rejection you fear so much as the suffering that’ll come with it.
Nobody likes to suffer.
Suffering – mentally, emotionally, physically, or spiritually – is unpleasant. The pain that comes with suffering – tangible or not – is unpleasant, distressing, uncomfortable, and just plain awful.
But do you know what’s worse than suffering? Often – the fear over how and what it’ll be.
Frequently, we don’t recognize suffering as our fear. It gets cloaked in another, more recognizable, seemingly more tangible form – like rejection.
Fear of rejection is distressing in and of itself. But why do we fear rejection? What’s behind it?
The reality is that it’s not being rejected we fear. It’s what else will come alongside it, as well as the fear of suffering due to it.
Let’s break it down for more clarity.
What does rejection look like
What, precisely, does rejection look like?
That depends on the what and how of the rejection. It can be personal, professional, coincidental, and impersonal.
Personal rejection tends to include getting told “no” when you ask someone out, a friend or loved one shooting down an idea or project you present, being snubbed or left out by a friend or loved one, and the like. It tugs at your head, heart, and soul and can impact you mentally, emotionally, spiritually, and physically.
Professional rejection generally includes not getting a job you applied for, being overlooked or otherwise not getting a promotion, having a plan or project denied funding or backing, and the like. Professional rejection can be akin to personal but tends to tug more at your head and soul than your heart.
Coincidental rejection includes missing a bus, failing to get tickets because they sold out, being picked last for a team, and the like. It still hurts, annoys, and is unpleasant – but because it’s coincidental, its toll is mostly mental and possibly spiritual.
Impersonal rejection is similar to coincidental, but it still directly impacts like personal and professional rejection. This includes a friend or loved one taking someone other than you on a trip or to a gathering, witnessing an equal get an accolade you feel you also deserve, placing second or third in a competition, and the like. Not personal, but more impactful than coincidental rejection feels in the head, heart, and soul.
Everyone is going to experience one or more of these forms of rejection at some point. And because that’s true, it’s not so terrible in the grand scheme of things.
But that’s where suffering comes in.
Fear of suffering is often the real fear
Not to put too fine a point on it – but it’s suffering we tend to be most afraid of.
Yet that’s not the name we give our fears. Instead, we fear intimacy, heights, arachnids, success, failure, abandonment, rejection, and lots of other tangibles and intangibles.
But really, it’s not those things we fear. It’s the suffering that could occur because of them.
- Intimacy? You fear a broken heart and the suffering that comes with it.
- Heights? The fear is falling from them and how much suffering being broken in that fall will amount to.
- Arachnids? Suffering that they might cause you in a myriad of ways.
- Success and failure? The suffering that will occur due to the impression you make on people and their reactions to you.
- Abandonment? The fear of being all alone with nobody to turn to.
- Rejection? The fear you’ll suffer because you lost out, missed out, or otherwise have been refused
No matter the name we give it above, it always returns to suffering. As I wrote at the start – nobody likes to suffer.
In the words of Paulo Coelho from his brilliant book, The Alchemist,
“Tell your heart that the fear of suffering is worse than the suffering itself. And that no heart has ever suffered when it goes in search of its dreams.”
The truth of suffering
All of us suffer from time to time
Everybody gets hurt – physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. EVERYBODY. Sometimes the hurt is almost completely unbearable. Other times, it’s just annoying and irritating. And sometimes, it spurs us to action.
If you are still alive, then you have overcome suffering. Yes, I recognize some of you are always suffering – chronic pain and illness, as well as mental illness, can be sources of constant suffering. And while you have bad days where it’s almost unbearable – you’re still here. And I commend you for that.
For everyone else, suffering tends to be incredibly variable. And it’s different for everyone.
Take the death of a loved one, for example. Some people hardly grieve at all, while others are nearly crushed by their grief. Some people grieve, then move on – largely unchanged, while others totally shift their lives as a result of their grief.
Grief is a form of suffering, and its impact differs on many different levels. But it is suffering, whatever degree and form it takes.
Frequently, any fear we experience is over how much suffering will occur if the negative we’re afraid of comes to pass. We fear the worst possible level of pain, whether it’s physical, mental, emotional, spiritual, or some combination therein.
We like to be comfortable. I know that I do. Thus, when we’re in danger of losing comfort, how bad that loss could be manifests as a fear of the suffering we’ll experience, and how uncomfortable it’ll make us feel.
I don’t know about you – but most of the time, the suffering I’ve experienced wasn’t half as bad as I feared it would be. That’s not to say I didn’t suffer – just that the fear of it was far less rational and painful than it really was.
What suffering will rejection cause?
When all is said and done – it’s suffering after the rejection occurs that we’re most afraid of.
I’ve just taken a really big and scary step in my writing career. I’m asking for help in a way that induces a little guilt, and some discomfort – but after a lengthy analysis, still feels right to do.
That written, I am opening myself to potential rejection.
I’m afraid that asking for monetary help – specifically for my art, not a life-or-death matter – will turn people off and cause them to reject me.
What happens if they do? How much am I likely to suffer from such rejection?
Said rejection could be classified as personal, professional, coincidental, or impersonal. Wide range, right?
When all is said and done – it’ll make me feel sad, possibly annoyed and mildly angry, and a little bad about myself if they reject this, and me. But will I suffer from that rejection? Yes, I might be a bit heartsick, and yes, not raising the funds means I must seek another way. And yes, this could potentially cause a friend to drop me.
What happens if any of these come to pass? In truth, nothing devastating or earth-shattering. A little suckage, some disappointment, but then – life goes on.
The rejection and suffering it might cause would be unpleasant – but I’ll still be here. And thus, still capable of finding, choosing, and/or creating a new path.
Thus, it’s not the rejection I fear so much as the suffering that’ll come with it. And whether the fear is success, failure, clowns, or anything else you can think of to fear – suffering is the real culprit, and what we’re truly afraid of experiencing.
What can we do about this?
Fear is a natural reaction. And you will experience fear in your life because that’s part of life. Nobody escapes it.
However – when you experience fear, you get a choice. Allow it to dominate your logic and reason (even if it’s a logical fear) – or – choose to work with, through, and/or around it.
How? By practicing mindfulness.
Mindfulness, in this instance, is conscious awareness of your thoughts, feelings, actions, and intentions – in the present. By being mindful here and now, you gain control over your head, heart, and soul.
Thus, when you fear something like rejection – and more genuinely the suffering that could come with it – you can mindfully seek rationality, reason, and logic to recognize the suffering likely won’t be as bad as you’re fearing it will be.
Mindfulness gives you control of your life experience because it puts you behind the wheel of your head, heart, and soul. And since nobody but you is in there – shouldn’t you be the one driving?
Lastly – you ARE worthy and deserving of not suffering and being overwhelmed by anything you fear. Mindfulness is the medium with which you get control of this truth. You are deserving and worthy of overcoming any rejection and subsequent suffering you experience.
What suffering do you fear and how can you use reason and logic to overcome that?
This is the five-hundred and sixty-fourth exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – using mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this journey as part of my desire to make a difference in this world and empower as many people as I can with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to re-post and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including expanded ideas, is available here. Check out Amazon for my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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