Facing Rejection: How Intentional Exposure Can Help You Reclaim Confidence
Sometimes, the fear of rejection feels like an uninvited shadow—replaying that one moment you spoke up, ruminating over what you should have said, or bracing for the worst-case outcome of an email you just sent. When Verywell Mind recently featured me in an article on “rejection therapy,” what resonated most was how many of us are craving ways to build resilience—especially in relationships and work—without always needing a clinical diagnosis to get support.
The piece touched on a trend that’s gone viral online: people intentionally seeking out rejection to desensitize themselves to it. And while some of the videos might make it seem like a quirky self-help dare, there’s actually something real underneath it: this is a form of exposure therapy. And when done intentionally, it can genuinely help reduce social anxiety, rebuild confidence, and shift how your nervous system interprets threat.
What the Article Gets Right
What I appreciated in the article is how it gives credit to the deeper psychological roots of rejection therapy. This isn’t just a TikTok challenge—it’s rooted in the same principles we use clinically when working with anxiety: exposing yourself, gently and repeatedly, to situations you’d normally avoid.
Because that’s the thing about social anxiety—it doesn’t usually disappear. Instead, we learn how to relate to it differently. The goal isn’t fearlessness. It’s building the capacity to feel afraid and move forward anyway.
What Gets Missed in the Viral Versions
Here’s where the popular take often veers off course: in therapy, exposure is gradual and reflective. It’s not about marching into your boss’s office to ask for a raise just to get rejected. It’s about starting small—asking a stranger for the time, making eye contact, joining a conversation—and processing afterward what happened versus what you feared would happen.
Without that reflection piece, these “daily rejection dares” risk becoming performative at best, and retraumatizing at worst. There’s no shame in starting with something manageable. In fact, that’s where real change begins.
How This Shows Up in the Therapy Room
In sessions, I often see clients who feel paralyzed by the fear of rejection. It’s not just mental—it’s deeply physical. A pounding heart, tight chest, urge to flee. That’s the nervous system doing its job—trying to protect us from what it perceives as danger. But rejection isn’t life-threatening. It’s uncomfortable, yes—but survivable.
When we work on social anxiety, the goal isn’t to make it vanish. It’s to change our relationship to it. Maybe you still feel nervous before a conversation, but you don’t spiral afterward. Maybe the voice that once said “everyone thinks I sounded weird” softens into “maybe a few people did, but it’s okay if they did.”
Progress often looks like showing up anyway. Feeling the pull toward something you would’ve avoided six months ago. Recovering faster. Overthinking less. Letting go of the story that discomfort equals danger.
Closing Thoughts
If rejection feels overwhelming, I want you to know that you’re not broken or alone. So many people deal with this, even if they seem confident on the outside. You don’t need to be fearless to be okay. You can feel the anxiety and still do the thing. You can get rejected and still be worthy.
Progress isn’t always loud. Sometimes, it’s in the quiet decision to try again.
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