One of the greatest relationship that a person can change in his life is to “No”, physiologically a “No” feels like claustrophobia, a gut punch, as your environment constricts, your senses begin to close in, it can be a really unpleasant experience, which can run you for years, without you ever realising it.
This one single act of accepting a “No”, a “Rejection” as sometimes we like to call it in our self-pity for ourselves, will most likely take deep work on your self image, loads of practice in constructing new belief systems, new habits of mind and cultivating a new perspective.
What I have learnt so far in life around “No” and its fear in general is briefly detailed below:
Accept and Slug it Out
First of all you will always have to accept that you suck in the some areas of life, and it is perhaps one of those, in my case it was social interactions, where I learnt after much self reflection that I might truly suck at them, in the desired job roles where I found out I was seriously short on skills, all of these pills were really hard to swallow, but I’m glad I did.
Being a top student in the class, then coming to UK, and having to find out that I’m seriously short on skills, which will take me where I want to be, was a matter of ego, it took me years to finally surrendered it, before it was not possible for me to begin to sarge ahead fully.
Practically this phase means you will have to cultivate new habits of both mind, body & soul. Its really a journey, enjoy it well if you can.
“No” is not an indictment of yourself
You will have to absolutely understand that a No does not mean an indictment of yourself forever, but at only at a certain point in time. The dilemma of the human mind is it really projects the present bad experience as it will never end, if we are a little aware we all know by experience it passes away, the art is “can we really remember it in the moment.”
some of us though are constantly fearing the worst – we must seek help as soon as we can.
A Practical Tip – “No” is not a physical process, its a psychological
(knowing this greatly helps, try for yourself & find out)
Almost all No’s in the world feel like physical force trauma, its not, its merely psychological, touching yourself reassuringly on the body, on your face certainly helps you recover. It tells you that everything is fine, just as fear closes, rejection hurts, touching your body alleviates you.
Its a Process
As your ability slowly grows, to handle No’s in your life, your awareness begins to expand, you slowly begin to feel how your relationship is changing with the world, as you are really begin to become more confident, take on world little by little, these small wins will keep you going. Getting those small results, will begin to change your exiting view of the world slowly, as you slowly realise its not a hostile world at all, as you have feared initially., Even in the cases where it is truly hostile you will learn to accept it more and more instead of completely rejecting it and rejecting yourself in it.
Losing the fear of No is akin to losing all the fear in the world
It is really like that! The greatest challenge will be, as you will catch glimpses of life beyond fear, your years of belief, psychological state that have let you guide you way all through life, your childhood, your teenage years, over the fears of losing your home, of being vulnerable, of losing your sweetheart, as you have used fear well to survive so far, it will almost feel like losing your entire self in the process. It certainly feels like that, if it ever comes to that we must let go of ourselves, the past, embrace new.
Cause if we will not, then simply we will not be able to offer it to someone else, our children, our partners, our colleagues, we will all be stuck in the same state of fear that has hindered human progress so far. And it will keep costing generations the best time of their lives.
Neomodern 