From the course: Overcoming Rejection

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Why rejection hurts so much

Why rejection hurts so much

From the course: Overcoming Rejection

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Why rejection hurts so much

- Rejection, failure, epic fail. Those words hurt like a punch. And guess what? They actually do hurt like a punch. There are some studies that show that the area of the brain that gets activated when we feel rejected or passed over, or like a failure, is a pain center of the brain. It hurts as though we are in physical pain, and like all pain, it's there to teach us something. Let's look at this from an evolutionary biology perspective. Here's why we hate rejection so much. You have to remember, we are tribal animals. We are designed to live in a group, and we know that, as much as we may wish everyone would just go away sometimes, we cannot survive alone. So, we are very attuned to the good opinion of the group. We want people to approve of us. We want to be seen as useful and helpful and not somebody that you would like to put out on an ice floe. So, your reaction to rejection is not a result of low self-esteem.…

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