How to Avoid Rejection and Get Connection by Marisa Peer (Transcript)

And of course, when parents and [a naughty child to their room], they’re disconnecting from the group, they’re rejecting them and they’re rejecting their behavior. So in Romeo and Juliet, when Romeo was banished from Verona, he said, ‘I’d rather be killed than banished. Banishment is worse than death. There is nothing out there but purgatory’. And actually he was right.

My father lived in a tiny little village up north that had a really old church, that had the original banishment window still there. Because in times gone by, if a villager didn’t behave and didn’t conform, they would be banished forever from that village. But they still had to go to church to try and redeem their wickedness. And they had to turn up after the service began. In all weathers, they had to crouch down by this banishment window and listen to the service outside. And then they left and they left just before the service ended, because they were not allowed to have connection. So to this day we fear being rejected. And the fear of rejection will hurt our ability to connect.

So I’m sure most of you know what Stockholm Syndrome is. But Stockholm Syndrome is the study of what happens to people when you disconnect them. So people who have been taken hostage, people who have been kidnapped, people who have been in prison would rather befriend their enemy and often have sex with them too than be isolated, disconnected and rejected. And of course, most of you have seen Homeland. Haven’t you? In Homeland, he went to the other side because he was isolated and disconnected and rejected. So it’s this tribal fear that we have, and if you think, the tribal fears don’t exist, we’re not in a tribe, just watch what women do when they’re out in a group. If women go out in a group and one of them says, ‘I want to go to the toilet’, they’d say, ‘Who’s coming with me?’ They’d go, ‘I’ll come and I’ll come too’.

And women go to toilet in groups because in a tribe, a woman never ever went to the toilet on her own, that was so dangerous. You didn’t know what was out there. So women went off in groups to the toilet and when they’re in groups out, they still go to the toilet in a group. A man never says, ‘I need to pee, who is coming with me?’ And if you did, no guy would go, ‘I’ll come and I’ll come too’. Because men stand up to pee, women literally had to have someone watch their backs. So we come onto the planet with this really intense need to be connected and to avoid being rejected. And these bonds of connection are very very fragile and they must not be broken. And what damages them is the fear of rejection.

So I’ve been a therapist for many many years and I fly all over the world and I have a great job and I meet people who’d say, ‘Yeah, you know, I got bullied when I was eight and to this day, I don’t do groups. I won’t go to a pub, I won’t go to a party, I would never work in a big office. I might be rejected. It might remind me of what it felt like to be bullied’.

Or someone would say to me, ‘Yeah, the love of my life dumped me. I’ve never had a relationship since. I don’t even want one, because I couldn’t go through that pain again.’

Or somebody will say, ‘I was fired in front of everyone in my office. It was so humiliating. I’ve never had a job since’.

What they’re saying is being rejected was so painful, I’m now choosing to avoid rejection. But of course what they’re doing is they are avoiding connection. And you don’t need to do that, because you can’t be rejected. We’re not tribal people anymore. There’s no way that you could ever be rejected, because you have to believe everything the person is rejecting you is saying. So if I said to you, ‘I don’t like you, I hate everyone that has green hair, and I really don’t like you because I just can’t stand people who have purple hair’. That’s my opinion. It’s so clearly wrong. You’re not going to let that in, that can’t possibly hurt you. It’s an opinion that is wrong that you’re not going to let in.

I’m going to be using this word ‘let in’ a lot in the next 15 minutes, because if you take one thing away from today, let it be this: Don’t let in opinions that will hurt you. If I said to the back row, ‘I don’t like any of you, you’re so boring, you’re just so deeply dull, there’s nothing to you’. Some of you will let that in but it’s just an opinion, it’s no different to the other opinion. I’m saying something, you don’t have to let that in.

So I work with so many people damaged by rejection, particularly children and in my years as a therapist I’ve learned 5 techniques that will really help you, really help you — I guarantee it — to not let in rejection, to deal with it. You can’t stop people rejecting you but you can change the way it affects you. So let me teach you these five techniques.

5 techniques to not let in rejection

The first one is going to sound very trite, because simple things are often so simple people think that can’t work. It’s too easy. And the first one is the kind of thing you do to deal with the everyday barbs that come from colleagues, friends, family members. So let’s imagine someone comes up to you and says, ‘You’ve got so fat it doesn’t suit you, shouldn’t have gained all that weight’, or ‘you should never have cut your hair, it looks terrible’. Or ‘why can’t you control your children? They are so badly behaved’. Then what you’d say is ‘thank you for sharing that’.

Now I know that sounds trite and I know that sounds silly. But if someone comes up and says, ‘Wow, you’re fat’ and you go, ‘how dare you say that, that’s so hurtful, or you’re so rude or well, you look kind of rucksack to me, or you try eating healthy food on my salary’. You’ve already let it in. And now you’re trying to deal with it by sarcasm or hard criticism. When you say ‘thank you for sharing that’, what you’re saying is that’s your opinion, you can even say it. I don’t have to let that in.

I was driving through Los Angeles. Well, actually my husband was driving through Los Angeles last year in peak traffic and he took the wrong freeway. And his adult son in the back was really crossing, he started to say, ‘You always do this. Why didn’t you plan the route and now we’re going to be late’. And my husband went, ‘thank you for sharing that’. ‘Yeah, but you’re so wound up and now I’m getting really stressed and you’re ruining the evening’. And he said, ‘thank you for sharing that’. His son said something else and he said again ‘thank you for sharing that’. And I thought this is so cool. I taught him this. He is doing it. It’s working!

We got to our destination and actually it was all dissipated, because saying ‘thank you for sharing that’ dissipated. They both let go, they were fine. And thank you for sharing that really works particularly with adult or teenaged children.

And my daughter would occasionally go, ‘I hate you. You’re the worst mother in the world. Hitler was nicer than you. And all my friends’ parents let them go out all night to sleepovers’, and I just go, ‘thank you for sharing that’. Thank you for that sharing that. I didn’t argue, but what’s the point.

And when you say thank you for sharing that you dissipate the tension and you don’t let it in. So that simple, those simple little words thank you for sharing that, I promise you if you use them it would change everything. So that’s a simple one for the everyday family member tribal barbs.

So let’s imagine you’re at work and someone comes up to you and says, ‘Oh my God, why did you ever offer to speak in public? You should never have chaired that meeting. You were so bad. I was embarrassed for you’. And what you say to them is, ‘I’m sorry, I didn’t actually hear all of that. Would you repeat that for me slowly, so I can hear — don’t ever say so I can let it in — could you repeat that so I can hear it and I promise you, 90% of the time they go, ‘Oh, me and my big mouth, just ignore me. I’m having a really bad day. I didn’t mean it’. What’s happened is you’ve asked them to repeat it, they’ve had to think about it and they decided to retract it. And they will retract it 90% of the time. When they do, don’t go, ‘No, no, tell me what you said. I want to know what did you say’. You’ve got to also let it dissipate. So ‘I’m sorry, would you repeat that please? I didn’t hear at all’, will work.

Of course, sometimes they will repeat it. They will say, ‘Yeah, I just said, you were so wooden at public speaking’, is actually an insult to wood.

And now you get to Technique 3 which is to say, ‘Oh, are you trying to hurt my feelings? Are you trying to make me feel bad about myself?’ Amazingly, they would usually go no. ‘No, of course not. I just thought you should know that you are so painful at public speaking. You need to practice more. Get some help or never speak in public again’. So what they’re saying is very hurtful and harsh, they don’t mean it.

I was in Sainsbury’s many years ago and somebody ran my cell phone, it was Cosmo. Cosmo went, ‘Oh, hi, you know, just to let you know that we’ve done a big article about you. It’s in Cosmo, it’s out today. And it’s on the CD you’ve made with how to attract and maintain a loving lasting relationship’. So I put down the phone and went to the newsstand, I got two copies, went back, ‘Hey mom, look, I’m in Cosmo, they’ve written about my CD: how to attract love’, and she said, ‘I don’t want to read that. I’m not going to read that. I don’t think you should ever make CDs about attracting loving relationships, because you’re not very good at them’.

And I was like, OK, I know what to do. I didn’t bother to go to one: thank you for sharing that. I didn’t actually bother to go to 2 which is: could you repeat that? I mean this is my mother after all. So I didn’t have to say: please repeat that. I went straight to technique 3. Are you trying to hurt my feelings? Why would you say that? And she said straight away: Of course, I’m not trying to hurt your feelings, not at all. I just think you should stick to the things you’re really good at and then you’ll be even more successful than you already are. And of course what she was saying was not mean and not hurtful but it sounded that way and I didn’t let it in, because I understood her intention.

And one of my patients came to see me. Now she was nursing her husband to the final weeks of an illness and he was going to die and she was very upset. She was very upset because every time she said to her friends, ‘my husband’s dying’, they’d go ‘you’ll be fine, you’ll find someone else, you’ll be OK’. And she was absolutely hurt. I said, ‘but why didn’t you listen to the intention what are they saying’, and she said, ‘yeah they’re saying you’re so lovable, we love you, you won’t be on your own’. And actually she was married to someone else within a year and she is very happy.

So we’ve got the first three but of course you will get the person who says, ‘yeah, that’s what I said’. So let’s go to Technique 4 now. You’ve said to them: are you trying to hurt my feelings and they go ‘yes, I don’t like you, I hate you, I want you to know everyone hates you’. And then you simply say, ‘well that’s not going to work, because I’m not going to let that in’. Again here is that word you never have to let in.

So I met someone who at 55 who was a doctor decided to run the marathon to get a scanner. And he was very out of shape and he ran the marathon and he came in towards the end but he was so delighted. When he went back to work, one of the very buffed doctors went, ‘yeah, I heard you ran the marathon and you came in like last, you went last’. ‘I was first in my category’. They were like, ‘what category is that’. He went? ‘55 year old out of shape doctors from this hospital raising money running a marathon to get a scanner, I was number one in my category’. He didn’t let it in.

So now you have these four things: 1) thank you for sharing that; 2) please repeat that slowly; 3) are you trying to make me feel bad about myself; 4) I’m not going to let that in. And there is a 5^th technique but don’t ever do it with sarcasm, which is to say: why we’re sharing, did you know that critical people who have the most criticism is there for themselves, they don’t like themselves. They’re expressing outwards their own dissatisfaction. When you do this, you’re showing me and everyone else in the office too, that you’re your own worst critic.

So for a critical person let’s imagine this is a seesaw and here is you and here is them. But in their world it isn’t equal; you’re up there and they’re down there. And all they can do to make it balanced is to diminish you and they actually want that to happen. But they can only do that by making you feel bad about yourself.

Now you’ve got your 5 techniques, nobody can ever make you feel bad about yourself unless you let them. So I can only tell you that this works because if this didn’t work, there’s not a chance I could stand in front of you talking like this. I am loving it and actually enjoying it because the greatest fear in the Western world is the fear of speaking in public which is actually not a fear of speaking in public, it’s the fear of being rejected. And a lot of people can’t do it. I had a client who came to me, he actually fainted at his own wedding rehearsal when he had to rehearse the speech. I had another one who said, ‘I got to show up at the funeral, I’m so scared and frankly I’d rather be in the coffin than giving that eulogy, because it’s the fear of being rejected’.

And I understand that because when I was 25, a publishing house came to me and gave me a lot of money to write a book. And you know I couldn’t do it. Every time I sat under, I can’t think of what if nobody likes it, what if that’s wrong, whatever gets really badly would be reviewed and I didn’t — I gave the advance back because I was so caught up with the rejection that I didn’t actually understand the fantastic connection you get from being a writer.

And I met other people that go, ‘yeah, I want to write a book’.

And I go, ‘What are you doing to write a book?’.

‘Nothing.’

I said, ‘Have you got an agent?’

‘Oh no’.

Or they want to be an actor. ‘What are you doing to be an actor? Are you going to auditions?’

‘I couldn’t do that’.

‘Why not’.

‘I might be rejected’.

Well, look, until you can deal with rejection you’re never going to be an actor, you can’t have one without it. It’ll likely weave a cloth but when you learn that you can’t be rejected. Then I wrote five or six best-selling books, and that someone wrote to me recently, went, ‘I’m so glad that I got your book. I went to visit my mother, she is very ill with cancer. And as I left she said to me, ‘I hope you get cancer and die’. He went, ‘well, mom, even for you that’s a bit hard. Of course, you know what it didn’t hurt me, I didn’t let it in. I remembered what you said she’s bitter and she’s unhappy, that I want, would have been on the floor with depression that my mother said that but I didn’t let it in’.

So let me share with you my favorite story because it’s such a metaphor for not letting it in. So a journalist went to interview a holy man already deciding he hated spiritual people. He met him and of course, the holy man was beaming and smiling as they do and he said, ‘I can’t stand tree huggers like you. This is all pseudo, it’s all fake, you’re not really spiritual, I don’t like you’. And the holy man beamed and smiled even more, so he cranked up the rejection and continued to tell him why he hated him. And the holy man continued to be smiling. And finally he said, ‘Why are you beaming and smiling when I tell you that I don’t like you?’

And he went, ‘Well, you see if you give me a gift but I don’t take the gift, who has the gift?’

And the journalist went, ‘Me!’

And he went, ‘Exactly. I’m not taking that and if I don’t take it it’s left with you. It’s rather like being served legal papers. If you don’t take them, you are not served’.

So please remember these five techniques, nobody can reject you ever unless you let them. My little girl was five. This is the first time I learned this. And in some ways my mother was right, because I didn’t write that book because of my fear of rejection. I didn’t have loving relationships because I was all scared about being rejected. Of course, I’m not now, I wouldn’t be up here.

So my daughter went into a little village school and she had a boy in her class who had cerebral palsy and had a real problem of walking. And his mother used to say, ‘You know, everybody will look at you because you’re so beautiful. They stare at you because you’re the most handsome boy in the world’. From this little village school he went to London to a museum, he’d never been on a tube, he’d never been on an escalator. But when he came back, he went, ‘Mom, I must have been so handsome today because everyone stared at me on the tube and on the escalator I was so beautiful, they all looked at me. In the museum, everybody looked at me’. And you see those bonds, those fragile bonds of connection aren’t broken in him. And by the time he understands what it’s really all about it won’t matter because he started his life not letting in.

So please learn those five things: thank you for sharing; would you repeat that slowly; are you trying to hurt my feelings; that’s not going to work and remind them what critical people are. And thank you very much for listening.

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