Feel Guilty About Rejecting People? Let’s Look at This a Different Way
These 8 mantras empower me to be honest and say yes or no.
I wish I never had to reject. From the moment I first meet someone, part of me wishes I could be their best friend forever. I hate making any guy, gal, or person feel bad about themself, and I fear they’ll remember Phoenix Huber as the jerkface who abandoned them.
I liken my guilt & anxiety to hunter-gatherer times, when rejection could mean death. Why when I say no must I feel like a monster who’s cool to leave innocent people behind in the wilderness? They’ll be fine, right? They can make other friends, and they won’t get eaten by saber-toothed tigers in 2021. But this is my personality, I had convinced myself— at least I’d rather be neurotic and empathetic than without a functioning amygdala.
As seductive as this story became, it didn’t help my mental health. Nor did it make me a better friend. Feeling like I wasn’t allowed to not want to talk as much only made me more avoidant and inconsistent about reaching out.
So the other day, I told a favorite blogger about my problem. He gave me a few ideas: how to reframe the act of having to reject. Facing this writer I look up to with the truth of my Twilight Sparkle-level anxiety was embarrassing (in a…
