#219: How a Fear of Rejection Keeps Us From What We Want Most
On Attachment
Stephanie Rigg
4.9 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 16 December 2025
⏱️ 20 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In this episode, we explore why rejection feels so big — not just in dating and relationships, but across friendships, family, work, and creative life. We look at the evolutionary and attachment roots of rejection sensitivity, and how it creates a confirmation bias that makes neutral situations feel personal.
I talk about how the fear of rejection leads us to shrink, stay silent, or hold back from opportunities, creating a self-fulfilling cycle of loneliness and limitation.
We also talk about what rejection resilience looks like in practice: separating facts from stories, reality-checking assumptions, taking small risks, and building an internal sense of worth that can withstand a “no.”
This is a gentle, grounded invitation to stop rejecting yourself first — and to live more fully, even when rejection is a possibility.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're listening to On Attachment, a place to learn about how attachment shapes the way we experience relationships and where you'll gain the guidance, knowledge and practical tools to overcome insecurity and build healthy, thriving relationships. |
| 0:19.5 | I'm your host, relationship coach Stephanie Rigg, |
| 0:22.9 | and I'm really glad you're here. |
| 0:29.2 | Hey, everybody, welcome back to another episode of On Attachment. |
| 0:33.2 | In today's episode, we are talking all about rejection |
| 0:36.1 | and how a fear of rejection, which I think |
| 0:39.1 | is something many of us struggle with, can actually keep us from what we want most. |
| 0:45.1 | And that can feel like a bit of a cruel irony. |
| 0:47.6 | But I think it's a really important one to dig into. |
| 0:50.1 | A lot of us will associate rejection with dating. |
| 0:53.2 | And while it can certainly show up there and is maybe most obvious and most acute there, |
| 0:57.8 | because we feel like we're sort of auditioning for someone's love and attention and approval, |
| 1:03.5 | I actually think that the fear of rejection goes far deeper than that and has branches |
| 1:08.4 | into many different areas of life. |
| 1:10.6 | And probably if you're someone who |
| 1:12.0 | really struggles with a fear of rejection, I'm sure it reaches into every area of life, whether you |
| 1:16.8 | realize it or not. And certainly, I think it follows us into romantic relationships, even when |
| 1:22.5 | we're in a committed relationship. The fear of rejection can persist and it can really shape how we show up whether |
| 1:30.1 | we allow ourselves to be vulnerable, whether we take risks, and all of that can really determine |
| 1:35.0 | whether we get what we want and what we need. And so we're going to be exploring that today, |
| 1:40.7 | how and where it shows up and possibly some unexpected ways or ways that you haven't |
| 1:44.9 | really connected the dots that your fear of rejections driving that, how it interfaces with |
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