Hello, thanks for listening to this Darma podcast. I hope you consider that in accordance

with the Buddhist tradition all of my work is a teacher is offered without charge and supported

entirely by donations only. If you'd like to support this work,

you'll find a PayPal button on darmopunks NYC.com.

If we look at the four great anxieties

that were, I think, originally listed by Anna Freud, or maybe it was Melanie Klein,

one of those early important figures in 20th century psychology.

One is the anxiety of annihilation, the fear of being killed or grievously physiologically

harm.

One is the fear of being separated from the loved. One is the fear of

decompensation. I kind of love this one. That's the fear that we're going to

lose our shit and not be able to put the pieces back together, the fear of just literally falling apart and the

last one is the fear of social rejection which by far and away is the most common anxiety in adult life.

Basically, it's the fear that something in me that is innate to me, if other people see it will lead to rejection, will be seen as

unacceptable, will be evaluated as not good enough. So the question might be why do we care so much what other people

think about us? And the answer is that it sucks to be rejected.

Brains evolved to experience threats to our social connection,

activating the same emotional pain circuits

that we experience when we have physical pain, when we are literally attacked by someone.

If you want to look up the work of great neuropsychologists Matthew Lieberman,

Naomi Eisenberger who spent their careers

studying social pain.

...