Have you ever heard of a game called Rejection Therapy? It was developed in 2009 by Jason Comely, a freelance IT guy from Cambridge, Ontario, once he realized the only way to get him to release his fear of rejection was to embrace it head on. To achieve that aim, he vowed to get rejected at least once every day for a full year.
He soon discovered that coming up with ways to be rejected was quite difficult! This was partly because his fear would get in the way. To assist him in his effort, he made himself playing cards with challenges on them such as “Sit beside a stranger and strike up a conversation,” or “Before making a purchase, ask for a discount.” He turned rejection into something he wanted, learned to embrace it, and felt good when he got the very thing he had avoided most of his life.
You may have heard me say F.E.A.R. stands for False Evidence Appearing Real. Our fears are often not grounded in reality, typically being stories we tell ourselves. It’s our choice whether we give in to those stories, or take another route.
However, learning to recognize that we’re telling ourselves a story can take a generous amount of awareness. When we go through life unaware, our fearful thoughts can slip right by our conscious mind and influence our thoughts and actions.
Understanding this, Jason developed the game to bring his fears of rejection to the front of his awareness. He turned the tables on his F.E.A.R. and took its power away. Today, he sells his cards online and Rejection Therapy is building a dedicated following.
“Sometimes it’s going to get dirty,” Jason told NPR. “But that’s okay, ‘cause you’re going to feel better after. You are going to feel like ‘Wow I disobeyed my fear. I disobeyed fear.”
For many of us, F.E.A.R. has such a strong hold on our minds that the mere thought of disobeying it feels incredibly dangerous. Yet, disobeying our F.E.A.R. is exactly how we release its hold on us!
When it comes to releasing our F.E.A.R. you must be ready to fail forward, and fail often. By moving into the experience, your mind learns there really wasn’t much to be afraid of in the first place. Your subconscious mind codes these experiences as “safe” and you can move on to transforming your fear on an even larger scale.
What is a F.E.A.R. that is driving you right now? What in your life is more important than that fear? What are seven things you can do to embrace and move beyond it in the coming week? Are you willing to dedicate yourself to a week of disobeying?
“Courage is not the absence of fear, but rather the judgement that something else is more important than fear.” ― Ambrose Redmoon
