“What’s wrong with you? Why don’t you watch out?”
It was stupid. It didn’t mean anything. It was just soda. I had spilled an entire giant cup of it while moving through a fast food line in a food court, with my peers staring at me and the sticky beverage spilled all down my front. But the tone of the fast food worker’s voice unsettled me for the rest of the day. Of all the things I can remember from what was otherwise a very positive and cool college trip, that one is the clearest. Traumatic? Not quite. Indelibly etched into my brain anyway? Yup. How is it I can’t remember who I roomed with that night, but I can still remember the face of that fast food worker and the color of her shirt?
It turns out though, that there’s a reason experiences of rejection and humiliation can be so strong. Scientists hypothesize that humans developed sensitivity to rejection in order to keep us close to the social communities we live in. It makes sense, really — the difference between surviving and getting eaten by a saber-toothed tiger out in the woods was often being surrounded by a community of other people. Our brains know it’s dangerous to be put outside of camp, and that other people’s displeasure was once the difference between life and death. What’s really mind-boggling is that this sensitivity shows up as physical pain. We don’t simply dislike rejection; our brain responds to it like a physical injury.
How Our Digital World Is Making Rejection Worse
Here’s the thing, though — modern society is no longer building villages to keep us safe from saber-toothed tigers, and the way we build communities is very different. This was already true in most of the 20th century, but with the advent of the internet, the way we relate to others is radically different. Now our brains are reacting with pain and danger not only when we’re put out into the woods to sleep with the tigers, but also when we get too few likes on a social media post. There are so many thousands of more ways a person can perceive being rejected in a given day than in any other time in history. The fast food girl yelling at me about some soda doesn’t sound too bad at all when I think about it that way. That was just one random incident. On the internet, we’re receiving near-constant evaluation that usually tells us that we’re falling short.
Meanwhile, the treatment for social rejection — more social connectivity — is also decreasing for people worldwide. It turns out that digital connections are not a replacement for real-life ones. Furthermore, even though our current technology technically makes more connections possible, most of them are not represented in our brains as true social connections. What’s more, all that time spent doomscrolling is sucking away our lives. Time that used to be spent seeking out relationships and adventures in our real-life communities is often now spent scrolling for a quick dopamine hit on our phones.
Why Christians Aren't Immune to Loneliness
Christians might be tempted to think we are exceptions to these experiences, but it turns out that we are not at all. In fact, the “loneliness epidemic” within the church mirrors the same trends we see outside of it. What are we to do when the body of believers has offered no more protection from this problem than the rest of society? Jeff Galley and Phillip N. Smith describe a potential mindshift change in how Christians respond to this “plague” of loneliness: we should treat it like we did to plagues in the past. In the year 260, a major plague tore through Carthage, leaving death everywhere. While much of the city fled for their own protection, Christians poured IN to the city offering relief. What would it mean for us as a body of believers to respond to the very real pain of the communities around us and run TOWARD the problem (without getting caught up in the doomscrolling ourselves)?
As a therapist, I certainly see this issue show up again and again in my office. I see people with no support, no community, and no trust in those around them showing up for therapy with no one to lean on outside of me. What does the pain of rejection even mean when it has permeated us all so thoroughly that so many people have few or even no people to turn to? I can help people through anxiety, depression, and poor relationship patterns, but I cannot be their community. I can only help people become better equipped to reconnect again when they seek it out.
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7 Ways to Reduce Rejection and Rebuild Connection
With the constant sense of rejection and “not-enoughness” that people worldwide are experiencing every day, there are so many opportunities for people to show up for one another and help heal some of the pain being caused. Here is a list I’ve crafted based on my experience and research of what we can do.
- Get off your phone. Help other people get off of their phones. I know we’ve all heard this a million times, but research plainly shows that decreasing the use of our phone and social media use improves mental health AND has a positive impact on our relationships — including reducing experiences of social rejection and increasing restorative relational experiences.
- Commit to times or activities when phones aren’t even accessible. Invite others to do likewise. Find an activity once or twice a week where you just leave your phone at home. I would be so into church services that encourage people to go phone free — and I hope that’s not just a pipe dream. Most importantly, invest in activities outside of internet use with real people.
- Deal with the rejection itself. Growing a thick skin is not enough. There is a lot to be said for rooting our sense of belonging in Christ himself — a place where there is no condemnation (rejection) for those who are in him. It’s easier to work with earthly rejection when we’re anchored in a community we can’t be kicked out of.
- Become less addicted to evaluation. The internet has restarted the tradition of putting people in the stocks, and throwing everything we have at people to humiliate them in the public square. Every video, every post, and every idea generally comes with a comment bar where we can leave our two cents. But to what end? What if we all collectively turned the volume down and saved our feedback for gentle spaces of real relationships where we can discuss problems while maintaining connection and belonging?
- Prioritize building community and relationships as one of the most important things you can do for your spiritual and mental health. I know that can feel really heavy to people who are struggling with connection or who have lost access to relationships for one reason or another. I’m with you in that. I hope this article can validate for you that being isolated is not just lonely, but literally painful. But the good news is that it only takes one meaningful relationship to ease the pain. Start with Jesus, then see if he can help you find a fellow non-divine human in need of support.
- Start with being aware that all rejection, no matter how minor, really does hurt. Researchers have found that, as far as our brains are concerned, the pain of rejection can look remarkably similar to the pain of a physical injury. It’s real pain. It’s not just you. You don’t just need thicker skin. Numbing out is not the answer. We can only make this better by working to reduce the load of rejection all of us are carrying. We must begin to rebuild some of the community that’s been torn down by online socializing and constant internet use.
- Stop mistaking feedback and rejection for the same thing. Giving feedback can and should come with grace and a reassurance of belonging. Receiving feedback can be accompanied by the knowledge that your belonging is not at stake. People make mistakes, and that’s okay.
Creating a Culture Where Everyone Belongs
We all need to start noticing the high volume of rejection in everyday life, both for in our own lives and the lives of others. I hope that if we can back away from the pseudo-relationships of the internet and re-engage with the world in a healthier way, we can begin to alleviate some of this pain from each other. This is work we can’t do alone — we have to continually do it for each other. We can do this by keeping grace in the conversation and making sure to be “seat patters” — communicating whenever we get the chance: “You belong. There’s a place for you. Come sit by me.”
Written by Andi Anderson, MA, LPCC, MFTC
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