Bouncing Back from Rejection: Build the Resilience You Need to Get Back Up When Life Knocks You Down

Go beyond your fear of rejection to develop confidence, compassionate self-awareness, and resilience!

Do you have a fear of rejection? If so, you aren’t alone. But if you have difficulty bouncing back after rejection, experience intense pain as a result, or if the fear of rejection is so crippling that it interferes with your everyday life, it’s time to make a change. This groundbreaking guide can help.

With this book, you’ll learn why you fear rejection by gaining an understanding of your unique attachment style. Secure attachment is defined as a feeling of being protected and well-cared for. People who experience secure attachment as young children are more likely to be happy, healthy, and resilient adults. On the other hand, insecurely attached people are less likely to cope well with rejection, and may have trouble “bouncing back” after difficult experiences. Once you understand how your attachment style has informed your fears, you can begin the work needed to overcome them!

Using the theory of attachment, and the five domains of awareness: Sensations, Thoughts, Emotions, Actions, and Mentalizing (STEAM), you’ll learn to relate to yourself and to others in more positive ways, even when difficult situations arise. So, whether you experience rejection in a romantic relationship, at work, or with friends, you’ll have the resilience needed to recover quickly and focus on what makes you special and unique.

This isn’t a book that promises to protect you from future rejection. Unfortunately, rejection happens to everyone and is a normal part of life. But you will learn skills to handle this rejection and come to see it as less scary. With this view, you’ll gain confidence, self-awareness, and the resilience needed to bounce back, even when life throws you a curveball.

Leslie Becker-Phelps, PhD, is an internationally published author, speaker, and psychologist. She is a trusted expert on relationship issues that people have with themselves, as well as with others. She is author of Insecure in Love. She writes the blogs Making Change for www.psychologytoday.com, and Relationships for www.webmd.com; and is the relationship expert for WebMD’s Relationships message board. In addition, she has created a library of short videos on her YouTube channel to offer people the opportunity to learn how to feel better about themselves and their lives. Becker-Phelps has a private practice in Basking Ridge, NJ; and is on the medical staff of Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital Somerset, where she previously served as clinical director of women’s psychological services, and chief of psychology in the department of psychiatry. She lives with her husband and two sons in Basking Ridge. Find out more about her at www.drbecker-phelps.com.

Foreword writer Ronald D. Siegel, PsyD, is assistant clinical professor of psychology at Harvard Medical School. He is a longtime student of mindfulness meditation, and serves on the board of directors and faculty at the Institute for Meditation and Psychotherapy. He teaches internationally about the application of mindfulness practice in psychotherapy and other fields, and maintains a private clinical practice in Lincoln, MA.