Rejection
Fighting for Freedom no. 7
Why do we expect rejection?
I moved out for the first time a month ago. It has been mostly good. I knew that moving out would be a space for me to step into myself in a lot of ways. And that has definitely begun. My first time cooking for myself was a bit of a disaster. Let me be clear. I love cooking and everything that I cooked was delicious. The problem came when I was cleaning up and put my brand new bottle of oil on the top shelf above the microwave.
Maybe the lid was loose.
Maybe I should have gotten a stool to put things away.
Maybe I shouldn’t have thought to myself, “I wonder how long this oil will last.”
I put a big bag up next and it knocked the oil over. I didn’t think much on it because “the lid was definitely on”. I continued to clean surfaces and put the dishes in the sink. I reluctantly grabbed a stool because I realized my short, little arms would not be able to reach the oil later. I climbed on the stool and was SHOOK by the sight of oil EVERYWHERE. I then proceeded to clean up the oil that was now all over the cabinet, dripping behind the microwave, seeping through the microwave, dripping on the stove.... I became a little overwhelmed and one of my first thoughts was “they are going to kick me out”.
How nuts is that? That I would think that one spill would cause people to not want me around.
Why do we expect rejection?
Why do I expect rejection?
Something I have been trying to do lately is have a little extra self-compassion. Specifically, I look at what happened and ask myself, “how would I react if someone else did this?”, or in this case, “how would I feel if one of my roommates accidentally made a huge mess?”. Chances are if I am a lot kinder to them, then I need to try and be a little kinder to me. Because realistically, people (for the most part) are not waiting around to reject you or blame you. I have found that most people have a whole lot of grace to give and see a whole lot of good in you.
As I have dug a little deeper into rejection and worth, I have been struck by a few things that God has to say about it all. We all know the classic “fearfully and wonderfully made” and other phrases that people use from the Bible to try and speak life into those deep roots of self-worth. A game changer for me came this past week while reading Jo Saxton’s book The Dream of You. She talks about how humankind is made in the image of God on her and Steph’s podcast “Lead Stories”. There was something in the way that those two pieces collided that made me stop in my tracks. God creating us in his image is such an expression of love. For me, it’s easy to see the beauty of God’s creation. But then again, I am one of those creations. Not just one of those creations (and so are you), but a creation made in His own image.That is some pretty powerful stuff.
A few tips: first, speak your lies out loud. Not just to random people. Not to whoever is convenient. But to the people who care and to the people who will speak truth and life over you. Something I have realized this past couple weeks is that I have more of those people than I thought, which is pretty cool. Find your people.
Second tip: learn to take criticism in a healthy way. This has been a big one for me. There are going to be people who feel like they have the authority and the right to speak into your life critically. Some will absolutely have that authority; others will not. Some will speak on whatever they can see, which is not usually the whole story. And some will unfortunately not see your heart and call things out in you that may not even be remotely true. Learn to know the value of each piece of criticism and how to wade through each piece. This podcast helped me drastically understand this concept well: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/lead-stories-podcast/id1071345719?i=1000394732290
If you are like me and tend to hold yourself to a particularly high set of standards, just know that you are not alone in these feelings. But you should also know that you are so much more loved than you think or feel. It might take more effort to see, but that doesn’t mean that your particular brand of awesome is not in you already, because it is.
If you feel like you are not surrounded by people who see that, you might need to find new people. If you feel like you can’t quite see it in yourself, maybe you need to look a little deeper. And, if you feel like rejection is around every corner ready to beat up any tiny sense of self-worth you may have, maybe you need to put down your fighting fists and start to take time to see the truth in the situation and see the beauty of creation that is you.