Sometimes Rejection Is A Blessing In Disguise

So far, this blog has covered the things I’ve learned that protected me from being too vulnerable to toxic people. I hope sharing my story will help others.

In my formative years, I was surrounded by people who rejected anyone who didn’t believe what they believed. Their beliefs stemmed from religious beliefs, cultural beliefs, misogynistic beliefs that came from the religious and cultural beliefs, human ego, untreated addiction, untreated mental illness (especially Cluster B personality disorders), untreated eating disorders, etc. A child raised around people who are prone to rejecting others learns how to behave to avoid the consequences of rejection, according to the counselor who is helping me recover from this. I also developed some inner mechanism that lets me know when I’m with someone like the people from my formative years. Therefore, I repeated the pattern of people pleasing to avoid rejection consequences too often in my adult life. I am working hard to recover from that. This blog post will cover a revelation I recently had as part of my healing.

If you are being rejected due to bad behavior, make amends. If you are being rejected as a consequence of healing, changing, and growing, the people who are offended by your changes will often try to make you look bad. Your mistakes are most likely not what the offended person says they are. In my case, my mistakes came before the changes took place. My changes were correcting my mistakes. I own those mistakes in this blog post, while rejecting inaccurate accusations from people who are angry about my changes: https://ronisharp.wixsite.com/mysite/blog/it-wasn-t-about-being-nice

Some things happened this week that let me know rejection can be a good thing. The first thing was I received an apology letter in the mail. A picture of that letter is the picture for this post. As I read the letter, I didn’t feel any negative emotions about the situations from that time in my past. All I felt was relief that it was behind me. I realized if I met those same people today, I wouldn’t let them in my life. I would be kind to them, but I wouldn’t get involved with them. I realized any rejection I experienced during that situation was a blessing in disguise and any rejection I implemented was a sign of my personal growth.

The second thing that happened was a Facebook post from a pastor about the blessings of rejection. His name is Henry Harris. If you like what his post says and want to find out more about his ministry, his Facebook page “The Bro. Henry and You Show” can be found at this link: https://www.facebook.com/groups/217891315063652/

Here is what Brother Henry posted:

No one likes hearing the word "NO" or being rejected. But something came to my mind regarding this.

How often do we celebrate the word no? What if being rejected and being turned down was a blessing in disguise? What if no was a stepping stone to your

success?

I've learned to celebrate the word no, and appreciate it because without someone telling me no I wouldn't be where I am at today. #notes #thewalkthroughrejection #upcomingseries

Following is my comment to his post:

This is true. I've been thinking a lot about this lately. A friend of mine's son went to prison. When he was released, he wasn't allowed to go home and live with his Mom. The courts were afraid the criminal people who got him in trouble would get him in trouble again. They knew his greatest hope of success was to live in a group home away from all of the unsavory elements of his past.

That got me thinking. When I started my journey of healing and being made whole, which I think is one aspect of Christianity, I was hanging around with unsavory people. When I began to change and quit turning a blind eye to their behavior, they rejected me. My changes convicted and challenged them in ways they weren’t open to. With each layer of healing, it got more subtle than the untreated alcoholic who said, "I don't like you anymore. You chill my buzz." Even when it was more subtle, it was something unsavory I’d outgrown.

One of the more subtle examples was gossip. A situation made me realize that listening to gossip was just as wrong as partaking in it. Do you think gossips wanted me around when I walked away from the conversation or defended someone? They didn’t. I now realize it’s good to be rejected by anyone who does so due to your unwillingness to be involved in gossip. I’ve learned the hard way that if someone is gossiping to you, they are gossiping about you. I don’t want to be around people whose loyalty I can’t trust. Being rejected for refusing to be involved in gossip is as much of a blessing as the untreated alcoholic who rejected me.

That is the end of my comment to Brother Henry’s Facebook post. However, I have more to say on this subject. I think we sometimes develop a fear of rejection, because we are associating with people we instinctively know will reject us if we aren't what they want us to be, especially if we are repeating a pattern of being around those kind of people in our childhood or our past. I was once selling books and jewelry at a fair. I offered free jewelry to some people who were there. These people saw themselves as psychics. They said spirit told them to tell me I needed to value myself enough to sell those items. I knew they were wrong, but I instinctively knew I’d face rejection consequences if I told them that. I thanked them for the message instead of informing them I was displaying Appalachian generosity. My Mom raised me to give generously with no strings attached, and my Dad reinforced that later in life when I was his business partner. My instinct proved to be correct. At a later date, one of those psychics triggered on me in front of a visitor - minutes after completing a leadership role that required more decorum – for saying I liked someone she presented as her best friend that she didn’t like. When I didn’t handle that assertively enough, she triggered a few months later in a much more aggressive manner when I became so busy I temporarily couldn’t fit in the box she wanted me in. That is when friends helped me see a big picture that accelerated my healing in the years that followed.

I think a couple of common examples may be familiar to many people. Many Christians have told me they instinctively knew who would reject them for changing in the ways Christianity changes people. They also told stories of rejection they received overall. If a Christian is bringing it on themselves by becoming inappropriately militant, they need to make amends. If they are being rejected only for changing, isn’t it better to become who they want to be instead of being confined to the boxes other people want to trap them in. I have also heard similar stories from people changing religions.

As I grew, I learned to stop accepting inappropriate behavior from people, especially if they didn’t do anything to make amends for it. Many people tried to convince me that unconditional love meant accepting that behavior. That is incorrect. Unconditional love is accepting people who are different from you instead of expecting everyone to fit in the same box you’re in. It does not mean accepting inappropriate, and especially not harmful, behavior.

Another example is people I know who’ve given up alcohol or drugs. They often get rejected by a lot of people for changing. They also often find that they do some rejecting, because they don’t want to be in those addiction environments as they grow in their recovery. That desire to be in healthier environments is proof, to me anyway, that it is sometimes better to get rejected.

Embrace rejection and look at it as an opportunity to grow into better opportunities in all areas of your life.