What to Do When Rejection Hurts

Here is a recent podcost interview with Maria Crane on overcoming the hurts when rejection runs deep.

Michelle Rene': That's so awesome. I'm thinking, too, for you, Maria, that thank you for being on the show. I feel like it's perfect for you to talk with us today, because I know how you live. Love, you know what I mean, so rejection is the opposite of that. If you talk a little bit about. You know the difference between rejection, acceptance, and maybe a little bit of your story like why you do what you do.

Maria: Actually, now I've replaced. Love is my middle name. It is my favorite 4 letter word, and I think that's what rejection is. Ultimately it's an absence of someone choosing to love us, to give value to us, and they've cast us aside, and we do that. We can reject ourselves too. And I did that for a long time.

I think my earliest memory of rejection was in kindergarten when I started at my Proco Catholic school, and we had to, where I remember we looked like Christmas Year round. We had little red and green plaid, pleaded skirts, and for chubby little girl like me that kind of emphasized my roundness, and I got bullied for being the fat, chubby kid, and so I would spend most of my recess is sitting on the bench alone, kind of watching the other kids lap

and play, being teased for being fat and wondering what's it like to have a friend?

And so I had kind of early, because those first years of our lives are so important in our self concept. And that was kind of imprinted on my, you know, in my soul rejected.

I was very fortunate that I had a teacher who kept seeing me sit out there. We had our own little kindergarten playground with the slides, you know the old slides and the metal slides, and the and the swings, and she invited me to stay in one day at recess, and she gave me a brand new box of crans, and she said, Maria, you're special and you're an artist, and she praised me for everything I drew, and she really changed my life that day and helped me develop a gift. And actually I became a teacher. And now I you know, I know my rejection as early experiences, even of being bullied. That's why I'm kind of like I'm on a mission to really eliminate bullying and teach kids how to forgive.

But it really did give me a heart for the unlovely, for the rejected ones, for the outcast, for the black sheep. I go after them. Now I know I love that, I think when we're going through, let's be honest. So for you, you know, early on, you know, having to wear a specific thing, you know, and having people treat you a specific way and make fun of you, cause you weren't meeting whatever like their prototype, you know, like whatever they expected.

Michelle Rene': It hurts. We don't understand at the time what God's doing, and you know a lot of people don't recover from that like you said, who are bullied, or who have this idea that they're overweight, and they just never, you know, overcome that, either. But then there are times, you know, when persons like yourself, you know God and just your tenacity. You persevere, and you do get beyond that. I mean for me. Early on. One rejection would probably be unintentionally in my family when they were unavailable because of addiction, but really pressing in at a much greater pace. When I got older and rejected myself through caving to peer pressure. Right? So I identify, too, with what you're saying about rejecting ourselves. But the recovery from that, the forgiveness in that, whether sales or other people is key. Can you talk a little bit about that in your journey and forgiving?

Maria: Yeah, that is key. Because I say, you know, our words are usually part of the process. People's words to us our own internalized words cause that rejection, and for me it was those words that were spoken over my body, and feeling ashamed in my body. But forgiveness, I think. Please forgive me, is probably the most powerful words we can ever say or hear and

forgiving ourselves for rejecting ourselves. And so I know. For me it was a key, and really freedom. Forgiveness springs freedom.

And when I finally became a believing Christian, and learned about forgiveness, and how, you know, always amazed me that Jesus could be on the cross. Experience the agonizing pain of having just been crucified, and in his dying breath say, father, forgive them! They know not what they do. And you know, because he lives inside me, that same powers and me to forgive. And so, when I forget kids that bully me when I forgive. Even my own father was very critical of my physical appearance.

I experienced that freedom, freedom from jealousy, from the bitterness, from unforgiveness, from the self-hatred, because that self hatred was kind of linked with the rejection, and so not ever feeling like I looked right or had the right clothes. All that was a part of it, and forgiveness was my ticket to freedom, and it really is the way we, I say, we, we wash our hearts, we cleanse our hearts so love can live there, because for me I had, you know, so many decades trapped in that over and over, replaying in my mind, because when others reject us and we hear those words, we internalize them, and they we can replay them.

And I was like a record. You remember the old lps and scratch in the record? It's like I kept rehearsing that in my own mind telling the story. Even if I found other people that would listen. I was trapped in self pity for years where I tell the same stories, hoping. you know, others to gain others empathy, and I was just relive every time I told the star was reliving it. Instead of really being secure my identity in Christ. So he took me quite a healing journey. But it really is about knowing who we are in Christ in the deepest parts of us, not just up here in the head.

Michelle Rene; but down in the soul. I think, you know, today's episode being when rejection hurts, it's really it's one thing to be reject, rejected. Have tools to figure out. You know what we're going to do to navigate that. But it's another thing when it's so soul rocking like. I'm talking about the kind of rejection where it becomes a trajectory for a while like you said. But then you started feeling shame in your body and acting differently because of it, and and feeling a certain kind of way about yourself and other people, or for me.

You know similar experience where I can just remember having so much crap in my head for so long that now I can't even imagine walking around with a head full of junk swirling around, you know, and forgiveness was a big key, and a lot of people that I work with clinically struggle with that because they're really not. They haven't been asked to forgive, and I do tell them, you know, when you're hurting like this, people are rejecting you in any way.

Forgiveness is something you do unilaterally, you know, reconciliation requires their change. But you're right. We can forgive people for our sake, and I think sometimes people can get their mind wrapped around that, at least at first. and especially if they're not Christian and Christian. You know such a key thing. You said that Jesus is in the most extreme pain imaginable and forgiving, and he is our model of what to do when we're in extreme pain.

And really, psychologists have proven that rejection alters our psyche. It changes our view of ourselves. It changes our view of our world, and it changes our behavior. And so really to not give other people's already in discretions against us, more power. We need to know how to overcome it, you know, and we need to know how to do and deal with it when it hurts, and so forgiveness is a key piece, and I also think services. So I know, Maria, you didn't just forgive people that had harmed you. You know you live a life of love and service. Can you talk a little bit about that trajectory? And in addition to the art that that teacher promoted in you, finding your gift and encouraging you, and helping you see that you were good at something. What you know you did down the road.

Maria: and that was really, I say, I found comfort in a box of crayons, but little over here. I have my are over there, my little cross and the Cross. I went to a really powerful pastoral care school by woman named Liam Payne, and she's died now, but has several books, and

one of the things she does in that conferences. When pain gets so great she has actually hold a little cross, and that was so helpful to me to bring the pain to the cross, because I was bringing my ashes to the cross.

We don't deny pain, because when we stuff it down it shows up, we project into other people, we leak it out, or it shows up in our body, I believe as a health coach it it. We can form diseases. And so I really believed in bringing those ashes to the cross, asking God to make something beautiful out of it. And for me I had to start memorizing because it says we're transformed by the renewing of our mind. How do we renew our minds? And so I had to really look at the lies. I've been believing, and start replacing them with Biblical truth, repetitively and really ask God to form that truthful identity of who he says I was inside of me

Michelle Rene': so beautiful, and I think that's such another key. I mean, it's your golden nuggets today, right? I mean all you ladies in the audience. I mean, think about this. You've all experienced rejection. Sometimes our struggles lead us into long seasons of mourning and pain or unforgiveness and bitterness and resentment, emotions. We don't wanna be feeling anger, sadness, self loathing. I can. I can think of a decade that I lost in depression a decade. And here we are talking about tools. If this is you right now that you can use start finding freedom today, one being forgiveness and another being changing your mind. Concept, Aka for Christians, renewing the mind with Scripture. If you're not, and you're tuning in it's, you know, worldly descriptions of this is self affirmations, mantras positive thinking and all that type of psychology. you spend so much time without effort beating yourself up. marinating on the things that have been done to you, or that you've done living in regret. remorse, self-pity, pain.

We're saying, flip the switch and start choosing to think on things that are good for you. Maria talked about renewing your mind. Another verse in the Bible talks about whatever's pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is a good report, and there's more things to that verse. To think on these things literally. The Bible is a roadmap to have freedom, despite your circumstances. not because of them. We're not saying, Christians believe in Jesus, and everything gets more actively better. We're saying, Christians believe in Jesus, and they're set free a lot right, Maria. I mean not living in this head concept of all this stuff? We're in a heart space where we're struggling every moment, every day, I mean, don't you find that's what you found in your freedom.

Maria: and and, like you, it probably spent several decades trapped in it.

For me, it was shame, not not feeling good about who I was, and I called the mental gymnastics the spin cycle. We just stay there and stay there, and for me I really had to kind of plaster Scripture around my house. Sorry I've got a little bit of frog.

No, I understand. Trust me, I thank you for being here. So it was in my face, and I was reading it, meditating on it. I'm fearfully and wonderfully made. One of my favorite Scriptures was I'm accepted in the beloved. I needed to know I was accepted, and all that energy I spent. and being other women, or their thin bodies for their lives.

I was negating and and skipping out on who I was. I was wasting that emotional energy. We have emotional currency, and I was dumping it and wasting it, instead of accepting and loving and building myself up in Christ.

I was destroying my self-image. I was living in bondage, and so forgiveness being the freedom renewing my mind. And then you talked about serving others. Scripture actually tells us in Romans 1214. We're Gonna bless those that hurt us, and I got to a point. Now I can honestly say rejection is God's redirection and protection.

And there's this beautiful section, the Bible, Matthew 10. When you know, he says to disciples, go out, go into home and find a worthy person there, and bring a blessing, and if they don't pursue, pretend, you know, present themselves worthy, take your blessing back, get out of there, and shake the dust off.

And you know we're gonna be rejecting like Jesus was despised and rejected it says, in Isaiah 53. He knows that pain. And if we bear his image, we're gonna know that pain. And 20% of people aren't gonna like us when they just look at us. So it's like what helps me to forgive is, I need forgiveness every day. It helps me to accept. Rejection Is Christ's rejection.

I unknowingly reject people and or people. Sometimes we just don't look at someone or notice someone. They feel offended. We've got to live above offence. It says love covers a multitude of sin and offense, and help us take us down that offense and that rejection.

Michelle Rene': And rejecting others or rejecting ourselves. It's just the way Satan uses to destroy us and keep us from the abundant life that God promises. I want that abundance. So I mean. So we talk about it. Me, too. Talk about rejection. And then, you know, a key thing, a pivotal thing to do is forgive right? Another is to change our view.

You know of ourselves and other people, through what we think about literally, you're saying a tool and strategy would be to put stuff on like index cards, put it through the house, saturate your mind with good things right, and then from there we end up serving other people out of our experiences because they are not wasted by God.

When we are going through a trial or adversity, my, or plenty of other people who are struggling that I've heard their stories as a therapist are grappling with why, God would allow things? Or how could this be? Their life for winning a different anything, a different marriage, a different, any, a different career, a different calling, and really struggling to, you know, do the opposite of rejection, which is acceptance, acceptance of what's happened, acceptance of who they are and acceptance of where their life is going.

Once we get to that place, and we're serving other people in the awareness that we've received, you know. Then we've come full circle, because I truly have seen in my life, your life and many other women women's lives, that God is writing a story. God is writing a story when he doesn't step in. God is writing a story when he chooses to let us go through a season of difficulty. God is writing a story on our hearts and lives when he does finally give us an answer or an Aha! We've been in the pressure cooker just long enough, and then bam.

He knows what he's doing because he has plans for us in Jeremiah 29, he says, you know plans for pro to prosper us plans to get stupid of future not to harm us, and and when we're going through that literally got it's like God is teaching us through our circumstances. Things we need to know about ourselves the truth of his word and things we need to know to handle life in a wise, abundant way, which is beautiful. And I think, when we get there, there's so much freedom and joy in that journey, and you help so many other people. Now, Maria, can you talk about some of the things that you do? I really think the women would want to know.

Maria: Well, one of the things that I is a great joy in my heart is about. During the pandemic we started. I felt like we're supposed to take prayer. We've been praying online as a church, you know, ever from Facebook, live every day, and then just felt God say, take it to the streets, take it out to the downtown. I live in downtown Santa Rosa, California.

We started just with a few of us, and we go down, and you know that's where all the homeless hangout that's where someone's brother, sister, father, they they all, you know, have either rejected themselves or been rejected by family. That's where they hang. Out we go, we pray, we worship, we minister, and I have to say, if I didn't have those early experiences of rejection. I might not have that hard to seek out the outcast, the lonely,

I mean Jesus is in all those people, and III just have this deep desire to mine out the treasure, and people to look them in the eye, to call them by name, and to, I guess, as a little girl.

I always heard the story, Mother Teresa, and how she didn't want anyone to die without seeing the face of God, and that smile and the love of God expressed to them in a way that was tangible with food or caring for their sick bodies. And I think that put that desire my heart. So we go down there. That's part of what we do is to bring food to bring food to bring the blanket to wash the feet of some of them, and they can be kinda nasty looking feet. But we just feel like we're that's Jesus down there. We're called to go to the highways environment and gather them in.

And then, you know, II still work in the schools I substitute, and I have. I see the kids sitting on the bench alone. I see the Maria's out there and even right now. I'm one on one with a little boy that has all kinds of behavior problems. They all have something common. Usually it's early childhood trauma, social isolation. And even if you look at the the profiles of the mass shooters and all these horrific shootings we've had in schools another one. They have 3 things in common early childhood trauma, the social isolation. Usually they were bullied.

And so I'm on a mission to teach them how to forgive, to how to process their heartache and negative emotion and learn friendship skills. That's a part of what I do, too, because this one little boy I'm currently working with that. He has no friends. And so I'm trying to model to him what friendship looks like and help him, so that you know we're meant to have friends. Everyone. Jesus said, I no longer call you service. I call you friends. He had his 3 closest and is 12. We're not meant to do life alone, so I'm on a mission there as well, and you know

I think of Joseph a lot. He's one of my Biblical characters I can identify with, because he had so much rejection from his family, you know, from the false accusations there was why, from being neglect in the prison, and yet all that turned around for good, and he said.

You know, to his brother's, finally, that was the enemy intended for evil. God work for good, and I just wanna encourage people that if we present the rejection, if we bring it to the cross and not hide it and not stuff it. He's gonna make something beautiful out of it. I love my life now. I love the joy I get to experience,

I mean. Sure, were there times in my teenage years, II even thought of taking my life. I just thought this despair and depression is so intense, and I would have missed out on all this beauty and joy that I get to enjoy now. And I just I wanna encourage people that also when we feel rejected to find somebody else who's hurting and go out and serve them because we're meant to feel joy when we do that.

Michelle Rene: And it really is a way we can share in one another's burdens and relieve some of our own suffering by caring for somebody else. It really is a got equation. That's how it works so so much, Maria, I think, you know, like we've talked about you know forgiveness. We talked about renewing our mind, you know which is CBT. For clinicians out there. We've talked about, you know, service oriented, or, you know, getting our eyes off ourselves and one to others, and believing that what we've been through has purpose, and that gives meaning and significance to our life. And ultimately, also, you know what you're saying, too, about just how we move forward using Gods word and rooting ourselves in Him.

Even though they can be the ones rejecting us, not our circumstances, not our history, not anything but what God says. He's the only thing that doesn't change is the only thing that isn't shifting sand. His words, the only thing that's the same yesterday today and tomorrow. And you're safe that way. And I think that's beautiful, that you're reminding us of that, because there's a lot of people who queue in, who are Christians looking for hope, who are in seasons of rejection.

Now we're coming out of it, dealing with the aftermath of the despair, you know, and her trying to make some sense and point, you know, points and principles out of what's happened to them. And it's such a powerful topic because it has such impact. The enemy needs it for evil. But, like you said in the story of Joseph that God meant it for good. And that's so key, because Joseph wasn't looking at his, his brothers and his family, and saying you meant it, you know, he was saying, satan meant it for evil, and that is a powerful thing for me personally, that my daughter reminds me of all the time that when something's happening.

It's not that person, they're deceived. What they're doing is is because they've been deceived, and they're acting out of their hurt and pain, and it's not necessarily they're out on a mission to destroy us, even though it feels like that.

Maria: Yes ,I really like I call it heart hygiene. What? Because Scripture and proverbs. What are my favorite? It says above all else, above everything that's important word, that phrase above all else, guard your heart because it's the offspring of life. So I really want like to help people examine what's going on in your heart? You know. Is there bitterness there? Is there resentment? Is there unforgiveness? Is there self hatred? Is there so pity? What what needs to get out of it? So love can live there, because that's what we were ultimately created for, and that's why it's my favorite.

We were created to give and receive love. And when we've been heard or rejected, we build those walls, and they really affect our relation with God and other people. So I really love to help people identify the walls and the beliefs and take them down because nobody should live without love in their hearts, and have the joy of both giving it to other people and receiving it.

Michelle Rene: Freeing us from the things were stuck in literally. I don't know about you, Maria, but when I was younger and I was journeying through some of the things that I was using to just free me really, the things that I struggle with for really areas of breakthrough, and I can honestly tell people now. I wouldn't change it. You know. There was so many years where I was struggling with God and asking him to take certain things away, or deliver me from things, or change things, and then, when you like, wave that white flag of surrender to him. He's now not just my true Savior. But my Lord!

And I really saw the gifts in the in the grit and the struggle. And we get to do what we do now, I wouldn't change it. And then, really keeping that faith and hope that that we said earlier that God does have a good purpose for things is something that we can hold onto when they're we're in the midst of grappling with whatever we are going through at the time. I think that's so powerful. But it, Le, it leads us to where we are today doing some of the things we're doing and helping people.

And we really do have to be careful, becausewe can still get deceived right? And that's why we another discipline we use as Christians is to just stay in the word, you know. Be practicers of it right, praising God, praying to God all those things. But as clinicians we tell people of any faith background you have to find your lane. You have to find your lane, and you have to keep at it because you can slip backwards and then call backsliding, or just, you know.

going in a new direction that you didn't mean to end up in, because feelings are so

so powerful. Yeah.

And some people live life based on how they feel. And it's just quick, right? We don't even know it. I mean, I'm I'm in the struggles and being deceived and believing lies, and didn't even know it. I thought it was true. What people said about me, what people did to me. I thought it was true, and I'm sure planning. And people listening did, too. Just like you did, Maria, just like I did.

And freedom is found in getting through that hurt with some of the principles we talk about today, and there's more that we can do. Yes, but we don't have a lot of time to unpack all of it. So I would like to say, Maria, for you if you had something to say as a closing final thing. You know one rejection when it's hurting, and people who are currently really hurting. Would you want to share?

Maria: I would just say that I would want to remind people that forgiveness brings freedom. and what it does is free your heart so it can give and receive love, and that's the key is to really examine your heart. In psalm 51, David says, Lord, you search me and show me. Show me what's in our heart cause we are deceived, and we have blind spots. We need the Lord, the Holy Spirit, and even other people, sometimes to reveal those things.

Because you were made for love, and I don't want anyone to being loved and and cause there's joy in both of it. We were. It's an exchange for giving and receiving, and so I just don't want any any listener to be trapped in funorgiveness because it hinders that ability, and it diminishes their hearts capacity for love.

Michelle Rene: Yes, it does. So we're at the end of the day. Guys. Thank you. Maria Crane. Thank you for coming today. Thank you for all you do, you know, teaching and praying and your coaching program.

When we do the conversion to our podcast on spotify, you can also find it on Youtube. You can find it on Roku, and on the Women network. I am Michelle Renee on Breakthrough Today with Michelle Renee, where we hope to get you your next breakthrough. Take care everybody.