“I should rarely confront other people or assert my own thoughts and feelings because I might hurt someone’s feelings.” This is the proper order of things if … we want to increase the amount and impact of fear in our lives. Living in “fear of the possibility” of other’s “rejection” of us, raises the odds that we will actually experience what we call “rejection”.
We have been trained since early childhood to translate “refusal” into “rejection”; to make an outside “no thank you” into an internal “I am no good”. When my son, Josh, was five or six years old he bounced into the kitchen looking for a cookie snack. When I asked how many he wanted, he replied “twenty”. “Oh no, I don’t think so,” I said, “that’s too many. You may have two or three cookies." Which he translated as “that’s no cookies for you buddy” and he stomped upstairs to his room, up to his bedroom sounding every single … one … of the …STEPS … ONE …AT… A …TIME.
The refusal of twenty and the offer of two or three were taken as rejection (and quite unhappily personally at that). He stayed in his room for several hours and the time fed the feeling of rejection even more because there was no backup cookie stash in his room. (A situation I found that he had corrected several years later.) Rejection, real or presumed, is an attack on our very personhood. Refusal, however, is just “no thank you”. To confuse the two has dramatic and deep consequences.
All God’s children have a right to refusal, the fundamental control over their own journey, to say politely and clearly “no thank you”. And there are the rubs: the politely and clearly parts. Many children were, and are, spoken to by adults in ways those same adults would rarely speak to other adults nor would they wish to spoken to in those ways. As free creations, we may even say “no” to God – a spiritual life journey is a voluntary commitment.
Too many children, hear too many angry adult voices that fail to delineate the difference between behavior (what we do) and being (what and who we are as a child of God). We grow up thinking that neither what we do nor what we are count for anything good. And too many adults still hear those angry voices in their head long after the voices have disappeared from the world. The clarity of communication that most of us learn is sadly lacking and negative it its consequences even if ostensibly neutral in its intent. “Do you think you ought to go to bed now?” “No, thank you, I think I’ll stay up.” “Are you sure you want another helping of ice cream and cake?” “Yes, I am sure, thank you very much for asking.”
Rational re-frame: “When I share my thoughts and feelings honestly and openly, it will probably help me communicate more effectively in the long run. People are given growth opportunities through honest and caring dialogue.” This is the spiritual and psychological goal set for us by Paul in his letter to the church at Ephesus: “But speaking the truth in love, WE MUST GROW UP IN EVERY WAY into him who is the head, into Christ.” (Ephesians 4:15, CEV)
The rational, healthy filter is for each of us to speak the truth in love, and to take in to our core selves, only those messages from others that are also spoken in love. Then, with decades of regular practice (and the world will give us ample opportunity to practice) we will minimize the amount of fear of refection, the fear of any kind, in our spiritual journey. “There is no fear in love” (John 4:18, CEV). Listen to the angels: “Fear not.”
Next, the final part of this series: Relationship Dependence, “In order to be fulfilled as a human being, I must have lots of close friends and intimate relationships.” If this series has raised questions for you or stimulated thought and growth, please comment and I will respond. Thank