Spiritual Things Matter

When one finally accepts themselves exactly as they are, then and only then, will fear of rejection disappear. ~Viola Jaynes

Rejection is one of those hurdles that everyone will encounter at some point in their life.  It is an illusion that one must learn to use to their advantage in order to grow and learn.

I have seen many good people who, through their encounters with those who rejected them, have accumulated great self-doubt.  It has been painful for them to be completely themselves because fear of rejection has paralyzed them.

Because I experienced rejection as a baby and toddler through parental neglect and then finally being placed in an orphanage, rejection has been acutely painful for me almost all of my life.  Although I have been graced with the strength to follow my own heart - not having the need to be in the in-crowd, so to speak, I have nevertheless experienced profound feelings of rejections in my life.  How does one handle such pain when it comes?  For each one it will be different.

I have often thought about the phenomenon of rejection.  The fear of it.  The falsity of it.  The illusion of it.  And, the amazing potential it has within its make-up to create something in an individual to want to press beyond its pain.  Rejection can be a worthy and fierce enemy.

There is no human being on this earth, no matter how beautiful, how handsome, how powerful, how controlled, how intelligent, or how rich, who does not suffer from the wounds of their own mortality.  Each one of us is deeply wounded.  Therefore, I believe, the rejection of another is an illusion!  It is an illusion precisely because the need to place anyone on a platform reveals our lack of understanding of who we are – or, who they are.

Those who appear to be so in control of themselves struggle as much with their own humanity as we do with ours. Too often we look at men and women who appear larger then ourselves, thinking that they somehow have it all together.  They too have their struggles and their own burdens to carry. Because we have to cope with life, hold down jobs and households, raise children and tend to the responsibilities of life, we have learned to wear our mask secure and tight.  This mask even alienates us from our self.  Because we are not in touch with our true self we hand our own power over to others too easily.  It only adds to the complexity of really knowing ourselves.

Respect is earned!

When one is truly accepted and respected by someone, there is no need to build them up greater in our mind than what they really are.  They will, through their respect for us,  reveal their own humanity freely.  I believe this to be a form of true greatness and humility.  Respect then becomes mutual because the fear of rejection has been taken away.  We can be ourselves and we realize that acceptance is profoundly healing!

When we begin the process of waking  up to this gift we call  “life,” we come to know ourselves much better. We begin to truly learn who and what we are.  Fear of rejection lessens the more we wake up to ourselves.  For some this can take a life time.    I love what the French philosopher and writer, Teilhard de Chardin, once said: ” We are not human beings having a spiritual experience.  We are spiritual beings having a human experience.”  Waking up to life and to ourselves can come to us in many different forms – often in the form of pain.  Rejection is one of them; it is one of man’s greatest fears!  Everyone fears it and we do what ever it takes to flee from it as far as possible.  Even if it means not participating in life itself.

There is something about pain that causes us to give heed to what is happening; we begin to pay attention.  We start listening to our deeper self.  Pain often serves as  a wake up call.  We begin to search for answers - often calling out to God for assistance and mercy.    It it then that we begin to see with another eye - a spiritual eye.  We can now begin to understand life on a different level. Fear of rejection by other mortal men no matter how grant they might appear becomes less painful and less dramatic.  We see it for what it is.  A falsity!

We must never allow ourselves to be housed in by the limitations and expectations of others, nor by their criticism of us or suspicions of us, which are all too often unwarranted.  People will project themselves unto us and it would behoove us to understand this.  No one knows us better than ourselves!  Learning to listen to that still, small voice within our own hearts is the beginning to finding a more sure way for ourselves in this world.

Our inner landscape is rich and generous!  Nurturing ourselves to heal the wounds that we have allowed others to inflict upon us will be a process that will bring us closer to our true self again - closer to God.

We all know the areas we need to grow in but we also know our own strength.  It is time to allow that true Self to emerge and to experience life in the way it was meant for us live.   If we learn to nurture ourselves in this way – life will nurture us!  We will at last experience a much more harmonious existence for ourselves.

Within you there is a stillness and a sanctuary to which you can retreat at any time and be yourself.  ~Herman Hesse

I wish each of my dear readers blessings in abundance!

Oh, that silence! That which so intensifies my pain.
Silence drives me to search for a voice that brings comforting reassurance and understanding to a heart that cannot speak. A voice of one who knows the pain of too much love and too much brokenness. A voice of one who understands the human heart with all its potential for light and darkness. This voice I listen for will speak like a slow in-coming wave, with its powerful and majestic thunder-like peace.

It will say:

Speak and withhold nothing.
Speak clearly of that which lies so heavy upon your heart.
Speak, and I will listen, intently and thoughtfully.

Do not hold back, but speak – you who are like a broken arrow,
that you may once again pierce through the impossible.
That you may fly with precision and purpose through that infinite distance
for which you have been created.
Speak, though your chin may quiver as the forces are loosened and the dams are broken.
Speak, oh broken arrow, that you may land in that which has found its purpose in you.

Oh, let that deep wound heal now!
Let your weeping voice pour out;
Let each drop of those tears fill the hollow spaces that your wound has brought to light. May those spaces feel the warmth of your tears
As they penetrate through the driest barriers,
And let its salt become as a healing ointment, filling all empty spaces with understanding and love.

Speak!

Withhold not your deepest of thoughts.
For if you withhold even one thought,
it awaits again, in a silent reservoir
Filling it with your tears as your heart weeps once more,
For it has no place to go but deeper within you,
Making still deeper and wider those empty spaces.

Speak therefore!
Find your long-awaited peace!
Speak now.

~Viola M. Jaynes
March 2008

Sandy Carlson is a blogger friend that often visits my site. I have admired her work as well as her artistic abilities in writing, poetry, graffiti, photography, and making slides. You may visit her site here. She is not only a gifted individual but she also has a very gentle and kind spirit. I appreciate her very much and I wanted to post this essay she wrote. Well done, Sandy!

If you hear a voice within you say ‘you cannot paint,’ then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced. (Vincent Van Gogh)

Acceptance and rejection are two sides of a coin that must be invested and reinvested in the creative process. They are insights, holes in the walls that isolate us from the world around us and let in the light of understanding.

It can take time to assimilate both acceptance and rejection and avoid the pitfall of becoming complacent in response to the former and inactive in response to the latter. This can be difficult because artists are vulnerable at every turn in the creative process. They have expressed whatever is true and real in themselves in the truest, most real way possible, and they await a response. Will you stop and look? Give it a thought? Do you get it? Do you care?

On Sunday, I attended a forum on acceptance and rejection at Wisdom House. There, a panel of five artists–sculptor Joy Brown, poet Davyne Verstandig, visual artist and writer Florin Firimita, actress Cady McClain, and music director Tim Stella discussed the place of acceptance and rejection in their lives. Two reflections struck a chord with me.

One came from Florin Firimita. He talked about an experience about 18 years ago, shortly after he had emigrated from Romania to the US via Italy. He had been sitting for five hours with a gallery owner who had seen his work. At the end of the conversation, the gallery owner told him he wouldn’t show Firimita’s work–flowers and landscapes–because it was, he said, wall paper. He told the young artist he didn’t believe his body of work reflected who he was. Firimita spent a year thinking about what this provocative statement could mean. Ultimately, he discovered the gallery owner was right, and he changed his direction as an artist. His florals and landscapes gave way to psychological landscapes that explore the universal themes of identity, love, death, loss, reality, dreams and memories.

The other came from sculptor Joy Brown. She talked about her time in Japan as an apprentice sculptor. She had thrown countless sake cups, but not a one pleased her teacher. So off they went to the dump. The student had more to offer, and the teacher was not willing to settle before she realized it for herself. Accepting that meant accepting a broader horizon full of possibilities. She discovered later, though, that the man who had managed the dump had rescued her little cups from the rubbish and displayed them around his hut. They pleased him; he found them beautiful. These cups were works of art for him though they were merely a step in a broader creative process for Brown.

I’ve known acceptance and rejection. They feel the same to me. I prefer that moment when I am creating and nobody is around and the voice inside says “yes.” I don’t always here it, and it doesn’t last long; it doesn’t have to. The “yes” is the air in the cushion that protects me from the pain of rejection and even the painful challenge of acceptance. The “yes” tells me what I have done is true and good right now. And it asks, “Will you come with me, please?”

It is not God’s will merely that we should be happy, but that we should make ourselves happy. ~ Immanuel Kant

Ah, what a breath of fresh air this young man’s singing was to my heart. As I sat and watched Paul Potts sing, I realized that he embodied what my continuous growing belief-system is: we all have choices in our lives. We do not have to succumb to a “victim mentality” at any point or time. We can choose to take any circumstance that comes our way and look at it from a powerfully new and refreshing point of view. In all things, I believe, there are lessons to be learned. This young man spoke to the deepest part of my heart as he displayed his belief in himself and the gift that had been given to him, as well as a determination to never give up.

A number of years ago, I attended a week-long seminar that was entitled, “Exceptional Women.” I was moved to observe that each woman there had a story to tell and all were trying to find a better way to function as women, as wives, as lovers, and as human beings. Instead of falling into depression, feelings of helplessness, incessant worry, or allowing obsessive thoughts and behavior to rule their lives, these women had decided to take responsibility for their own happiness. I was deeply moved as I saw these courageous women display such honesty and a genuine desire to change.

Abraham Lincoln once said, “Most folks are as happy as they make up their minds to be.”

Choosing happiness over chronic anger, frustration, complaining and constant fear, is a much wiser choice to make. It has long been realized that emotions have an enormous effect on our bodies. I am a firm believer that as human beings, it is important to express our emotions fully. To feel anger and fear, for example, is part of our human make-up. These emotions serve us well and help guide many of our decision-making processes. However, it is when we choose to get stuck in these feelings and not grow beyond them, or when we forget to be truly thankful for the many blessings that we have been given in our daily lives, that we are placed in danger of illnesses of all sorts – be it physical, emotional or even mental.

Fear of rejection and abandonment has been one of the more poignant issues that I have had to face. This fear was more deeply ingrained in me than even I could understand. It was a fear that could debilitate me to the point where I would witness events happening around me that, under normal circumstances, I would never allow to happen. That which I feared the most would come upon me, and I would once again begin to feel so broken. However, I also understand that situations come into our lives when we are ready and ripe enough to handle them. I knew that it was time for me to look at “rejection”and “abandonment” square in the face and to have the courage to ask myself some very hard and painful questions. I found out that it could not destroy me, nor could it shatter the strong spirit that I had been given. Most of all, however, it could not destroy my faith.

Choosing happiness over misery takes only one thing: – being truly honest with one’s self, which means to be willing to look at every detail of our life and ask ourselves if this is really the very best that we want to be. Most of us will find something in our lives that we would rather change for the better. When we make these changes, we will become more accepting and loving towards others. It will make us much more able to reach out with kindness and acceptance – that so many people desperately need. The choice is always ours…always.

Choosing to live a much happier life empowers a person to do things they never thought were possible. It gives them the energy and vitality to explore new possibilities. It gives them an odd sense of creativity that they never even knew they had. It will allow one to tap into a higher realm that has always existed but was not realized because our vision was focused on the lower things of this earth.

Paul Potts has indeed set a great example. As Minnie Pearl’s teacher once said, “Bruise your fingertips on the points of stars.” So, do go ahead and reach for those things that you really want in your life. Do go ahead and dare to dream big dreams and challenge yourself to live as happily as you can live. That takes true courage! You might be truly astounded at what all is possible and waiting there for you.

I wanted to add this last clip since Paul Potts won. Congratulations to you Paul! I wish you God’s very best for the rest of your life! You have truly touched my heart.