Repurposing Pain || The Journey Through Rejection

Summary

In this episode of the Higher Pursuit podcast, host Cecily Lachapelle discusses the theme of repurposing pain, specifically focusing on the pain of rejection. She shares personal stories of her experiences with rejection, particularly during her school years, and how these experiences shaped her identity. Cecily emphasizes the importance of a relationship with Jesus in overcoming feelings of rejection and fear. She also explores the neuroscience behind our perceptions and reactions to rejection, offering practical steps for listeners to repurpose their pain and build a stronger self-worth through faith. The episode concludes with a prayer for those struggling with rejection and an encouragement to pursue a deeper relationship with Jesus.

Takeaways

• Everyone experiences rejection at some point in life.
• Our response to rejection determines our emotional health.
• Rejection can lead to cycles of negative self-perception.
• Personal experiences of rejection can shape our identity.
• A relationship with Jesus is crucial for overcoming rejection.
• Journaling can help process feelings of rejection.
• Understanding neuroscience can aid in managing rejection.
• Perfect love, as found in Jesus, casts out fear.
• We must prioritize developing an intimate relationship with Jesus.
• Rejection can open opportunities for growth and healing.

Sound Bites

"It was the first time that I dealt with Mean Girls."
"Only the one who created you has the right to say who you are."
"Jesus is that friend and his unwavering love is key."
"Perfect love casts out fear."
"Jesus with you is good. Jesus in you is best."
"Rejection is not going to crush us if we don't let it."
"The pursuit of Jesus is the highest pursuit of our lives."

Keywords

rejection, pain, healing, Jesus, personal growth, faith, identity, self-worth, neuroscience, journaling

Purchase your copy of Repurpose Your Pain today! https://higherpursuitministries.com/repurposeyourpain/

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Repurposing Pain
• 7:15 Personal Stories of Rejection
• 15:46 The Role of Jesus in Overcoming Rejection
• 20:04 Neuroscience and Rejection
• 27:23 Practical Steps to Repurpose Rejection
• 30:11 Prayer and Closing Thoughts
• 59:00 Understanding Rejection and Its Impact

Transcript

Transcript

Cecily Lachapelle (00:00.352)

and welcome to the Higher Pursuit podcast. I'm so glad you joined us. I'm your host, Cecily LaChapelle, and I'm a Bible lover, a follower of Jesus, and the author of the book, Repurpose Your Pain. If you're looking for content that will encourage you and build you up in your walk with Jesus, and sometimes challenge you, then you have tuned into the right podcast. In case you're new here, the series that we're in right now is called

No surprise, repurposing our pain. And today I'm gonna be talking about repurposing the pain of rejection. And I wanna also let you know, I wanna give you a heads up that you don't wanna miss the next episode next week because I'm going to have a very special guest, worship leader and recording artist, Hope Shanley on the show. And she's gonna open up to us about her experience with painful rejection and how she's repurposing that pain.

into a closer walk with the Lord. So you don't want to miss that. OK, so let's dive into our topic today on rejection. And I'm actually going to crack open the book a bit because I feel like there were some things that other people wrote that I quoted and some things that I wrote that I think would apply to our conversation today. So first of all, I'm to start at the very beginning of the chapter where I quoted Bible teacher Joyce Meyer when she says this.

Nobody goes through life totally escaping moments of feeling rejected. That's just a fact. Everyone experiences some rejection. However, if there's been enough of it to leave scars, it may cause the individual not only to function abnormally in his relationship with others, but also in his relationship to God. I think that is such an important point for us to talk about.

because rejection is something like she said, we're all going to experience and it's our response to rejection that is going to determine whether we survive it, thrive through it, or whether it actually changes our thoughts about ourselves and like Joyce Meyer said, our behaviors. And so some of us may actually be looping in self-created

Cecily Lachapelle (02:28.68)

cycles of rejection because something happened one time and it changed our perception. It changed how we feel about ourselves and our behavior. And now we're triggering rejection without even knowing that. So I'll tell you like the example that for my life, when rejection really hit home in a way that started to change who I was. And that was when I experienced

bullying in middle school. It completely blindsided me. I was one of those like happy-go-lucky kids and I thought the world was my oyster. I was an only child so I hadn't experienced how kids can speak to each other. Sometimes they can be mean. Sometimes they can say nasty things because they're frustrated and they're immature and they don't know how to communicate.

Sometimes if you're playing with neighborhood kids, there might be some groups that are super tight for a season and then they reconnect with other kids. I had none of that experience. I lived on like 70 acres of land growing up out in the middle of nowhere with just myself and my imagination and some friends from time to time and then my school chums. And so when I got to sixth grade, I was not prepared for these two girls that decided.

that they had it in for me. I don't know why. I don't think I did anything to them, but I was just their target the entire year. And it was so painful. I mean, obviously it's immature. I'm not even gonna bore you with the details of the things that they did because this was pre-social media. So the things were things like writing notes about me or.

leaving ugly pictures of me places, getting the whole class, and we were in a small school, so getting the entire class to turn against me. So I only had one friend left by the end of that year, and even she sort of like was friends from a distance. So the isolation, the rejection, the vulnerability that I felt, that my entire life could be ripped away by a couple people that decided

Cecily Lachapelle (04:48.91)

for a reason that is still a mystery to me, that they didn't want me, that they didn't like me, and that it was actually fun for them. It was sport to watch me cry, to watch me be isolated and alone. And so it was the first time that I dealt with Mean Girls. And it changed me. Where I had been confident, I had been loving and outgoing.

All of a sudden I became quiet because I mean every single thing I said they found a reason to mock it. So why would I talk? I questioned every outfit I wore, how I did my hair and it didn't matter no matter what I wore, no matter how I did my hair, even if I tried to be just like them, I got mocked, completely mocked. And so it got me into this cycle going into my high school years of

looking around thinking who has the power in this situation and how do I Ingratiate myself with the person who has power That's really sad. That is really sad because first of all in any situation the person who has power should be you You should have the power over your emotions over your perspective over your feelings of yourself

And that power should be coming from the word of God and from our relationship with Jesus, because the one like we discussed in repurposing our broken identity, only the one who created you has the right to say who you are. So the haters and the detractors, you know, who are they? They probably aren't even gonna be in our lives 10 or 20 years from now. And so how do they get the right to say,

You're a loser. I get to reject you. I can treat you like garbage. You're not worthy of my respect or of me being nice to you. And so, and through all of those experiences of middle school, I, and because I didn't know Jesus yet and because my identity just blew apart, you can read the story about that in the chapter on identity, but my entire identity was frail.

Cecily Lachapelle (07:15.109)

as it was going into high school, completely crumbled in high school. And so I just tried to adopt whatever identity would protect me from rejection. I lived between two pains, the pain of losing myself and the pain of rejection. But when I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior and I began reading the Bible and renewing my mind,

about who God created me to be and how He loved who I was as a unique child of God, it started fortifying me. I didn't recognize it. I didn't realize it. I I accepted Jesus because my life was in absolute shambles because I had burned everything to the ground. I burned opportunities for college to the ground. I burned my reputation with my parents and neighbors and friends to the ground.

I had burned my self-respect to the ground. So I called out to Jesus from this place of, you even want this mess? I found out that he did. But so when I accepted Jesus, I wasn't trying to rebuild my identity or restore my self-worth. I wasn't trying to find my uniqueness as a child of God, but that was

the happy side effect. And so one of the things that I noticed was that the fear of experiencing rejection slowly lost its foothold in my heart. So that changed my motivations and my behaviors. It was an incredible change that happened to me. Now, granted, some of it happened over time, but then a lot of it actually happened pretty quick.

So let me tell you another story. So now we're talking my senior year of high school. And I accepted the Lord the night before I went back from my senior year. And there was zero Christian support at my school. So thank God, before I even got saved, I had met a youth pastor in passing on Martha's Vineyard and his church happened to be right in the town where my boarding school was.

Cecily Lachapelle (09:39.453)

So right when I got back to school as a brand new born again believer, I called him up and I said, hey, I'm back in town. Any chance I can go to church? And he said, sure, my wife and I will pick you up. And so I started going to that church. He had an amazing Bible study and I was so hungry for the word. I was just devouring it.

and I would call him, we had this like phone booth, this is crazy, this is how dated, how old I am. I can't believe I'm saying this. We actually had a phone booth in our dorm building. Yes, I said phone booth. This is so far before cell phones, but not even like a little phone on a table. I mean, I suppose it was because, you you've got a lot of girls in the dorm and there's a lot of noise and...

So the phone booth provided some privacy if somebody wanted to make a call. But my Atlanta, I was thinking about the other day, like a phone booth. I actually have experience with that in my life. Anyway, moving on. So I would call him from this phone booth or his wife with questions about the Bible. And God bless him. He was so excited to take my calls. And here he's got this like teenager that's super hungry for the word.

So I started bringing some friends from school to church with me and this group grew. Now, then I started teaching them. So I would learn something in youth group and I would have a meeting in my dorm room for anybody that wanted to pray. We had tons of pressure at that school. It was a lot, it was a very, very prestigious school academically and in a lot of areas. And we were all under a lot of

pressure from our course load and just the expectations that we lived under going to this expensive school that our families were really having to sacrifice to send us to. And so there was plenty to pray about. And as we would be praying in our dorm room, I would just share what I had learned. And sometimes they'd ask me questions I didn't know. And I'd go to the phone booth and call Chris and he'd answer my questions. Anyway, I say all this to say that

Cecily Lachapelle (11:56.843)

The group in my room grew to such a degree. Now we never, we weren't out there Bible thumping in the classes or the cafeteria or the sports fields. We were not condemning anyone. We were just super excited about what Jesus was doing. And that for the first time we were seeing answered prayer. We were seeing relationships restored. We were seeing God do things that like as a high school student we needed like.

please help me study for this test to stay awake, to do well, to get into this college or whatever. We were just seeing God answering certain prayers that mattered to us at the time. And without being judgmental, coming down on other students, it turned out that there were a number of students that were intimidated by us and they felt threatened by the fact that we were meeting privately in my room.

It wasn't like we were having these big assemblies saying everybody who is not going to hell, you can meet in the blah, blah, blah auditorium and all of you sinners who are going to hell don't even bother. I mean, we weren't doing anything like that. We were having this quiet meeting of excited new believers in my room and just living our lives, our new lives out in our world, like in the classes and on the sports field.

And so people were getting intimidated. It was like reverse peer pressure. We were somehow putting pressure on them, I guess. And what was so interesting about that is that when I found out that I was being talked about, that I was being maligned, that there were teachers and counselors at the school who were pulling me aside to say, Cecily, you might want to tone this down. Tone this down?

I'm not doing anything and no, I'm sorry. I'm not gonna tone it down because maybe somebody might need to hear what God did in my life. So I'm not gonna tone it down for the couple people that are coming to you complaining about this. But the old me could never have stood up to that little fraction of persecution that I experienced, that resistance.

Cecily Lachapelle (14:18.849)

of the faculty and the students against what God was doing in my life and the fact that I was talking about it. I would have crumbled into a million pieces. I would have twisted myself up into pretzel knots because I assume, because in a school like that, those are the people with the power. No, I knew where my power came from and I knew who really had the power in my life. And I was so grateful.

for what Jesus had done in my life. There was no way I was gonna shut up. No way. So those, that's what I'm talking about. The work that Jesus did in me by taking somebody who had so much fear of rejection that I was doing all the wrong things, looking for love and all the wrong places and pursuing all the wrong kinds of self-esteem boosters, like drinking before I went to a party just so I felt good about myself.

and all the crazy things that I was doing before Jesus. And then to find out that within just a few short months, the Lord had done such a huge work in me that I could stand up to that kind of persecution and rejection as a brand spanking new believer. It's pretty amazing. That's what God will do. All right, so now I wanna read from page 130 in the book and

So it says the newspaper columnist and radio host Walter Winchell is quoted as saying, a real friend is one who walks in when the rest of the world walks away. And the Bible, it takes that one step further by saying in Proverbs 18, 24, one who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there's a friend who sticks closer than a brother. Dear one.

Jesus is that friend and his completely unwavering love and acceptance of you is not just a happy thought or bumper sticker theology. His love and acceptance of you are the only things that are going to matter when you take your last breath. In those moments, his open arms are going to be the firmest ground of faith you ever stood on. Whereas the priority of people's approval

Cecily Lachapelle (16:44.341)

is going to evaporate like the morning haze. So that's something that, that's a truth that you can only come to when you know the Lord. And if you don't know the Lord, then I encourage you to turn to Him today. He is the maker of your life. He is the one who designed you from the inside out. He knows every thought you've ever had and He loves you completely. He's the one

that knows you the most and loves you with the most faithfulness. knowing Jesus is really the only way that we can cut ourselves free from the torment of the fear of rejection. And it really is a torment because we know that we're not being true to ourself when we're trying so hard to self-protect.

And another thing that can happen is that we can put up walls of isolation. Why would you let anybody close if you live in so much fear of rejection, especially if that rejection came from somebody very close to you? And of course, that's the rejection that really hurts, right? I mean, yes, the rejection that I experienced from those two girls in my class really stung, but in thinking back about it,

It didn't sting so much. Their rejection didn't sting as badly as the rejection that came when some friends that I thought were my good buddies fell in line with those girls. And they rejected me. They didn't stand by me. And again, later on in my life, when my marriage fell apart, because my ex-husband decided that he wanted somebody else and not me, that rejection

could have absolutely decimated me. But because Jesus had been drawing me and drawing me so close over that year, when the final blow came, I had a confidence in the love of Jesus. And I was so, I was in such a cadence of just running into his arms.

Cecily Lachapelle (19:06.035)

every time something painful happened because it wasn't just this one rejection that came. was, it was a whole, buildup of rejection over time. And as I was taking those rejections to the Lord, when the final blow came, I thought I was going to fall apart and lose my mind and just go cuckoo, but the Lord held me and I was able to allow him to hold me.

together when the worst thing happened. All right, so now we're gonna look at some quotes. I don't know if you're familiar with the wonderful neuroscientist, Dr. Caroline Leaf. Her work is just stunning. Anything she writes is a powerful and good read. So she takes the science, the neuroscience of the brain, and she layers that with scripture.

and shows us how God has really created all of this. And he has really given us the ability to not just renew our thoughts, but she shows the science of being able to rewire our brain. And so in this press pause that I put on the chapter, I said, Dr. Caroline Leath, internationally known communication pathologist and audiologist writes this in her book titled, Switch On Your Brain. She said, our perception of the environment

plus how we manage our environment, controls our bodies and our lives. So if you change your perception, you change your biology, you become the master of your life instead of a victim. But don't do it without Christ. Remember, he is the vine from which we grow. The world may tell us that the mind is what the brain does, but God tells us.

that the brain will do what the mind tells it to do. And when your spirit under the leading of the Holy Spirit controls your soul, then the gold standard of thinking is achieved. And so in this press pause, I encourage you as the reader to in a journal or a note taking app on your device to describe the cause and effect process.

Cecily Lachapelle (21:32.299)

the doctor leaf is describing to us whereby we become the master of our lives rather than the victim of circumstances. And how does her assessment apply to the fear of rejection? So I actually described that process in when I should told shared my testimony with you of my senior year of high school, how my

The biology of my brain, the thought patterns of my brain had so been rewired by the Word of God. That is the only change that happened. That was the only change. I didn't go to a new school and have new friends. didn't move away and have a whole new group of people that I was interacting with. These were the same people that just six months before.

before we left for summer break, I was completely tied up in knots trying to please. And so the only thing that happened differently that changed my behavior, that changed my responses, that changed my thinking was my exposure to the word of God. It's unbelievable. So with rejection, we need to think what are we really afraid of and can we relate?

to any of these behaviors. See if you can relate to any of this. Do you have a hard time speaking up for what you believe because you fear that people will reject you? Do you have a hard time being authentic because you fear rejection if people don't like the real you? Or maybe you have a hard time saying no to people, ending up with more on your plate than you can handle and stress that is impacting your health.

Maybe you struggle with the fear that the person you love is going to leave you, even though you don't have a logical reason or evidence that they will. Maybe you project rejection into people's words and actions, even though they swear up and down that they didn't mean it that way. You know, I mentor a number of young women and I've noticed that this is a problem with a lot of young ladies today.

Cecily Lachapelle (24:00.481)

where they have not sufficiently repurposed the fear of rejection that they experienced in previous relationships. And they take that right with them into either their next relationship or a marriage. And what ends up by happening is this poor guy ends up by getting accused of all the things that Joe Blow did before him. He had nothing to do with it.

But because he's human, now of course he's probably just blindly doing some things that we do in relationships. But because of this young lady's past rejection, she's now projecting all that stuff on this poor, innocent guy. And so it's really important for our relationships that we repurpose that pain, that we do not stay locked in victimhood.

that we don't stay locked as prisoners of fear of rejection. We have to trust, but how can you trust? Because when you're dealing with people, people fail us, don't they? Nobody is perfect. And like Joyce Meyer said in that quote, we're all going to experience rejection. So what is the answer? The answer is understanding that no matter what happens, even if the person we think we cannot live without does,

the worst thing and reject us or leave us that Jesus is never going to leave us and that we are going to be okay. He is going to make sure that we are okay. And the only way that that can be enough for you is if you are encountering the presence of Jesus in a real way. I'm sorry, there is no other way around it.

If your relationship with Jesus is by ideas or concepts, if you go to a church and you listen to some sermons, you take some notes, maybe you do a U version Bible app, but you are not having personal encounters with Jesus Christ, you are not going to be able to make it in any fire. And it's only that intimate relationship with Jesus where you are so

Cecily Lachapelle (26:24.039)

overcome, maybe not every day, every minute, but you're having, you're building a history with God where you are seeing his faithfulness. You are seeing his goodness. You're feeling his kisses on your head. When things are hard, you're feeling him hold you when you are in a place of prayer and you are pouring out your fears, your worries, your concerns. When you feel his nearness in those times of adoration and worship.

It's only when we have those encounters with the Lord that we can not be afraid. The Bible clearly says perfect love casts out fear. And who is perfect love? Jesus. But it's not the idea of perfect love. It is a relationship with the one who is perfect love. So what are some of the things that we can do to

repurpose the fear of rejection. Well, the first one I just told you, we have to purposefully prioritize developing an intimate relationship with Jesus. And I don't have time in this podcast to go into what I'm even talking about if you don't know and in some of the ways that I am learning to do that. Well, that'll be another podcast, but just know that that's the most important thing.

that you can be doing is developing that personal relationship with Jesus. The second thing that helped me considerably is journaling. In times when I have been rejected, man, man, the feelings can swell. They can cause you to lose sleep, can cause you to spiral, not be able to focus, not be able to work.

because your mind is going, going, going, going, going. You're having conversations in the shower, you know, with somebody who's not even there saying, blah, blah, blah, blah. I mean, I'm going to tell you and one more thing. You we just do all these crazy things, don't we? When we've been rejected and we want, we want to clear it up. We want this to go away. We want to explain ourselves. We want that person to say, I was wrong. We want that person to say, oh, you're, you're great. I was wrong. And sometimes that just isn't going to happen.

Cecily Lachapelle (28:44.501)

So journaling has been and will always continue to be one of the main ways that I can pour out my feelings in a way that is actually gonna do something good. Because pouring out my feelings to someone else, even if that person is my husband, I've found, John and I have found that in situations when we're both in the exact same circumstance and we're both just as mad about what happened or we're both just as hurt by what happened.

where we're both just as confused. Sometimes our conversations make things worse. Neither one of us is in a place to help each other out. And so our conversation can go from bad to really bad quickly. And so my journal is that safe place. And it helps me identify my catastrophic thoughts, helps me question them, replace them with healthy, realistic thinking. And it's also where I can

write out scriptures that I need to put in my heart, stat, just like if you were sick and there was a medication and the doctor prescribed that medication, keeping that medication in the bottle does nothing for you. You need to get it in you. And so there's something that I always say, Jesus with you is good. Jesus in you is best. So we have to that.

we have to actually intimately connect with the presence of Jesus and with his voice in our heart and through the word. All right, so I'm going to pray for those of you who are listening to this podcast right now. Some of you might be in the middle of a very painful rejection, or maybe you've just come through that season, but you still sort of smell like smoke. You, you feel like

Yeah, I'm okay, I'm okay. But then something will come up and it'll trigger it and you feel like, man, I am right back to square one. When am I going to be able to get past this enough that I can never get triggered by that pain again? So I'm gonna pray for you right now. If you want to, can close your eyes, put your hand on your heart, whatever helps you really connect in this moment with

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your connect your heart to Jesus because he is listening. He is listening. You matter to him. Heavenly father, we come to you in the mighty name of Jesus. And I just thank you so much for the precious people who have tuned into this podcast and who have listened this far. I know they have listened to this much of this podcast because they are either in this cycle. They are either experiencing this pain.

or they know someone who is and their heart hurts for that person right now. Lord, I just lift them up to you and I ask you to show them who you are. Reveal yourself to them in spirit and in truth. Help them to have encounters with you, so they know how loved they are by you, that they know that they are uniquely fashioned by you.

that you have an amazing purpose for their lives, that no person, no devil in hell can shut down or stop, that greater is he that is in them than he that is in the world, and that if you are the alpha and the omega, the first word and the last word, all the jokers in between that have a different word altering from yours, you're gonna shut that down. And that rejection is not going to crush us if we don't let it.

All rejection is going to do is open up opportunities for us to watch you vindicate us and to execute justice on our behalf. You are a good God and you are desiring to heal their hearts right now of the fear of rejection and of the pain of that fear. You are trying to cauterize every raw nerve so that it can't get touched or triggered anymore.

So I thank you Lord that your presence is going through the airwaves right now. It is sealing up every open door that the enemy continues to walk through and bring his box of lies. We thank you Lord that your voice is going to become clearer. Your love is going to feel more real and that you transcend this current pain and you show

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these sweet listeners, who you are, and that you are a God who never fails. You are the God who will never forsake them, ever. In Jesus' I pray, amen. All right, wonderful tribe. Before we sign off, I wanna let you know that after I have the interview with Hope Shanley in our next episode, we are going to have a live Q &A discussion.

We'll be holding that on Instagram live. So keep your eyes on my Instagram and Facebook to see where Hope and I will be hosting it when and where. So for now, I just want to thank you for being a part of today's podcast. I'm here to help you and encourage you on your journey. So if anything you heard today blessed you, then please let me know that in the comments and also make sure to be a conduit of blessing.

to others so they can benefit. Don't be like the Dead Sea and keep good stuff to yourself. I encourage you to share what you learned with others, whether that is sharing this podcast on social media or during a conversation with colleagues around the water cooler or hanging out with friends. Make sure you share what you learned because when you give it away, that's when you know you really own it. And if you haven't already, subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening to it.

whether it's on Spotify or Apple Podcasts or YouTube, and also join my email list on my website, which is higherpursuitministries.com so you can receive my newsletter and my blog. And don't forget that next time I'm gonna be joined by recording artist and worship leader, Hope Shanley. You don't wanna miss it. Okay, guys, we are on a pursuit of more of Jesus together. In fact, the pursuit of Jesus

is the highest pursuit of our lives. None of us have arrived, that's for sure, but my goal for this podcast is always to offer you something nourishing that will strengthen and encourage you and challenge you as you pursue Jesus in the midst of your everyday and sometimes messy lives. So until next time, may you walk in the favor of God and I will see you in the next podcast.

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God bless.