When we move through a transition in our lives, it is often because people in our lives have either rejected us or have died or have moved on themselves, sometimes it is because we have moved on ourselves or moved to a new destination so we leave people behind or outgrow them. Some relationships are meant to be transitory, for a season and others to be of a more permanent nature, such as marriage, or kinship.
We were created to be in relationships, when God created man, He said it is not good for man to be alone, I will make a helper for him. When we lose a primary relationship through divorce or death, it can bring on intense feelings of loneliness, abandonment or rejection. This week I will discuss rejection and loneliness and the following week what we can do about it.
When you go through a divorce the feelings of rejection are intense especially if there is a third party involved. You may beat yourself up, why was I not good enough? What does he see in her? The questions will mull around endlessly with no answers. Rejection affects the way we think and feel about ourselves and can spiral out of control into a depression. We may try to cling on to every bit of hope to try and get our ex-spouse back, layering even more rejection on at each rebuff, adding fuel to the fire already out of control and making us feel we want to take revenge. These are all negative and will not bring us peace of mind or joy, neither will they help us heal and learn new lessons becoming the person we were created to be. Quite often, a divorce is part of a refining process, where you will be put through the fire and how you handle it will prove your character, whether it will consume and destroy you or bring out the beautiful qualities that are within you.
Widowhood can also bring on feelings of rejection or abandonment if the cause of death was self-inflicted, the same questions of, ‘was I not enough for him to hold onto life’ may haunt you. I had a fiancée who committed suicide and it was hard not to think that I was not enough for him to hold onto life and sort out his problems. I later came to realize that some depressions are a physical disease and just like cancer cannot be cured, resulting in the same end -death.
Moving destinations can also cause you to lose people in your life. People who you were once really close to, when you moved away no longer keep in touch, or maybe it was you who broke the communication by not responding to them. Either way some form of abandonment will be felt, especially when you thought they were a lifelong friend. It is good to view these as transitory friends and mourn their loss, although sometime later in your life you may pick up those strands of friendship again. After the Rhodesian diaspora many of my friends scattered over the globe as did I, as we moved around from address to address, we lost touch as there was no internet, only snail mail! Today with social media, I have picked up ties with many of them again, being able to share our common history and struggles in our new environments, their friendship is richer and even more valuable now.
Loneliness is the result of this alienation, rejection or moving on. This can be really hard to deal with especially if you have always had people around you that knew you and you could talk to. When loneliness takes over you are vulnerable to depression, self-harm or addictions and may start to live like a hermit without the confidence to move out and move on and find new people to relate to.
The first step of moving forward out of this vortex of depression and self-sabotage is accepting that this has happened, it is something that nothing you can do will change it. This is the start of taking your power back and getting out of victim mode. The second step is believing in yourself again, a beautiful person created in the image of God, someone who was born for a purpose and finding that person and purpose in life again, connecting with God and asking for His help to bring you into alignment with His plans for your life. Thirdly is doing the hard work and changing your belief systems to empower you to make the changes you need to move into the next chapter in your life. Next week’s blog will address some of those changes, so be sure to check in again next week………..