“Over the years, I have come to realize that the greatest trap in our life is not success, popularity, or power, but self-rejection. Success, popularity, and power can indeed present a great temptation, but their seductive quality often comes from the way they are part of the much larger temptation to self-rejection. When we have come to believe in the voices that call us worthless and unlovable, then success, popularity, and power are easily perceived as attractive solutions. The real trap, however, is self-rejection. As soon as someone accuses me or criticizes me, as soon as I am rejected, left alone, or abandoned, I find myself thinking, "Well, that proves once again that I am a nobody." ... [My dark side says,] I am no good... I deserve to be pushed aside, forgotten, rejected, and abandoned. Self-rejection is the greatest enemy of the spiritual life because it contradicts the sacred voice that calls us the "Beloved." Being the Beloved constitutes the core truth of our existence.”
― Henri J.M. Nouwen
I have had this happen in my life and many others lives. The people I help have rejected themselves and any way that others would call them beloved. The rejection not only includes rejection by the divine forces that they believe in but feeling they are not worthy of divine love, personal love and personal happiness. Everyone has times where they not only reject themselves and what they are but reject the divine forces that call them beloved.
We all have our inner sacred voice that tells us what the divine feels for us. I know that I have had rough times and I will never forget a meditation I did because it made me cry. It was a meditation to see myself as the divine saw me. I just cried because I had never had anything think that much of me including myself.
I have found that walking strong no matter what others say is the only way to live. Why should we accept what they say and reform ourselves if it is obviously something we have never done. Accusations are just that ways to make others feel bad. I have seen others accused of things that they never did just so someone else can be blamed for problems.
It is a trap to reject ourselves and our true nature.
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