Talk Stigma

And hello to everyone in the Cadre Sphere. My name is Pastor Seth Perry and I'm here just outside getting some fresh air after a busy Sunday. I just want to say hello and welcome to you all. Welcome to the Cadre Sphere as I do a little walk around. I've been pretty busy. Things are busy as they normally are on a Sunday for me. I just wanted to check in with you and say hi, and Jules, welcome. Let me know how your Sunday has been. And everyone else who's just joined, just say something about how your day is going.

And my topic today is rejection. So, Tracy, hello. Again, my topic is rejection. Tell me just in general, if you could react and hello, Speak Wonder and Tracy, everyone who's joined, I want you to just give me a brief kind of glimpse into what your thoughts on rejection are as the church bells go. I don't know if you can hear them. The church bells are going right now. I thought I'd do it outside right now so that everyone could hear the church bells. And hello, Speak Wonder, joining from Colorado.

I tried out for the soccer team. But then I realized when I got to the first soccer tryout that I was trying, I was trying actually trying out for a team where there were kids that were one year and two year older than me. I was the youngest kid trying out. for the team and I just thought oh boy this is gonna be tough the kids were faster the kids were more skilled and the kids on the team were just better at soccer than me and I felt so defeated at that time that I really didn't try too hard during the tryout and during the preseason game and what happened was I didn't make the team right and to see that posted on the wall that I wasn't on the roster and I was the one kid that didn't make the team, I just thought, oh boy, this isn't good.

And you know what? Throughout life, there are many times that I didn't get an award or I didn't make the team or I didn't make the cut or I didn't get a job or I didn't end up with the right career that I wanted when I was a kid or someone didn't want to hang out that I really wanted to hang out with. And I felt rejected, really. And that's a tough feeling. It really is a tough feeling. So when I have been rejected in the past, I have felt hurt. But then something happened recently with me where I'm beginning to embrace rejection, which is like weird to kind of say out loud.

Embracing rejection. So What does that mean? Well, I love writing. I have a blog. I'm writing a podcast right now. And I regularly write every Sunday about like I normally write about 1500 words. I'm a columnist for a mental health and recovery paper. And so, yeah, I love to write and that's part of what I do. But writing means rejection. So if you're listening right now, what are some things in your life where you know that rejection can happen, right? So here's what SpeakWonder has to say. Rejection is a downward spiral.

However, rejection is often a launching pad to new opportunities. And that is kind of what I'm talking about. So for myself, just this week. You know, I'm working on a manuscript for a longer book. Sure, I hope to get published. And I've been reaching out to literary agents, and I got three rejection letters this week. And you know, I went into the process now. This is what I did. I set up expectations for myself. where I said you will get rejected and you should embrace rejection because I think that rejection is really a given.

And thank you for the heart. Whoever sent the heart, thank you for that. Yeah, so healthy and positive conversation around this. I think that's something that we can do here on the Cadre sphere because everyone who is on the Cadre sphere is here for a reason. Everyone here is here for personal development and personal growth. And the growth that's happening to me right now is just being centered in the fact that people are going to say, no, that's not for me. Because I mean, heck, I mean, in my case, at least people are telling me sometimes people are completely silent.

when they reject you. They just give you the cold shoulder. But at least people take the time to send me an e-mail and say, I'm sorry, this project isn't for us, right? So what did you get out of this today? Why don't you share with me a little bit about how this has helped you and how are you going to carry this into the rest of your life? And I'm glad that everyone's chatting with each other. Yeah, because I'll tell you this. I am a pastor. Everyone knows that. And a lot of the times we can talk about success and we can talk about prosperity and we can talk about God giving you a path to, you know, wealth and the promise of success.

That necessarily isn't the spirituality that I want to be providing for people when I give them When I give them care, focus, I want to give them inspiration. So I'll end with this. Speak Wonder says maybe rejection is better than silence. And those are very wise words. So again, I've been grateful to be here getting a little fresh air before I prepare myself for the evening where I'm going to be doing youth ministry. And it's been a full day. 30, drove out from St. Paul to my rural congregation to lead worship, and now a little downtime before this evening.

Grateful for everyone on the Cadre Sphere, grateful for your comments. And just a reminder, be good to yourself. And this is Seth Perry. com.