{"id":2030,"date":"2010-05-24T06:00:59","date_gmt":"2010-05-24T06:00:59","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/beyondblue\/2010\/05\/avoid-all-forms-of-self-reject.html"},"modified":"2010-05-24T06:00:59","modified_gmt":"2010-05-24T06:00:59","slug":"avoid-all-forms-of-self-reject","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/05\/avoid-all-forms-of-self-reject.html","title":{"rendered":"Avoid All Forms of Self-Rejection: Stop Blaming Yourself"},"content":{"rendered":"

Again I quote the eloquent Henri Nouwen. If you haven’t caught on yet, I adore that man, as he somehow managed to spy on my brain for the last 39 years. In “The Inner Voice of Love,”<\/a> he writes:<\/p>\n

You must avoid not only blaming others but also blaming yourself. You are inclined to blame yourself for the difficulties you experience in relationships. But self-blame is not a form of humility. It is a form of self-rejection in which you ignore or deny your own goodness and beauty.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n

When a friendship does not blossom, when a word is not received, when a gesture of love is not appreciated, do not blame it on yourself. This is both untrue and hurtful. Every time you reject yourself, you idealize others. You want to be with those whom you consider better, stronger, more intelligent, more gifted than yourself. Thus you make yourself emotionally dependent, leading others to feel unable to fulfill your expectations and causing them to withdraw from you. This makes you blame yourself even more, and you enter a dangerous spiral of self-rejection and neediness.<\/p>\n

Avoid all forms of self-rejection. Acknowledge your limitations, but claim you unique gifts and thereby live as an equal among equals. That will set you free from your obsessive and possessive needs and enable you to give and receive true affection and friendship.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

* Click here to subscribe to Beyond Blue<\/b><\/a> and click here to follow Therese on Twitter<\/b><\/a> and click here to join Group Beyond Blue<\/b><\/a>, a depression support group. Now stop clicking.<\/i><\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Spiritual author Henri Nouwen on self-rejection and self blame.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":17,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2030","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-inspiration-and-prayer","category-mental-health"],"yoast_head":"\nAvoid All Forms of Self-Rejection: Stop Blaming Yourself - Beyond Blue<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/05\/avoid-all-forms-of-self-reject.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Avoid All Forms of Self-Rejection: Stop Blaming Yourself - Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Spiritual author Henri Nouwen on self-rejection and self blame.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/05\/avoid-all-forms-of-self-reject.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2010-05-24T06:00:59+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Beyond Blue\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Avoid All Forms of Self-Rejection: Stop Blaming Yourself - Beyond Blue","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/05\/avoid-all-forms-of-self-reject.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Avoid All Forms of Self-Rejection: Stop Blaming Yourself - Beyond Blue","og_description":"Spiritual author Henri Nouwen on self-rejection and self blame.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/05\/avoid-all-forms-of-self-reject.html","og_site_name":"Beyond Blue","article_published_time":"2010-05-24T06:00:59+00:00","author":"Beyond Blue","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/05\/avoid-all-forms-of-self-reject.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/05\/avoid-all-forms-of-self-reject.html","name":"Avoid All Forms of Self-Rejection: Stop Blaming Yourself - Beyond Blue","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website"},"datePublished":"2010-05-24T06:00:59+00:00","dateModified":"2010-05-24T06:00:59+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/47318cdf8063cc052eccff0c99db4e75"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/05\/avoid-all-forms-of-self-reject.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/05\/avoid-all-forms-of-self-reject.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/2010\/05\/avoid-all-forms-of-self-reject.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Avoid All Forms of Self-Rejection: Stop Blaming Yourself"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/","name":"Beyond Blue","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Therese J. Borchard","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/47318cdf8063cc052eccff0c99db4e75","name":"Beyond Blue","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/45c\/45c6e619a20a364bd981e9dda64eaa02x96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/45c\/45c6e619a20a364bd981e9dda64eaa02x96.jpg","caption":"Beyond Blue"},"description":"Therese J. Borchard writes the daily blog, Beyond Blue, on Beliefnet.com. She is the author of Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression & Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes and The Pocket Therapist. You may find her at her personal blog, her website, or you may follow her on Twitter @thereseborchard.","sameAs":["http:\/\/thereseborchard.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/author\/tborchard"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/17"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2030\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/beyondblue\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}