Nona Jones Shares the Unexpected Benefits of REJECTION!

OK, y'all. Nona's here. Our friend Nona is here. If you don't know who Miss Nona Jones is, well, she is just fantabulous in every sense of the word. I already told her that I almost put on makeup for her today. And then I was like, that's OK. She loves me. So I'm just here. You know, she has all the looks, all the clothes, all the hair, all of the things. And she is happy to school us all on what we should look like when we show up in public spaces and places. What can I say? I'm still learning. Nona, welcome so much. And thank you for joining me today.

Thank you for having me. Listen, we're not all able to just roll out of bed fabulous like you. So you can just roll out of bed and do a podcast.

Listen, you are— and I don't know if you always were, like, into— fashion and all the things. But I know you went on a weight loss journey, and, and I'm curious if the Nona now was the Nona then, just with a different body type, or did things change for you, you know, just in how you choose to present yourself in the world? And if so, why?

I have always been into, um, just fashion. I've always liked clothes. As a matter of fact, um, I think back to Man, maybe it was like, must have been high school. I don't think I was wearing heels in middle school, but I do remember I just liked heels. And so I was like wearing heels in high school. And so like people even now, like they'll look at my calf muscles and they're like, man, you must be doing a lot of squats. I'm like, no, I've just been wearing heels for like the last maybe 30 years. And so it's just something I've always enjoyed. I just love, I love playing in clothes, love looking good. And what's funny though, Chrystal Hurst, is I have a very eclectic sense of fashion. So like on any given day, I could be wearing an Adidas tracksuit. I could be wearing a two-piece business suit. I could be— or a three-piece business suit. I could be wearing a fluffy skirt. I could be wearing sweatpants and a denim jacket. Like, I literally just wear what I like. So there's not even a part of me where it's like, I just want to look this way. It's like, no, I just wear what I like. So yeah.

Well, I know that, you know, you were here before. You were here on episode 323, and we were talking about church and culture and all the changes. But I really want to talk more about you today. Um, you did lose a bunch of weight, and you have been showing us from then how to work out and be cute. But you— but I think I think this latest book that you've worked on, The Gift of Rejection, I think is a gift to us because many people that may even follow you and say, okay, I like her sense of fashion. I like how she shows up in the world. I like that she's wearing heels and cares about, you know, how she steps out, may themselves be experiencing the struggle with comparison because they're online looking at you, which means they're online probably looking at other people and comparing themselves to that. And again, like I said, Sometimes rejection comes in direct forms. Often it comes in our feeling of rejection. But you've written a book called The Gift of Rejection: Harnessing Your Pain to Propel Your Purpose. But before we dive into that aspect of it, I would love for you to talk about just social media, because I know that that's your background, how that is, or part of your, your work background, and how that is impacting us and why we need to be on guard. For that.

Oh yeah, yeah. So, um, I think back on when I was growing up, and I remember, you know, there were always people that you looked at and you were like, man, she's beautiful, or she really has it together, you know, she's doing really well. But like, it was the girl in your class, or maybe she was in a different grade but she was at my school. Now, because of social media and the reach that it gives us and the access that it gives us, we're no longer comparing ourselves with the girl in our class. Now we're comparing ourselves with the girl in Australia, like the girl in Japan, the girl in Dubai, like people, people we will never, ever, ever meet. And so now we have a standard that has, in my opinion, been artificially created because it's no longer just about, man, who in my vicinity can inspire me? It's now, who in the world is better than me? And let's be honest, like, social media, man, we post our highlight reels. Like, you don't see people— like, I always say, people post the day they got the new car, but they don't post the day that it got repossessed. So we create this, this really false sense of reality, which is everything is great all the time. And that's actually one of the reasons why I try to be very vulnerable and transparent through social media. My team sometimes says, no, you're being a little too vulnerable, because I want people to know, like, I don't care what it looks like, I got struggles too. And I don't want to be, wow, she just has it all together. It's like, no, no, I have, I have struggles too, and we need to know that.

Well, I think it is important that we, um, share our struggles, you know, and we don't always have to share them in real time Sometimes you wait until you figure out how this thing pans out. But I do, because then there's the people that throw up, you know, and then you're like, okay, I need to call them. Are they okay? You know, it's like right now. But you have been kind enough to share your own struggle. You know, even as you open The Gift of Rejection, you're talking about your relationship with your mom and then just setting the stage. I would love for you— I mean, I want people to get the book and read about it and learn about how to deal with the gift of rejection. But can you talk a little bit about that relationship with your mom and why that kind of is the starting point for you even introducing the concept?

Yeah, no, thank you for asking that. Um, so rejection is something that we tend to think is the result of a present experience. Like, we think, well, I wasn't invited and so that's why I'm hurt. Or we think the person that, you know, I was interested in decided to discard me. That's why I'm hurt. But rejection actually has a primary root and foundation, and that typically has to do with how we are treated in our primary relationships in childhood. And so, like, it's so funny because, you know, me looking at someone like you, who I would take it that you seem to be a very secure person, you know who you are, you're like, listen, I'm showing up where I'm showing up because at the end of the day, I know who I am. That probably is a derivative of the fact that you had parents who were intentional about making sure you knew who you were, that you were loved, that you were safe. In my case, um, my mom made it very clear, like she told me many times she wished she never had me, um, that I was a burden to her. Um, when I told her that her boyfriend was sexually abusing me, she had him arrested, but then on the day of his release from jail, she brought him back. Um, and he resumed the abuse, and my mom then became physically and verbally abusive to me. And I, for many, many, many years of my life, wondered what did I ever do that was so wrong that she chose her boyfriend over me, that she told me I was a mistake. And so that experience— I started the book with that experience because it was primary for me, like the, the projections that I later in life, frankly, they just built on that foundation that was already cracked. And I give the analogy many times that rejection cracks our heart, but just like if you're driving down the road and somebody, you know, a rock hits your windshield, even if a pebble, small pebble hits that crack that that rock created, it will shatter the windshield.. And so these subsequent rejections just become additional cracks in the heart. So that's why I started the book there. And frankly, that's why I wrote the book because there are a lot of people carrying even mother wounds and we don't talk about it because we just assume that everybody's mom is great and she loves you. And mom is mom, right? It's unconditional. That's not the case for so many people. And because that's the belief, there are people walking around thinking something's wrong with them because they didn't love that they thought they should get from their mom. So that's why, that's why I talked about it.

Thank you for sharing that. I know, um, towards the end of the first chapter you have these, which I, you know, I'm a fan of, help me organize my thoughts. So when you get to the end of the chapter, I love how you're like, okay, here's what you need to recall, here's what you need to receive, Here's what you need to recite and here's where you need to reflect. Give me some questions so I know what to do when I get to my journal. But the very first bullet point in recalling, you said time does not heal all wounds. And I think one of the biggest thing is that whether we intentionally think that it will or whether we just intentionally don't deal with it and then we assume because it hasn't kind of rared its head in our emotions or our experiences, well, it's not a thing anymore. And, you know, to your point about the cracked windshield, then it's just one little thing, and then we, we just are non-functional because we didn't deal with it. I would love for you to talk a little bit about how can I know if I have a wound that's not healed?

That is such an important question, Chrystal Hurst. Um, well, I think So rejection specifically, I believe that it causes us to react in one of two ways, and that is we either explode or we implode. When we explode, it's visible for everyone to see. So that's, you know, maybe it's hostility, it's anger, it's yelling. It's very clear that there is something that happened that made us upset, right? But there's also another form of explosion that can be subtle, and it's actually how I expressed rejection, and that was exploding into achievement and ambition. So there are some people who have experienced rejection, and because rejection really is an identity wound, you end up trying to compensate for that identity wound by achieving more, getting the promotion, getting the recognition, being the first, being the best. That's what I experienced. And then there's also implosion. And this is where rejection causes us to harm ourselves. So this is where you'll see things like addictions. You'll see things like people even having casual, you know, recreational sex, right? It's like, well, I'm just being free. It's like, well, no, actually you were hurt by someone and you've decided to anesthetize the pain by acting like you're free. It's like, in fact, you're in bondage. And so I think one of the ways to know that you are experiencing wound is that there is unfulfillment. Like, you do all the things, but there's still an unfulfillment on the other side of it, and there's continued harm to yourself and to other people. Those are signs that you got to do the work, and we got to figure out what is God trying to teach you out of what you experience that you can apply to the future.

So, you know, when you invite somebody to deal with any kind of pain, we run from pain. Even if we're not numbing out, we just don't want to deal with it. Even if we realize that we should, you know, we'll hear a good sermon or we'll listen to a podcast or we read a book and we find ourselves crying. We find ourselves, you know, our internal gut system, butterflies flying all the way around because what somebody said just hit us. So we know we've been hit and we know we need to do something about it. But then we get up from that and we don't. One, because pain is not fun to deal with, but also sometimes because we don't connect the addressing of any kind of pain, rejection specifically, as we're talking about that today, as bringing us some kind of release, freedom, or I know that what you're talking about is the gift of purpose. So what is the connection for the dealing with rejection to the walking in recognition of and enjoying our purpose?

Oh man. So fundamentally, you will not heal what you don't acknowledge. And I think about it like, you know, if you, if you were to somehow get like a gash on your knee, and you did something, the knee is bleeding, and it's just looking a mess. And you're limping. And people look at you, and they're like, hey, you're limping, you're bleeding. You're like, no, I'm not. No, no, I'm fine. I'm totally fine. Everyone can see that something is wrong. But it's like, no, I'm fine. And so what ends up happening is that wound simply goes untreated. Well, what happens with untreated wounds? They get infected. It starts on the surface, right? The infection on the surface, but then it starts to infiltrate our body. And because of our circulation system, then we can get things like sepsis and all of these things. I give that biological analogy because even emotionally, that's what happens with rejection. You know, we have the experience, we act like, oh, it didn't bother me. I don't care that I wasn't invited. No, it's okay that he didn't call me back. Um, no, it's okay that this person didn't choose me. No, you're hurt. And when you actually admit, yes, that hurt me, yes, that bothered me, now we have something to actually work with. We have something to even bring to God and say, Lord, this is a hurt that I need grace for. But if we don't acknowledge it, what happens is that hurt becomes bitterness. And so one of the contentions I make in the book is that rejection is a gift that will make you better if you open it or bitter if you don't. And I think a lot of people are walking around with bitterness at things that somebody did 30 years ago. And then you ask them, well, is it because of what that person did? And they say, oh no, no, no, I'm fine. I'm over that. You know, that was 30 years ago. But the moment it's brought up, you act like it just happened last week. And I see that happen all the time. And so that's why there was a connection. If you don't address it, if you don't acknowledge that it hurt, you will not begin to work on it and present it to God for the grace to begin to deal with it. And you have to do that as a first step.

Now, we've kind of talked about rejection and the primary experience, but of course that can continue to happen over and over and over again. And I know, um, when you're talking about purpose, you connect feeling the pain of rejection or the echo of rejection and the pain connected to it because of work. And I think sometimes we don't really— when you say rejection, the first thought in people's minds is personal, you know, "He broke up with me," or "My parents didn't like me," or, you know, "I wasn't included in something." But just relational with people from a communal standpoint, I don't know if we associate decisions that are made at the career level. You know what I'm saying? Because there are so many other stories we can tell ourselves. There is a reorg, or, you know, they only had room for one position, but they chose the other person. So how have you seen rejection, your lessons learned from rejection, appear in your story?

Yeah. So, yes, you're right. There are different forms of rejection. And one of them is professional rejection. And I will give you a very specific instance. So, In the book, I share 4 specific gifts that I believe rejection offers to us. And one of them is that I believe the gift of rejection positions you for purpose. And I know that because I literally would not be doing what I'm doing today had it not been for rejection. So some years ago, I worked for a large company. I was hired as an executive, but I wasn't hired as a spokesperson. But I did a presentation one day inside of the company And the communications team saw me and they were like, you're a great speaker. Would you like to speak at different events and things that we're sponsoring? And I was like, you know, sure. I didn't mind helping. It wasn't my core work, but I was like, sure, I'll help. So I started to go out, speak at these conferences and things. And apparently I was doing a great job because they asked me to do it more and more. And then people who were seeing me out started to ask if I would speak at their things for the company. And I was like, sure. So Performance review season comes around and I sit down with my boss and she gave me an exceeds expectations rating. She said I was doing a great job. Then she said, but we're going to need to shut all that speaking down because I need you to focus on your core work.

And I was like, speaking outside of the company or speaking for the company?

For the company. So here's the thing. At the time, I wasn't speaking outside of the company. Like at the time, I wasn't a speaker at all. The only speaking I was doing was for the company. I was kind of like, "Well, okay, but why? Is there something I'm not doing?" Because I was enjoying it. I really enjoyed it. I found a part of me and a gifting that I didn't even know was there. She shut it down and she just basically said, "No, I just need you to focus on your core work. Nothing's wrong. Just focus on your work." I went to the communications director.. And I asked her, I said, hey, like, what's up with this? And she said, listen, she came to me and said that she thinks she should be speaking for the company, not you. Oh, OK. And I was like, OK. And so on the surface of it, I was hurt. I felt dejected. I felt rejected. I felt like she just unilaterally closed the door, right? Well, fast forward a couple of months. I get an email from someone who's hosting a conference and they're like, "Hey, can you speak at it?" For the company, of course. And I said, "No, I can't speak. I can't, but I can forward your request to the communications team." And they were like, "Well, no, like we want you. Can you just speak as you?" And I was like, "I don't know. I never thought about that." So I asked the communications team, could I do it if I don't like use my title or the company name? They were just like, "Yeah, sure. I mean, if you're doing it on your own time, no problem." Here's the thing. When I was speaking for the company, I couldn't get paid. I started to speak myself on my own time, I could get paid. I got to the point that I was making as much in speaking fees as my corporate salary. I realized in that, I was like, "Oh, I thought that she was closing a door." But what I didn't realize is that God was about to knock down a wall because there was purpose within me that frankly was trapped within the role that I thought I was supposed to play. I thought I was supposed to just be in the company and do what the company wanted. It's like, no, God was actually building a ministry in me. And I had no idea what he was doing until she closed that door. So what I tell people is in order to recognize the gift of rejection as positioning you for purpose is when you experience rejection, instead of taking it personally, take it purposefully and ask God, Lord, what are you positioning me for? Because this closed door is simply redirecting me. The pain may be blinding me to what it's redirecting me to, but I'm going to discipline myself to inquire of you. What are you positioned for? And that's how we open our eyes to what God wants to do through that experience.

So what do you do though with, with the pain? I mean, you're asking the question, you're asking the right question, but it still stings, you know. So I'm gonna be in the bed for a while right now. I'm gonna, you know, call and lament with all the friends. I'm gonna feel the fear. Can I get another 'Can I get another job?' or 'Can I get another man?' or 'Can I find another church?' or whatever the rejection involves. And in the middle of asking God that question and even looking for the answer, you still feel the dagger, basically. You, you, you're not there. You know what they're doing and you're not there to be a part of it. Or, um, so what have been the things that have helped you navigate the in-between?

I love this question because the first thing that I've always had to do is you have to give yourself the grace to feel the pain, right? Because pain is rejection's wrapping paper. Like, it hurts. The gift is on the inside, but you got to get from the outside to the inside. So give yourself the grace to sit with it for a minute. And don't be so quick to rush over it. Like, oh, nope, nope, I'm fine. It's no big deal. No, it was a big deal. You were hurt. And take that hurt to God. This is where the gift becomes, is recognizing that rejection is a gift that wants to teach you about yourself and other people. So how I've learned to process the pain is I've learned to actually allow myself to consider What is this teaching me? So what— okay, as an example, there have been times when I have been left out of events. Like, let's just say there's, you know, there's always like these, you know, influencer gatherings and all these things happening. There have been times when I've had friends ask me, hey, are you going to so-and-so's such-and-such? Had no idea that that was even happening, right? And the first But they thought you were supposed to be there, though. They thought I was supposed to be there, but the person hosting it didn't. So the first reaction is like, man, like, what's wrong with me? Like, why wasn't I invited? That is the first reaction. But from there, it's okay. I want social connection. Like, I want to be included. And I have to be honest with myself and be like, the fact that I want to be included The fact that I want social connection means that I need to be a friend to have a friend. So I think it's like, okay, I'll have people reach out to me all the time like, hey, can we go grab lunch? Hey, can we get together? I miss seeing you. And I'm like, oh, I'm so busy, I can't. Okay, when those experiences happen, it's like, oh, wait a minute. Okay, I need to reach back out to that person who wanted to get together because I want social connection. So that's why I'm saying it teaches you about yourself. It teaches you about other people. And it may be that the other person who didn't invite you, they're just— they're not your friend. You know what I mean? And it's like, that's not a bad thing. It's like, I'm not going to hold a grudge about it. But you learn from it. And then you grow from it.

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That makes perfect sense.

I am so enthralled by the number of people that I find live reactively and then act, and then they are acting as if they have no agency. So what would you say to the person that they're not really addicted, they're not really triggered, and they're not triggered. Because they're not in it. They just are like, I'm not doing that. I'm just, just gonna go to work, come home, I'm out business. But really, they're leaving some things on the table.

So your question gets frankly at the heart of why I wrote this book, because there are so many people who have literally absorbed rejection into their identity to where we anticipate rejection to the point where it's like— I've talked to women who literally have told their men, hey, I know you're going to cheat, so just use protection when you do, right? Almost this idea that I expect rejection. And so I just have to figure out how to be as protected as possible when it happens.

How to manage it.

Right, how to manage it. And part of what I am hoping people will understand through this book is that rejection is not a pain to manage. It's a teacher to learn from. Where I have become proactive is because I have built the discipline of the process of exploring what rejection can teach me. And that is not something that we are taught. That is not something that we even get, like, told to do as we're going through rejection experiences. Typically, the way that people will react to us when we are hurting from rejection is they will either tell us to get over it, they will tell us to forgive the person, they will tell us to do all of these things except for the one thing that can actually make the rejection serve our purpose, and that is to learn from it. What is— what can it teach me about myself? What can it teach me about other people? And so that's the whole contention of the book. So even if you are in that place where you're just feeling depressed, you're feeling like no one ever chooses me, like I'm never good enough, every time I even think about going after something, I'm never the one who gets it. Okay. What are the lessons in that? What are the lessons in that? Because if you don't, if you don't take that posture that this can teach me, you will become bitter and you will live beneath the purpose for which God created you because you will literally think it doesn't matter if I try, it's not going to work. Well, it may not have worked in that situation, but the variables in that situation may change in a new situation. And if you haven't learned from that situation, you're going to carry your ignorance into the new situation. And so I think that's how we start to change the way rejection affects us, because it's going to happen. Like, rejection's going to happen. I don't care if you find a way to live your life apart from everybody. You're going to experience rejection somehow, some way. And so you have to get to a place— I mean, look, let me tell you something. Releasing this book, right? Like, I'm releasing a book about rejection, and I'm experiencing rejection left and right. Like, left and right. Um, friends who I've—

now, you did that to yourself because you knew when you wrote a book about rejection that those were going to be the arrows of the enemy. Listen, I've decided The next book I write is going to be like, How to Enjoy a Phenomenal 3-Month Vacation in Fiji. I need the enemy to attack me on that.

Yes, yes, I know that. And that's part of the reason why I expected it, but that's also why I'm so committed to navigating it and getting this message out, because it's like, look, I experienced it too. Writing this book does I'm not immune from rejection. No, it means I just have a framework through which I can process it when it happens. And that's what I want to give people.

It's so good. So you talked about rejection primary for you personally. You talked about rejection at work. Um, I'm curious. I mean, you kind of just led right into it. I promise I had this question before you said that, but I'd love to know about any kind of current-day rejection, large or small, and just to walk us through how you've handled that.

Sure, I'll give you one very concrete example. Um, I— and you know this as an author— so one of the things I hate about releasing a book is I hate getting endorsements from people. Like, that— that I will write— I will write every day for the rest of my life if I can just not have to ask people for endorsements. I hate that process because part of it is residual rejection wound for myself. It's like I don't like to be a burden to people. Part of the reason why I don't ask for help is because I don't want to be a burden to people. Where'd that idea come from? From my mom, right? And so I had a friend who I— they released a book a couple of years ago and they reached out, asked me to endorse it, which I did. I was happy to do it. Releasing my own book, I was like, "Oh, I'm going to ask them to endorse my book." They didn't. Then they came back and they asked me to help them with something else. In that moment, because I've been doing the work, again, wrote the book, got the framework, I definitely felt pain. I started to feel, because I'm very intuitive now with what exactly Is the emotion I'm feeling? I started to feel— the emotion I felt was humiliation. That's the emotion that I felt. And so once I was able to name that emotion, then I was able to really consider, okay, why am I feeling that way? And I was able to unpack that. Then I was able to actually pray and bring that to God. Like, okay, here's what I'm feeling. Here's why I'm feeling this. I really need you to give me clarity on where the belief came from that I needed this person's support in order to be worthy. Where did that come from? And so God gave me some wisdom and clarity on that. And then from there, I was able to name my next step, which was, all right, now that I understand why I feel the way I feel, now that I understand what I believed about it, and now I also understand— one of the gifts I talk about in the book is that the gift of rejection reveals people's role in your destiny. So now I understand this person's role in my destiny. My next step then is I know that they're not going to support this. So there's no point in continuing to ask. I'm going to ask God to open the right doors. So it went from a very hurtful experience that in the past could have made me very bitter and just, you know, angry, to an experience where when they asked me to help them, I was like, you know, I'll still help because God's given me the ability to do that. And frankly, we reap what we sow. We don't reap what other people sow. So very present-day experience.

You said, um, when you're talking about this idea of the gifts that we get and what you just mentioned, revealing people's role in your identity— what God created you to do is not dependent on the acceptance of other people. While people can reject you, no one can reject your purpose. An emphasis on you and purpose. While people reject you, they can't reject your purpose. Your purpose is never hindered by someone who walks away from you. Your purpose is never hindered by a situation that didn't work out for you. Instead of blocking your future, the gift of rejection simply reveals the end of some people's roles in your destiny. Let's talk about ending things. It's hard, and, and many times the our ability to end things is dependent on the amount of pressure built up from emotions. And then we don't end them well, you know what I mean? We just stop talking. They just don't hear from us again. We have an argument, we slam the door, we say something nasty on social media, you know. I mean, we don't end them well. So when it becomes clear that, um, an ending is needed, and I I have to bring the ending about. Like, it's not a job I got left from, it's not a person who left me, or it's a person who would happily stay, you know, but it— this needs to end. So this could be a lot of things: job, boyfriends, adult children who are at home. I mean, it can be anything. What are your thoughts about and your wisdom for ending something clearly and kindly? Or even if it's not ending it, just reducing access in a way that doesn't leave people wondering what's happening?

Mm. This, I feel like, is the million-dollar question, because I do believe that we tend to allow relationships to linger sometimes beyond their expiration date. And what happens is we end up frustrated. We end up frustrated. We end up just wishing the person—

until you blow, until you blow. Yes.

And then the other person is looking like, I didn't even know there was a problem, right? So I think that we, we have to of course be prayerful. I think especially when it comes to just how we relate to human beings at all, I think we have to always be prayerful and just really remember that the goal is that when we're bringing this relationship to its conclusion that the person could never say that we were rude or dismissive or, uh, never speak ill against us. Now, some people will do that regardless of what you do, but it depends on us. We want to live at peace with everyone. So what I would suggest is before you even like have the conversation with the person— and we should have a conversation with the person, let me, let me start there— but what we will tend to do is we have a problem with somebody and we will tell everybody except for them. So I do think that we need to plan to have a conversation with them. And I'm assuming that if you need to end it, I'm assuming it's because you have had conversations with them. I would hope you wouldn't end something and you've never had it before, but let's just assume that conversations have been had. They're not doing what they need to do. I think at that point you go into the conversation prayerfully just to let them know what has changed about the nature of the relationship that necessitates either changing the relationship or ending the relationship so that the person is clear on why it needs to change and why it needs to end. They're probably going to have questions. They may even, you know, push back, have a different perspective. But when you go into that conversation, you have to know that no matter what they say, this is the decision that needs to be made. And we're communicating from a place of compassion. One of the things that I think we often lack in difficult conversations is we lack compassion because we're missing out on empathy. What is empathy? Empathy is the ability to see the situation from the other person's perspective. It doesn't mean that I agree. It doesn't even mean that what you did is okay. It just means I'm going to put myself in your shoes so that I can at least try to understand why you did what you did. So now that I have empathy in the situation, and I'm bringing it to you. This is what I need to do for me. I'm not saying I need to do this for us. I'm not even saying I need to do this for you. This is what I need to do for me. And then you can clearly articulate what your boundaries are. If it is, we can no longer speak, or, um, I think we need to, you know, maybe cool off for a few months or whatever that is, but just be very clear about the boundaries that you're setting. And do not allow the person to renegotiate your boundaries. And what that means is, for example, if you tell them, hey, we can't talk, but then they end up calling you or coming by the office or doing whatever they're doing, they're trying to renegotiate your boundaries. So at that point, you have to, have to like literally stand on your boundaries, whatever those are that you said. But we always have to do it from a place of love and compassion because if you don't, you won't have peace. You just won't have peace. You cannot end a relationship in anger and still have peace. So that's what I would offer.

That is so good, so very practical. And I was thinking, you know, back when we were talking about naming and identifying the source of your rejection, that's so important because you can't have a conversation with someone about something you don't understand. And I, I think that that's the, you know, that's the hard part, is you're feeling all these emotions. I mean, this could apply even beyond rejection. It's just when you need to have hard conversations. I have to read Radical Candor. Have you heard of that book or read that book?

That book? Mm-hmm.

So it's on the list and it's been recommended to me multiple times because I think sometimes I come to conversations and all I know is how I feel. I know how you're making me feel. I'm upset with you because of how I feel. I'm frustrated or I'm disappointed or I'm angry or "you know, I'm impatient." And so, and I can maybe go down a list of little things that irked me, but they're not the root. I don't know what the root is. So, then that makes it very hard to have a conversation because those conversations are mostly tit for tat. "Well, when you did this, but I did this because," or, you know, "I can't believe, you know, I was left feeling like that." "Well, all I was trying to do was—" If you don't start with, root, then people don't hear you. But you can't do that if you don't even know, if you haven't done the work to name it and you don't know what you're talking about. When you have had to have difficult conversations because of boundaries that needed to be set with other people or relationships that needed to end, do you find it hard to find words? Because I'm thinking again about the person who's settled into rejection being a part of their identity. They don't know. They, they They have to work, of course, to do the job to separate it from there. But if someone is not, it's like a muscle. You talk about responding to this issue with muscle. I have to develop the muscle for communication. I have to develop the muscle to talk about hard things that I had not thought about or talked about in a long time. So if I don't have that muscle, am I struggling to find words? Like you're a good communicator. So have you ever struggled to find words? And really, what would you tell the person who's like, I have all the feelings about these 3 people in my family and I'm just not dealing with them. Yeah, I'm just not dealing with them. But I actually, I can even know what happened. Maybe I can even do that. But how we got from there to here and where I am today, there's a lot in there. So for the person who's like, that sounds I get what you're saying, Nona, but I want to deal with the rejection. I want to name it. I want to, I want to address it, but I don't have words for myself or for the people who I need to communicate with. What counsel would you give them?

One of the most practical tools that I have used, and I'm both thinking as a person dealing with, um, interpersonal challenges, but I'm also thinking as a leader who has dealt with challenges on like my team or with with colleagues, one of the tools that I use is I always write out my thoughts. So if I need to have a difficult conversation with someone, I first write out my thoughts because you would be surprised how much language you have if you give yourself the time to write it out first. When you get in front of the person, um, you know, the look on their face, their, their, you know, body language, all of that, can cause you to lose your words because you can tell that they don't want to hear what you have to say. But writing it out first, like literally writing it out, here's how I see the problem, here's how I see the challenge. You would be surprised how much language you have. Now, what I normally do is I will start with that first draft. Like I will go all in, okay? Here's everything. Listen, 50,000 words worth of what I think. But from there, I think what we have to do is we have to ask ourselves, what is the goal, right? Like, what is the goal in this conversation? Do I want to help the person see my perspective? Do I want to reconcile? Do I want to end the relationship? Like, what, what is the goal? Because depending on the goal, that actually needs to inform your approach. After you've written out your thoughts and you know what the problem is, now you have to figure out, how do I package this in such a way that it accomplishes my goal? So if my— I had a conversation with a team member when I was on the YouVersion team. It was a very difficult conversation, but I went into it because I wanted her to grow. I wanted her to be better. So my tone wasn't, let me tell you about you. My tone was, you know, it would be so much— it would be so helpful for me if you were to do this thing, right? And here's an example of when it didn't happen. Here's how that affected me. And this is what I would like to see in the future. Because my goal was to help her. It was to actually create a scenario where she could thrive. If my goal is to end a relationship, let someone go, It's all about how your tone changed.

It's all about how you tone—

you know, and you can still, you can still have a nice tone with someone, but not— I'm not necessarily saying, if I hope that you'll do this in the future because it will be better for me. No, I'm saying because this happened, this doesn't work for me, and therefore now we need to have a different type of relationship. And that may be one where we don't talk anymore. That may be one where we don't have a relationship at all, you know. So that's what I would suggest, is just writing, writing the thoughts out, um, and then figuring out what the goal is so that you can repackage them in a way that gets you closer to your goal.

That's so good. And I think, um, the goal-centered communication is great because what you don't want to do also is have that conversation in a way where you're you're unintentionally setting that person up for unnecessary rejection. Like, what is the goal? Like, it's for you to win, it's for me to win, it's for you to be good, it's for me to be good. And not because all the words that may come up when I see your body language, and then I'm going to just rack you across the coals because I'm going to tell you what I think of you. So when people learn from you, from this podcast, or even from reading the book, and again, y'all, This book is released October 1st, 2024, and it's called The Gift of Rejection, which, by the way, if you didn't read Killing Comparison, which is another book that Nona wrote, you should read both of them. But when they pick this up and finish reading it, or even for the person who's finishing listening to our conversation today, what is your hope for the person that they would get out of this message?

Well, my, my hope is that you would experience a radical paradigm shift in how you view rejection. Because I think if you view rejection as, as just this horrible thing that is painful, uh, if you even view it as something that somehow, um, corroborates the evidence that you're defective, if that's how you view it, um, live your entire life in bondage to that pain. You just will. But my hope is that people will, will get this new paradigm shift and that they'll start to not only experience healing and freedom, but that their purpose will be unleashed in new ways. Because you cannot live in purpose when you are in the bondage of rejection. You just can't do it. And you can't even enjoy your life. Uh, I think there's the fruit of the spirit is hindered. By the pain of rejection. And so that's my hope, is just that people experience healing, that hope is restored, um, identity is, is restored for many people who have been thinking that they're defective in some way. Um, and I believe that's what they'll, they'll get out of the message.

So good. So good, girl. You're so good. And the, the best thing I love about you talking to you is that you're just so clear. Like, you just are clear, and it's easy to digest what you're saying for a topic that we don't often hear about. Uh, we may be talking about, about this in our therapist office, but then we're there doing all the talking. Um, for you to say, okay, here's the framework when you have the conversation, here's how you set it up, here's how— extremely practical and helpful. So thank you so much for joining me today and, uh, for talking more about your life what you're learning from your life and what we can learn from, uh, from you. So good to see you, girl.

I so appreciate you. Thank you for having me, and I love your platform. I love everything you're doing. You're such a light in the world. I appreciate you.