In this solo episode of the "Pain, Passion, and Purpose" podcast, host Shakeeta Torres opens with a brief promotion of her Empowered Purpose Academy and the paid membership community, inviting listeners to subscribe for additional resources, coaching, and mentorship. She then identifies rejection as the number‑one "purpose killer" that blocks believers from walking in their God‑given calling. Drawing on biblical language, she describes rejection as a tool of Satan that devalues a person, erodes self‑worth, and distorts the image of God as a loving Father. She lists a wide range of symptoms—low self‑esteem, anxiety, depression, people‑pleasing, inability to love a spouse, etc.—and outlines root causes such as generational or heritage rejection, trauma (sexual, physical, emotional), prenatal rejection, and family dynamics where a child feels unheard. Shakeeta shares her own experience of fearing rejection when God called her to entrepreneurship, explaining how she learned to rely on God’s confidence rather than human approval. She emphasizes that true confidence must come from God because people can disappoint or betray. The episode concludes with an announcement of an upcoming inexpensive online course, "Healing from Rejection," which will guide believers through a step‑by‑step process to uncover the origins of their rejection, rebuild self‑esteem, and align with their purpose. Listeners are directed to her website for a free ebook and to stay tuned for the course release.
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Welcome to Pain, Passion, and Purpose. I am your host, Shakeeta Torres, where I share mental health education, biblical teachings, and tips to help you to heal on purpose so you can walk boldly in your God-given purpose. This podcast is sponsored by Empowered Purpose Academy, a certified online Christian academy where where we provide services such as certification for Christian life coaches, mentorship for master's level aspiring and existing Christian therapists, mentorship for Christians, and continued education courses for the body of Christ. You can visit www.empoweredpurposeacademy.com to learn more and to download your free guide. If you like today's episode, please subscribe and leave us a raving review so that others can tap into the knowledge and wisdom that will be shared on this podcast. Thank you so much for being here.
Hey, so before I get started on today's episode, if you have not subscribed to the paid membership of my podcast community, please do. It is going to bless your life. Listen, my episodes are already like therapy slash coaching sessions where I give you strategy and insight and all that good stuff. But the community, you're going to get a lot more. You're going to get more resources, more tools, and be able to ask more questions where I can create episodes around your questions. And you will be able to get discounts on some of my, my products and my events. So what are you waiting for? The price is very affordable. This is for those who are not quite ready to invest in one-on-one coaching with me or into the Pain, Passion, and Purpose mentorship program, which is also low, by the way, but that one is a lot more in-depth. You get access to courses, you get access to the Facebook community, and all that good stuff. But this is for those who just need to just listen and just gain some tools along the way. So what are you waiting for? Go ahead, subscribe. You won't regret it. It'll bless your life. We'll have topics around mental health and faith, biblical teachings, prayer, um, boundaries, communication, anxiety, depression, purpose, and so much more. I have had experience in mental health since actually about 2008 when I first finished my bachelor's program, and then from that point all the way up today and moving forward, I have gained so much knowledge, so much experience, so much wisdom, and I am anointed for it. So go ahead, hit that button, and I hope to see you in the community. Hello, you guys.
Welcome back to my newest episode of my podcast. And so today we're going to talk about the number one purpose killer. Let me tell you, Some of you guys may already know what it is, but this right here has so many different levels to it, and it is called rejection. I have been studying rejection on and off for about a year or so, but over the past couple of months, I've really been really digging into this thing because this is truly what hinders a believer from walking into their God-given purpose. Sometimes, or most of the time, we may know what it is that God is calling us to do, but because of the fear of rejection, it causes us to feel stuck and we become avoidant and we become, um, just like filled with just so much fear. And so what is rejection, right? So rejection is one of Satan's most effective, effective forms of oppression. Rejection may keep a sinner from going to God for salvation and a Christian from reaching his or her full potential in God. It undermines, breaks, and prevents normal and harmonious relations between family members, marriage partners, fellow workers, and friends. It also distorts our image of God as a loving Heavenly Father who loves us and who wants only the best for us. So the dictionary defines rejection as an act of throwing away or discarding someone or something, which implies a lack of value in the person or thing thrown away. Being rejected then makes us feel valueless or worthless. Being denied love is the root of rejection. Reject— rejection, whether it is active or passive, real or imaginary, robs us of our position in Christ. So in other words, it makes us feel as though we're not good enough. It makes us feel like we cannot, you know, reach a certain level because of our own rejection. And rejection, like I said before, it runs deep. And rejection is the greatest undiagnosed and most untreated malady within the body of Christ today. It affects a large majority of people, of those going to get prayer. And so in my personal life, whenever I'm praying for people or someone asks me to pray for them, I pray about rejection now. And in therapy and my coaching clients, we bring up rejection because most of the time this is the thing that is hindering people from really reaching their full potential in Christ. Right? So let's talk about some symptoms of rejection. So it can be low self-esteem, self-condemnation, worthlessness, feeling inferior, feeling insecure, self-hate, uh, believe that you are a failure, a withdrawn personality, you try to please others, you display a facade, you can't love your spouse, you don't know who you are, you feel depressed, you feel anxious, um, you cannot accept someone's love. You guys, listen, the list goes on. And one of the things that God laid on my heart to do was to create an online course about what rejection is and how to heal from rejection, because it's a process. You don't just wake up and say, oh, I feel whole again, or, oh, I feel you know, I feel un— you know, I don't feel rejected anymore. And so the goal is for us as believers to get to the root of why we feel rejection and find out where it began for us. And so what are some root causes of rejection? There's heritage rejection, generational rejection, there's timing and manner of conceptions, It can be if you, um, experience, you know, trauma of some kind, whether it's sexual, physical, emotional, anything like that. You can also experience rejection in the womb if your mother or parents did not want you. Rejection can happen whenever we are raised within a family dynamic and we feel like we are never heard by our parents or our loved ones. You guys, this thing, it is deep. There's no way I can go over every single thing within this podcast episode. It would take me several episodes to really break this down for you. This is why I'm going to create a course. Of course, it's going to be very inexpensive, and my prayer is that it will help break the spirit of rejection off of God's people. Because like never before, the Lord truly needs us to be in position to be who we're called to be so that we can impact the kingdom of God and bring other souls to Christ? How can you confidently bring souls to Christ, disciple people, love people, um, encourage people if you're dealing with so much rejection? And I've had clients before who will say things like, my, you know, God told me to do XYZ, but I'm scared. And I'm like, but why are you scared? They're fearful of rejection. A lot of times people will say, I'm anxious, or I'm nervous, or I'm not sure, but the true term is that they're fearful of being rejected. Also, if you've been, you know, bullied in school before— I know for me, let's talk about me today. So for me, when I first, um, God first called me to be an entrepreneur, and when God began— honestly, let's go back further than that. When God was truly telling me and showing me in dreams and visions, you know, who I was in him and who I was in Christ and what he was calling me to as far as my mantle, I was scared to death. And you guys, for almost a year, I kind of ran from it. I did. I did not want to accept it. I kept saying, God, you got the wrong person, this is just too much, you know. And it all stemmed from rejection. And then I had to allow God to really work on me in the area. I had to allow him to build up my confidence. What I had to learn is that people cannot— you can't be solely dependent on people to build your confidence up. You can't be dependent on even the things that you do for God, for other people, to make you feel confident and secure in who God has called you to be. The only person that can do that for you is God. And so my prayer has always been, God, help me to be confident in you. And the word of God talks about that, about being confident in God and not in your own ability, because people will fail you, people will disappoint you, people will talk about you. You can bless a person today and they love you, and the next day something can go totally wrong and they're beating you down. And that's the truth. I don't know how many, you know, Christian celebrities we see who fall short, and people are quick to put them down. And of course, you know, if they in the wrong or not, that's between them and the Lord. Should they be corrected? Absolutely. But at the end of the day, the only people that can truly restore them is God. Is God. Man can't do it for you. I had to come to a place and understand that, you know, I love my friends, I love my husband, but they cannot fulfill a void in my heart that only God can fill. And of course, we all want, you know, accolades, we all want praise, we all— we all want to feel like we are contributing and that we are appreciated. There's nothing wrong with that, but wherever we're completely dependent on that, that can truly cause us to walk in the spirit of rejection. And so I've definitely— and it's layers to rejection, you know. The higher God calls you, just believe rejection is going to try to hit you in the face. And then again, you have to overcome that, right? Have new levels, right? The thing that kills rejection is fully accepting that in God's eyes you are enough. A lot of times we have the vocabulary, we speak well with our words in our mouth, and we say, 'Oh, I know God loves me. Oh, I'm confident in God.' But it's almost like our heart has to catch up with the words that we say. Because if that's the case, whenever God is asking you to walk in your purpose and to do something, you won't second-guess it to that extent. Now, of course, will fear try to attack you? Absolutely. Will you become anxious? Yes. But if it's to the point where it's debilitating and it's causing you to just stop in your tracks and be like, you know what, I can't do this, that is a fear of rejection. And there can be a host of other things too that come along with rejection. And so in this course, I'm going to break it down because once again, it's a process trying to move from, okay, knowing you have rejection and then dealing with your self-esteem, dealing with your confidence, dealing with, you know, speaking up for yourself, you know, trying to deal with, you know, going back to, you know, childhood or even adulthood. Uh, maybe a teacher said something to you, said, oh, you'll never amount to anything, and they say these words over your life. That's a form of rejection. And so you have to, you know, allow God to heal you from that. But as I said before, it's a process. So stay tuned, stay in contact with me. Um, go to my website, www.shakeetatorres.com, download my free ebook, Pain, Passion, and Purpose, and I will definitely email everyone, all my contacts, whenever I release my course, Healing from Rejection. Until next time, talk to you later. Bye.
Thank you so much for tuning in to today's episode. Our prayer is that this podcast episode has blessed you. Don't forget to go and subscribe and leave us a raving review. If you would like to sow into this ministry or to this podcast, Pain, Passion, and Purpose, you can do so at anchor.fm/painpassionandpurpose or Cash App, dollar sign, Shakeeta Torres. Shakeeta Torres. Thank you so much, and I will talk to you next time.
