[00:00:02] Speaker A: Ever since you can remember, you felt something in your chest telling you to move, to love, to speak, to try.
Day after day. You pretend you don't hear it calling or maybe you dismiss it as silliness or worse. But it's there ready for you and it will wait for you as long as you need.
My name is Johnny G and I invite you to join me on a journey of awakening as we dare to embrace our light. This is refractive.
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Refractive. I'm your host Johnny G. Today I have with me Dr. Gary Lawrence. Over the course of 23 years serving as the founder and director of the new life Dynamics Christian Counseling center and with 20 years as the host of his own radio show, Dr. Gary Lawrence has personally met with and coached more than 6000 clients and he's overseen the counseling of another 10,000. He's inspired thousands more on radio, television and stage. Today Dr. G has refocused on his best selling book rejection junkies. In this guide to recognizing the damaging effects of rejection, Dr. G helps readers to recognize the people, places and things. The circumstances that hold us hostage keep us stuck and can also make us bitter. And so we're here to talk about that today. And welcome, Dr. G. It's great to have you with us.
[00:01:41] Speaker B: Well, thank you, John. It's a joy to be here today. What a wonderful opportunity to meet with you.
[00:01:46] Speaker A: Same here. I feel the exact same. You know, when we were communicating back and forth on topics for know, I've arrived at a place in my own journey where I try to see the perfection of the creator in all things, even the things that I don't like, even the things that are painful. And as I was considering the experiences of rejection that I remember sharply in my own mind, it's an opportunity for me to say where's the gift in that? Because God's perfection is also in those experiences. And I wonder if you have any thoughts on that. What do you think about seeing this deeply painful experience of rejection as actual fertile soil, a gift?
[00:02:38] Speaker B: Well, I'll tell you what, when you put the words rejection and gift in the same sentence, they don't go together, do they?
[00:02:45] Speaker A: No, they don't seem to.
[00:02:47] Speaker B: Exactly. And probably one of the best things that ever happened to me is when I came to understand the rejection syndrome. You know, by the time we're eight years old, Johnny, 80% of our emotional patterns are formed. It doesn't matter if you're an atheist, a Christian, a Muslim, a Buddhist, by the time we're eight years old, 80% of our emotional patterns are formed. By age 18, 100% of our self image is formed. So when the average person goes into their 20s, their thirty s and their 40s, as they get older, they may get a better education.
They may learn how to create more income. And as they get older, they get gray hair. But you know what? The rejection patterns of their early life continue to control them. Let me give you an example. I had a couple come to me years ago. They'd been married 55 years. Now, he was 80 years old, Johnny. And when he heard me say, by age 880 percent of our emotional patterns are formed, he interrupted me. He said, well, Dr. G, what you're saying is I'm an 80 year old eight year old. And I said, that's right, doc. And his wife leaned over and patted him on the leg and said, see, sweetheart, I told you, you act like a little boy. That's right.
It's not just dementia that makes older people act foolish. It's their patterns in the early years of their childhood. And as I continue to coach and work with married couples and divorced couples, it's just as evident today as it was 2025 years ago.
On some level, no matter what your gender or what your race, what your background is, on some level, everybody has negative rejectatory patterns that were created in their early years of their life and continue to control them in their adult lives. Does that make sense? It does.
[00:04:46] Speaker A: And so where on this timeline would you say you call it rejection syndrome? Where does the rejection syndrome start? Does it start at that eight year old phase? Or is it more later in adolescence or something else?
[00:05:01] Speaker B: Well, that's a great question. By age 18, we've heard the word no 140,000 times.
By age 18, we've only heard the word yes about 5000 times. I mean, Johnny, stop thinking your own childhood. How many times you say yes? You can do that? Well, yes, sweetheart, go ahead. No, you've heard no, you can't do that. No. You got to stop that. Right? So you've heard the word no many more times. So, once again, by age 880, percent of our emotional patterns are formed. The emotional patterns of fear, anxiety, feelings of inferiority, insecurity, feelings of inadequacy, those are all created in the very formative years of our early life. The great religions of the world. They understand if you teach people while they're young, you have them for a lifetime. And that's the way it is with the human race. Yeah.
[00:05:58] Speaker A: I'm wondering, when you talk about rejection, I think in our culture, we think about it through an interpersonal lens of, I don't know, I ask a question and I am rejected. But I get the feeling that you're referring to rejection in a broader sense about maybe almost redirection or I don't know. I'm going to stop there. Let me not connect those dots and ask you, when you say rejection, what is the perspective you're considering for this concept?
[00:06:41] Speaker B: Well, the bottom line is there's two different levels of rejection. There's covert rejection, there's overt rejection, okay. Overt rejection is physical abuse, verbal abuse, emotional abuse, obvious disdainment towards another individual. It's very obvious. Okay? That's overt rejection.
[00:06:59] Speaker A: Now see, I wouldn't have thought of that. So I would not have considered. I'm glad you brought that up because I got the sense that we're talking about a wider conception of the word rejection than what I typically think of. So abuse, which I can see how that's an aspect of rejection. It's not. I would have normally categorized as that. So that's interesting, right?
[00:07:23] Speaker B: The other level of rejection is covert rejection. That's not so obvious. For an example, being nonverbal, raised in an environment where there's no affection shown or demonstrated, being raised in an environment where there's no positive verbalization or reinforcement.
For an example, I didn't become a Christian until I was 20 and a half years old, okay? I was raised in an agnostic home. Both of my parents were severe alcoholics, and there was a lot of physical and verbal abuse in my family. I was the fourth of four children, and my father believed my mother got pregnant by another man. So I was always the bastard child.
[00:08:07] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:08:07] Speaker B: Well, when I accepted Jesus Christ as my savior at the age of 20 and a half years old, I still didn't feel accepted. I could not understand the fullness of my spiritual relationship with my heavenly father. Okay? I still had patterns of hostility. I still had problems with nervousness, depression, anxiety. And so even though I was a new creature in Christ, the old emotional patterns were still controlling me. So many people say, well, if being a Christian is so wonderful, why am I still so miserable? Well, welcome to the human race, okay? I mean, Johnny, look at all the anger that's in our country today. It's being demonstrated in everything that's going on around the world. We've never seen our country, the United States of America. We've never seen it in so much turmoil as it is today sociologically. Would you agree with me on that?
[00:09:06] Speaker A: I think that tracks, right?
[00:09:08] Speaker B: Big time. Now, my wife, Sylvia, she was raised in a very strict christian home, okay?
[00:09:15] Speaker A: Man.
[00:09:15] Speaker B: They were in church every Sunday morning, every Sunday night, and every Wednesday night. But from ages seven to twelve, when she was bedfast with tuberculosis, that's when her father was sexually abusing her, okay? Her mother was a very angry, hostile, narcissistic personality. She physically abused Sylvia. One time, Sylvia was beaten so bad that she was nine years old. And Sylvia literally had to crawl to the closet and hide in the closet because some women were coming over to the house for christian fellowship with her mother. And so she was raised in that hypocritical environment, and she handled her rejection by withdrawing. She handled her rejection by escaping. She used to hide under the stairs in her basement to get away from her mother. So now here we are. We're meeting in college.
I didn't really know about her background. She didn't know about my background. And so we got married.
We married four months after we got married, after we started dating, okay? That was 57 years ago.
Anyway, so my ministry was flourishing. Oh, my goodness. I was a well known, well respected speaker throughout the United States. I traveled to a lot of churches as a keynote speaker. But my marriage was falling apart. My marriage was in shreds. So Sylvia decided the best thing she could do for the boys sake was to leave me and leave the boys with me, because at least I could take care of them. And I promised her. I said, sylvia, if you don't leave me, I promise you, I will find the answer. I will find out why we are rejecting each other so badly. You see, she was passive, and I was aggressive. I say it like this, Johnny. Opposites attract, then they attack, then they retract. Wow.
[00:11:19] Speaker A: Okay, wait, let's repeat this.
Opposites attract.
[00:11:24] Speaker B: Opposites attract, then. And then they attack.
[00:11:28] Speaker A: Okay?
[00:11:28] Speaker B: And then they. Okay, okay.
[00:11:32] Speaker A: You don't hear that?
[00:11:33] Speaker B: Yeah. I would say, sylvia, why don't you talk to me? Well, you're always yelling. You're always mad. Not always mad, Sylvia. You're always quiet. You never express anything to me. So, see? She was responding with the emotional patterns that were created in the earlier years of her life. I was responding with the emotional patterns that were created in the early years of my life. Yeah. So what was going on? Johnny? The bottom line is we had two young adults reacting and rejecting each other with those negative emotional patterns that were formed in the early years of our lives. Does that make sense?
[00:12:11] Speaker A: Yes, it does.
[00:12:13] Speaker B: And it happens to everybody.
If I had an opportunity to take your life history, Johnny, I'll guarantee I would be able to trace every rejectatory pattern that was formed in the early years of your life. I've been doing it for 23 years, and I've been on the radio for over 20 years. The bottom line is everybody has some kind of negative patterns that continue to control them in their adult relationships.
[00:12:41] Speaker A: Yeah, I think this is fascinating because I arrived at a turning point in my own life, Dr. G. Where it was, I'm doing everything right.
Why does life feel so bad? Which is just along the same lines as the question you asked about Christianity.
If I've discovered religion, and if I feel a relationship with my God, and if I've embarked on this new fertile soil, why is life stink? Right? Like, why is life hard? And I've certainly found myself at a similar point to that. And so what do you say to that?
[00:13:24] Speaker B: Okay, well, that's a great question, so let me unpack a little bit of that. Okay.
[00:13:29] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: Well, as I look at you and talk with you in this interview, I realize that Johnny G. That you are a body. You are a physical human body, but you're also a spirit. The spirit part of you is that part of you that relates to God. It's that part of you that says, this is right, this is wrong. It's that part of you that is your conscience. So your spirit part of you is sinless and complete, 100%. Okay.
[00:14:00] Speaker A: Yes, I agree.
[00:14:02] Speaker B: But you don't feel like it, do you? Right.
[00:14:04] Speaker A: Things feel heavy, right.
[00:14:07] Speaker B: That's why the third entity is so important to understand. And that's your soul. Your soul is comprised of three elements. It's your mind. That's what you know to be true. It's your emotions. That's what you feel to be true. Now, when what you know and how you feel are in conflict, your will, your ability to respond to life's circumstances is damaged. So instead of responding with genuine love, joy, peace, gentleness, goodness and faith, instead of having that peaceful experience in life, you respond with anxiety, fear, feelings of insecurity, inadequacy, sexual conflicts, and just go on and on and on and on. So the conflict is not in your body. The conflict is not in your spirit. The conflict, Johnny, is in your soul. That war between what you know to be true and how you feel it to be true. And it's an ever waging war against each other. Depression's hostility turned inward. It's where you're beaten up on yourself emotionally. And as long as you are self focused and you are centered in self destruction, you're not going to have much of a value in life that makes sense.
[00:15:29] Speaker A: Yeah, it does. And I tend to agree with you. I certainly don't have any medical training, and I have really nothing to say at all to argue with what the medical community says. But here's what I can tell you from my experience, okay, my experience, when I began to live my life in harmony with my intuition. And when I say intuition, I mean the source of inner knowing that comes from my creator. Right. The undistorted source of inner knowing that is rooted in unconditional love. Right. That part I'm not talking about my ego and my fears. I'm talking about when I began to start paying attention to and discerning my intuition from my ego and my fear. Then I began to have a decrease in the psychological symptoms that my medical team had diagnosed me with.
[00:16:35] Speaker B: Right. Now, see, I understand exactly what you're saying. What you're telling me is because you focus more on the spirit aspect of your existence, that conflict between what you know and how you feel, that conflict between your mind and your emotions began to cease and slow down and eventually disappear in some areas. So it's just a matter of you allowed your soul to become subject to the spirit of God. Yes.
[00:17:06] Speaker A: That'S the thing.
And again, I don't know what I don't know. I can't talk about someone else's chemical imbalances and all anything about that. I don't know that. But what I can tell you is that I was diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I was put on three different prescriptions.
[00:17:30] Speaker B: Wow.
[00:17:34] Speaker A: Eventually my doctor told me, I have to strike these from your chart because you no longer demonstrate adequate symptoms to qualify for these diagnoses. And we're not even going to consider medication anymore.
And that did not happen for me. I was on those medicines for a long time. That did not happen for me until I began to live a spiritually focused life.
[00:18:01] Speaker B: Right? Absolutely. Good. Well, see, now, if you would have come to me in the early stages of your diagnosis, you know how I would have diagnosed you? How? You're a rejection junkie. You are consciously, unwittingly hooked on recreating rejection patterns from your past.
[00:18:21] Speaker A: Tell me about this term that you coined, and it's the title of your book, rejection junkies. What do you mean by that?
[00:18:29] Speaker B: Well, I was raised in an environment of hostility, physical abuse, verbal abuse. For an example. My father never taught me how to praise a wife. My father never taught me how to encourage a wife. He never taught me how to emotionally love a wife. But now he did teach me how to swear to wife. He did teach me how to yell at a wife. He did teach me how to abuse a wife. So when I became a husband, I was ill equipped to be a husband. I had no guidance at all. And Sylvia, on the other hand, because she was sexually abused by her father, when we got married, that was the family's secret. I knew nothing of it. And so three months after we were married, I was on a road trip, and I was supposed to come home Monday afternoon, but I was 22 years old and just married, and I wanted to get home to my wife. So I got home. I drove and got home late Sunday evening, and she was already in bed. And I walked in to the apartment. I took a shower, fixed myself something to eat, and I got in bed, and I cuddled up to her and began to caress her. And Johnny. She literally jumped out of bed so fast, she slammed herself against the wall and fell to the floor. And for the next 4 hours, she sat there with her knees drawn up to her chest, saying, you can't touch me like that.
Don't tell my daddy what you've done. He told me, never let another man touch me the way he did. That was my introduction to her sexual abuse. Would you say she had some emotional patterns?
[00:20:10] Speaker A: It seems so, for sure.
[00:20:12] Speaker B: Right now we have a term for it today. We would call that PTSD back then. Now, that was back in 1967. Okay.
From my perspective, she was having a nervous breakdown. I didn't understand what was going on. So even though she was an adult, she still had those emotional patterns, and she had stuffed those as she became what I call the emotional garbage compactor. And I'll guarantee you there's people in your audience listening to us today. They can identify the fact that they've learned how to stuff their feelings and stuff their feelings and stuff their feelings. They become totally nonverbal, non expressive in their relationship with other people, whether they're married or, uh. I've learned over the years that no matter who Sylvia would have married, her husband would have become a victim of the second order. Okay? She told me that her dad said, don't ever let another man touch me the way he did. So guess what? I'm her husband. I'm touching her the way her daddy did. Now I'm the villain, right? And so I played that game, okay, I'll reject you, but she's rejecting me. And so we were just two rejection junkies shooting each other up in the emotional bloodstreams.
With those rejection patterns?
[00:21:38] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:21:39] Speaker B: Does that make the opposite? I say it again. Opposites attract. You see, I need someone to dominate. Sylvia needs someone to dominate her. Now, here's another catchphrase. In every marriage, there's a parent and there's a child, okay? In every marriage, there's a more dominant one and a more passive one. Why? Because opposites attract.
It has nothing to do with gender. Now let me give you another illustration of rejection junkies. You show me a man that's married to a real dominant woman who's very decisive, who is very controlling. I'll show you a man that was smothered by his mother emotionally. I'll show you a man that was dominated and controlled by his mother. So what does he do? He goes into the adult life, and unconsciously he will seek out a female that will control him and dominate his life.
She's the parent, he's the child. I worked with her for many years. It's never changed.
[00:22:50] Speaker A: Yeah, we see that. And that works in both directions, right? You hear that a lot of daddy complexes and things like that as well.
[00:22:57] Speaker B: Absolutely.
It's really simple to me. Of course, maybe I take it for granted. I worked with it for so many years. But when I started my counseling practice, I didn't want to be one of those therapists or those counselors that needed counseling and therapy. I wanted to have my issues solved. I wanted to be at peace with my spiritual relationship with the Lord, okay? Just like you. That was what I pursued. That's what I desired.
Unfortunately, there are so many people involved in the counseling environment, counseling world that they really need help. And that's why we're living in a world of psychiatric suicide, man. The pharmaceutical world is pumping drugs into people left and right. If you're a little bit nervous, they give you a drug to calm you down. If you got a high energy level, they give you a drug to calm you down.
If you're depressed, they give you a pill to perk you up.
[00:24:00] Speaker A: And you've seen the ads on tv nonstop, nonstop, nonstop.
[00:24:06] Speaker B: We're a nation of drug addicted people.
[00:24:09] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:11] Speaker B: Thank God I learned what I learned, Johnny. And I didn't become addicted to drugs, but I did become addicted to truth. And I was willing to, just like you. Set my ego aside, set my pride aside. That wasn't easy to do, Johnny, okay? I was proud of my pride. Does that make sense?
[00:24:31] Speaker A: Oh, it sure does.
[00:24:32] Speaker B: I was proud of my pride. I'm somebody special. I'm not screwed up like my wife, okay? I had everything together the bottom line is my life has fallen apart.
[00:24:44] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:49] Speaker B: Does that help you understand why I called my book rejection junkies?
[00:24:53] Speaker A: Yeah, it sure does. And I wonder then, because it's inevitable that we're going to experience this rejection. And I asked you earlier about your broad concept of the word rejection that's maybe a little bit wider than what we use conversationally today. And I almost see rejection as just be unkindness. Whether it's unkindness to myself, unkindness to others, it's an act of rejection. Right? Like, I separate from you, my unkindness is an act of quarantine from me to you, which is equal to rejection.
Go ahead. I see you want to say something.
[00:25:38] Speaker B: Well, I love what you're saying there. That word unkindness. Yes, that's a form of rejection. But let's go on the other side of the scope. How about being too kind? How about being too giving?
[00:25:51] Speaker A: Because that sounds kind to yourself, right?
[00:25:53] Speaker B: That's a form of COVID rejection. Okay?
My wife was too kind. She was too giving. A person that's real passive in their personality, in their childhood, they lost two things as a child growing up. They lost their voice, and they lost their choice. Okay?
I remember very clearly in the early years of our marriage, I'd asked Sylvia, sweetheart, you want to go out to a restaurant tonight? It's Friday night. Let's go eat out. Okay. I say, great.
What restaurant do you want to go to? Oh, I don't care. Wherever you want to go. So I'd pick the restaurant. We'd go to the restaurant. We're sitting down, and we're getting ready to order. I say, sweetheart, what are you going to order? Oh, I don't know. Then she'd say to me, what are you going to order, Gary? And I say, well, I think I'm going to have the Salisbury steak. Okay? That's what I'm going to have. You see, she was always dependent on me to make her decisions. To the extent that she was so emotionally damaged, she had no concept of how to make a decision on her own. I was the parent, she was the child, okay? And the opposite side of that is if the woman's dominant, if she's the critical one, if she's the controlling personality, she becomes the parent, the husband becomes the child.
It's tit for tat.
[00:27:18] Speaker A: Okay? Do you see this in non marriage relationships? Like whether it's siblings or friends, friendships or whatever, as well, the same role.
[00:27:27] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely. I'm glad you brought that up.
A lot of passive people will unconsciously seek out relationships and friendships with someone who's going to be the more dominant, decisive personality. It happens all the time.
[00:27:42] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:42] Speaker B: Okay.
[00:27:43] Speaker A: All right.
[00:27:43] Speaker B: It doesn't just have to be marriage.
[00:27:45] Speaker A: So here's the next step then. It's inevitable that we're going to face this rejection, this unkindness from. Right? It's just a part of what we can expect in life. So how do we face that without making it about our self worth?
[00:28:10] Speaker B: Okay. I'm so glad you asked that. You can't until you come to understand what the rejection syndrome is doing to you and how it's controlling you. Okay. There's a verse of scripture in Hebrews, chapter twelve, verse 15, it says, look diligently, look very closely, examine yourself very closely, lest any root of bitterness springs up and troubles you and defiles many. The two things that root of bitterness does. It troubles you and defiles many. Okay. Now people say, well, I'm not a bitter person. I'm a kind person. I'm a nice person. Well, a. Bitterness is not a friendly word. Nobody wants to say, well, I'm bitter.
So I understand. Bitterness is demonstrated with many other emotional reactions. For an example, bitterness is a sense of resentment. You show me someone that you unconsciously or consciously have a spirit of resentment towards. I'll show you someone you have a root of bitterness towards.
Bitterness is a sense of abandonment. You show me someone who has abandoned you, I'll show you someone you have a root of bitterness towards.
Bitterness is an avoidance. Show me someone you avoid being with. I'll show you someone you have a root of bitterness towards.
Bitterness is a sense of loss. Show me someone who has created a sense of loss. I'll show you a root of bitterness. There was a fellow one time in my office here in Phoenix, I asked him a question. Boy, he was a very outwardly bitter young man. And I said, where was your father buried? He says, oh, up in state of New York. I said, about, how far is that from here? He said, about 2300 miles. And I said, you realize that you are connected to your father's grave with a 2300 miles long emotional umbilical cord.
And so when people come to me for counseling, I have a process I call the emotional surgery, where literally I position them with their intellect and their emotional well being. I position them to cut those emotional umbilical cords to the past.
[00:30:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:30:25] Speaker B: So many people poison their present by carrying the past in their life.
[00:30:31] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:30:32] Speaker B: And as a result of that, they destroy the possibility of a healthy future. Yeah.
[00:30:38] Speaker A: Oh, see, I love this. I love that you bring it to presence. Because one of the things, Dr. G, that I've noticed in my own spiritual journey is I've come to see that people who contemplate the spiritual life from any background, from any religion, right, they all seem to arrive at this same conclusion, that fulfillment lies in the present.
Even in the sermon on the mount, which is one of my favorite spiritual writings, jesus says, has anybody ever extended their life by 1 minute, by focusing on tomorrow, by worrying about tomorrow, right? It's about, let's look at what's now. And when I look at what's now, I get this opportunity to ask myself questions about what's really true and what is mythology that my psyche is manufacturing, right? What are stories about what you must really be thinking about, what that person must really be feeling about me, about what was really behind that comment, when in reality, that's all mythology, that's all created by my ego to strengthen my ego. Whereas if I want to be able to face this inevitable rejection head on without making it about me, it means I have to anchor into what's true. I have to anchor into the present moment and say, oh, there I am connecting this to the past, which is not an accurate link right now. Let me not go there. Or here I am connecting this to my fears about a hypothetical future. Let me not go there right now. Let's bring it back to what's really true right now.
[00:32:38] Speaker B: Right. Boy, you and I need to get together, Johnny. Write a book.
[00:32:43] Speaker A: I'm here for.
[00:32:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. You described that right on. It's like George and Harry, they were good friends, and they loved to play golf together. And one day they got up extra early so they could be out on the golf field at sunrise. And so George teed off and then Harry teed.
So George didn't get home till it was almost time for the sun to come down. Set down. And his wife said, where in the world have you been?
You don't usually play golf this long. And George said, well, we teed off on the first tee. And after Harry teed off, he had a heart attack. And from then on, it was tee off and dragged Harry tee off and drag Harry tee off and drag Harry. And that's the way a lot of people live their life. They're trying to tee off in the present, but they're dragging the past behind them.
[00:33:40] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:33:41] Speaker B: That's a pretty heavy load to carry, isn't it?
[00:33:43] Speaker A: That is. Yeah.
[00:33:48] Speaker B: Excuse me. So that's why the present is called the present. It is a present.
[00:33:54] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:33:56] Speaker B: And if you live in the future, even one day in the future, I call that futuristic failure.
There's an old saying that worry is a terrible waste of the imagination.
And you know yourself, you wake up two or 03:00 in the morning and, boy, your imagination can run wild, can't it?
[00:34:20] Speaker A: Yeah, that's right.
[00:34:21] Speaker B: Well, and stop and think about this. Now, here you are, you're 25, 35 years old. You're an adult, but you still wake up with those negative emotional patterns of anxiety, fear. Well, where were those formed in your early childhood? And they stay with you the rest of your life until you learn how to sever that cord of bitterness, that root of anxiety that troubles you and defiles many.
It's also what I call the generational pass down. Okay.
When I became a father, I knew nothing about being a father. I knew how to make a baby, but I did not know how to rear a child.
[00:35:05] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:35:06] Speaker B: And big difference, okay? And I remember my older son. He's 55 years old now. He was about four years old. And I had paddled him one night for something. And I thought, you know what? I was too hard on him. And I couldn't go to sleep that night. And so it was about 02:00 in the morning, I woke him up, took him out in the living room, and I had him stand right in front of me, looking right in the eyes. And I said, dwayne, I need to ask you to forgive me for something. He said, what's that, daddy? I said, could you please forgive me for hurting your spirit? When I paddled you, I just didn't hurt your behind, but I wounded your spirit and I hurt your feelings. Can you please forgive me? And bless his heart, he started crying, put his arms around me, said, yes, daddy, I forgive you. And Johnny, that was the day I got on my knees and put my arm around my son. And I said, heavenly father, please teach me how to be a father to this boy.
Teach me how to be the daddy that he needs. You see, I was still responding to that emotional pattern of hostility, anxiety. I started to do to my son what my dad did to me. It's called the generational pass down. Yeah, and it goes on and on and on.
[00:36:26] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:36:27] Speaker B: I don't care what your race, your ethnicity is, don't care what your education level is.
I had a fellow come to me one time. He was a multi millionaire. And I just want to throw this in. I've counseled some of the wealthiest people in America. I've counseled some of the most well known people in America.
And this guy, he owned six car dealerships in California, and he was worth about $110,000,000. And I came home one day and my wife said, how was your day, sweetheart? And I said, you want me to be honest with you? She said, well, yes. I said, I just feel like a prostitute. She says, what do you mean? I said, well, I just felt like I've been used and left dirty and thrown to the curb. She says, what are you saying? I said, well, honey, I took this fellow's history today, and he has no intention of following through with anything I'm going to teach him. And the only reason he's going through this counseling is so that he can say in his divorce proceedings, he went for counseling and his wife didn't.
[00:37:29] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:37:30] Speaker B: Oh, I see. I said, I'm just being used. And one of the commitments I made to myself when I started my counseling practice is that I will not compromise on truth just to create income.
[00:37:44] Speaker A: Sure.
[00:37:45] Speaker B: Money is not going to be my focus. Truth is going to be my focus. And that's when I fired him as my client. Okay.
The bottom line is, in my book rejection junkies. And by the way, your audience can get my book rejection junkies at my website. It's rejectionjunkies.com, and spelled junkies. Junkies. Rejectionjunkies.com.
The original copy was written in 1996, but in January of 21, Johnny, I had a stroke, and I was hospitalized for a good period of time, but I recovered quite well. Thank God for that. But part of my cognitive recovery was to update my book, rejection junkies. Well, back in the, when someone was hooked on drugs, hooked on marijuana, hooked on some kind of drug like cocaine, they were called junkies.
You're a junkie. And I thought, well, everybody's hooked on rejection on some level. So they're rejection junkies.
They're consciously addicted to it or unconsciously addicted to it.
[00:38:57] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:38:57] Speaker B: Does that make sense? Does that explain why I called the book rejection junkies?
[00:39:01] Speaker A: It sure does. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. G. Man, it's been a pleasure connecting with you today.
I think this is a topic that can resonate with a lot of know at its base. It's something that affects all of us here. And I appreciate you adding your wisdom to refractive.
[00:39:19] Speaker B: Well, what a joy to be your guest today, Johnny. My goodness. I can just sense in your spirit that you have made tremendous progress in getting in tune with the real Johnny G. Thank you. Okay. And I say to many people, when they call me for counseling or coaching, I'll say, let me introduce you to the real you.
I'm going to get you off the stage of performance, a position in place where you're no longer tap dancing on the tabletops of other people's lives.
[00:39:51] Speaker A: That's right.
[00:39:53] Speaker B: And that's what real freedom is all about. Sometime you and I can do another interview about what makes a real healthy marriage.
Hey, is divorce the final step to taking your know, divorce happens.
I tell everybody, the only difference between you and I is the fact that my divorce papers weren't signed.
[00:40:16] Speaker A: Yeah, there you go.
[00:40:17] Speaker B: Okay. Sylvie and I, we almost totally got divorced. Everybody has problems. Welcome to the human race.
[00:40:25] Speaker A: Yeah, I hear that. And so if any listeners want to reach out to you, get in touch with you, I would assume they should go through your website, right? Rejectionjunkies.com.
[00:40:36] Speaker B: Right. And by the way, too, on my homepage of my website, rejectionjunkies.com, in the lower right side of the home page, there's a quiz there. Are you a rejection junkie? And they can fill that quiz out. There's no cost. And if they put their phone number and their email address in, I will contact them for an absolutely no cost, no upselling review of their quiz. Are you a rejection junkies?
Okay, good. So it's a great opportunity for people to, well, I think, take a few minutes out live and learn more about themselves.
[00:41:17] Speaker A: That's right. All right, great. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. G. I appreciate you being with us today. And, yeah, I think our listeners will enjoy it as well.
[00:41:27] Speaker B: Well, thank you, Johnny. It's my privilege, my joy to have met you, my friend.
[00:41:31] Speaker A: Same here. All my listeners, thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Refractive. As you go out into the world and you find people just doing the best they can, remember to always aim your light. Take care.
You've been listening to refractive podcast, and this is Johnny G. If you found today's content uplifting, if you think it might make somebody's day better, give it a share on social media, click like, subscribe. All those things help to expand this podcast availability to new audiences. I'm a speaker, a coach, and a facilitator, tater, based out of Washington, DC, but I travel a lot. If you think I can be of service to you or to your organization, help people get unstuck or move into their authentic power, shoot me an email. My email address is
[email protected]. Take care. Thanks for listening. And aim your light.
