"You aren't set aside, you are set apart."
-Lysa TerKeurst

About a month ago I started slowly reading Lyssa TerKeurst's book:

Uninvited: Living Loved When You Feel Less Than, Left Out and Lonely.

Many of my friends had seen great success with this book and as an amateur life coach myself, I was greatly interested to see what Lysa had to offer. And while I had originally started the book for my own personal gain in knowledge, I began to realize it held a lot more than I originally thought.

In August of last year, I began the journey of my "resurrection" into whom I wanted to be. And one of my biggest goals, when I started this journey, was learning to live alone. Because after 21 years, I still believed that I could only feel complete around the company of others.

And so I stayed in a dying relationship arguably 2 years longer than I should have. I remained friends with individuals that drained me instead of filling me up. And I tried to fill every moment of every day doing anything so that I could avoid the only person I could never truly hide from: myself.

And to be completely honest with you? It was utterly exhausting.

A couple of weeks ago I participated in a philanthropic event for CMN Hospitals, and while I was excited to dance the 13 hours away and raise over 100k for a tremendous cause, I couldn't help but notice the sense of loneliness I felt in such a large crowd...

I tried to fill that dread by interacting with different groups of people, in an attempt to feel their presence, but instead of feeling whole around similar individuals, I felt the opposite.

Because every time I found myself standing with someone who I believed would fill my void, I felt even lonelier than before...

All I could notice was the sinking feeling that they did not want me there, and with it, countless flashbacks came coursing through my mind as I remembered all the past rejections I ever experienced prior...

Why didn't anyone want me?

Am I destined to live a life always feeling like the last kid picked for dodgeball? Like the carrot, you put aside when you see something more appealing like a slice of cake?

My younger self always tried to reassure these thoughts by saying it is better for me to be left out because I know what it's like to be rejected. Unloved. And I would rather me suffer than someone else.

But I could never find solace in that thinking because the younger Mikaela still wanted answers to the decades-old dilemma of my prior rejections.

Was I really THAT unlovable?

No, I am not, and neither are you.

For rejection is not a mechanism that describes your character, it is a tool to further refine it.

I am not set aside, I am set apart to listen, to observe, to learn who I am in the absence of another.

Living alone does not mean that I should live as a flogger, beating past failures and rejections into my physical body. Permanently scarring flesh so that I may never forget them.

It is about learning who I am in the midst of silence. The qualities I hope will never change and the aspects I want to further refine.

Being set apart means that I will become increasingly aware of others that feel set aside, and actively seek them out to say hello or recognize their presence so that they may never feel how I have felt in the past.

But it also means learning to feel complete in myself. In being alone.

Pursuing things that I enjoy and romanticising the idea that I am capable of living alone. Of standing in a large crowd and not needing the company of another. Being welcoming if anyone does approach me, but learning not to rely on them if they do not.

To be honest with you, I still have a long way to go before I begin to feel more secure in my sense of self, but I am hopeful that one day I will. And that I believe will follow suit as I continue to understand that rejection and my feeling set aside, is actually my being set apart.

That something else more suited for me is coming my way to challenge me and help me feel more secure in living loved especially whenever I may feel alone.