Sitting With the Sting of Rejection
every disappointment is a way in
I once learned this brilliant piece of advice from a rad artist pal of mine, Jonathan Herrera Soto :
at the top of every year, he sets a rejection letter goal for himself.
You want to get accepted to some shit? You want job offers? You want some grant money?
Go for 25, 50, 100 rejection letters this year. Make that your benchmark.
Shoot for the moon called ‘let’s see how many no’s I can get and maybe some yeses will appear somewhere in there’
I think about this power move often. Even in the seasons when I’m not applying to things.
This past winter, I was on an application rampage. Grad school, grants, residencies, jobs. I was reading Katherine May’s Wintering at the time, and hearting all the memes and internet platitudes about low-key winter cave time while I banged out these big applications and did the opposite of winter resting.
So far I’m racking up a lot of points on my rejection letter scorecard.
A few in particular have been some Real Big Bummers to receive a thanks, but no thanks on.
Historically, I have this way of moving on pretty quick from unpleasant news ~
bippity boop ok that wasn’t for me anyways just gonna twirl in a different direction now.
I like this about myself, and have mostly considered it like some high vibe surrender skills, but I also notice the potential for moving on too quickly as a way to avoid the sting of rejection, thus missing out on the magic teachings of rupture.
This week I’ve been interested in the shape of the tear left by disappointment.
What if I don’t try to outrun the elegance of this moment?
What if I don’t use it this as evidence to build a case against myself in any kind of way?
What if I just pause inside the hole left by dashed visions and evaporating little fantasies about how I want reality to go, and feel the contours of this space?
What if this moment means nothing in particular about me, and I get to just taste the sensation of absence?
This, as I’m sure you can feel, is not the same as wallowing.
I think the real sting of rejection flies up not because of the thing itself we’re missing out on, though that might really suck specifically, but because of what we’ve decided this must now mean about ourselves. AKA I’m a loser, a failure, not lovable, not understood, not interesting enough, cool enough, credentialed enough, raw enough, freaky enough, professional enough, ya ya ya…
So I’ve been resisting the urge to bippity boppity scoot too soon, and also resisting the urge to immediately phone a friend to campaign about how much this now sucks.
Instead, I just want to feel the contours of the rip, the edge of the torn page, leaving me with more questions about where the story is headed. A cliffhanger that begs the question, ‘ok, fuck, well now what?’
But here’s the thing, if I haven’t made this moment mean anything negative about me, then I’m free to go anywhere from here. The engine is in idle, purring, poised, ready.
If I haven’t made this moment mean anything about me, then my attention is free to roam, untethered to an outcome. I’m free to recalibrate to what’s really and truly catching my eye in this moment. I get to stay with what what is beating and glimmering and alive. Glorrrryyyy give thanks.
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Okay here’s something that felt good recently:
Everybody that’s in a month-long 1:1 container with me receives a very cute, cool batch of creative prompts on Mondays ~ they’re meant to shimmy, shake, lubricate whatever pang it is they’re needing my help with.
Here’s a prompt from this week’s round designed for one of my most cherished clients.
I did it and liked it. Maybe you’ll wanna do it too.
🌀Trace the sun🌀
When the sun is out, make a solo date to visit a few sites that are important and significant to you. Take a journal or sketchbook along. Lay your paper down so that the edge of a shadow falls on the page and trace it.
Collect these sun impressions from your favorite, special sites. An essence gathering.
Transpose these line drawings to different surfaces:
A sticky note on the wall, a lipstick line on the mirror, ballpoint pen on your forearm like you're in high school again, pipe it onto a cake for a friend’s birthday, draw it with a finger in the pollen dust caked on a neighbor’s car
Or just leave them as is, mementos in your sketchbook. An archive of the exquisite, ordinary, fleeting now. An archive of your dance with the elements.
Consider the constellation points between you, your hand, your special sites, the sun, the cake, the car, the forearm.
Let yourself be held in this web. What do you notice here?
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Do you need some flame-fanning to your inner creative life?
Find my 1:1 support offers HERE
I don’t like the word coaching. I don’t love the word consulting. We’re getting a little weirder than either of those words make room for imho. If you’re seeking something that lives on the vast and unruly edges of traditional mental health support, let’s talk.
🤍
xoM