At some point in your life, you’ve experienced the sting of rejection and the way it makes you question your path, focus, intentions or talents. The creative confidence you have in yourself can feel shaken and uprooted, like a tree upended in a fast-paced storm without a way to right itself again.
The sense of equilibrium you had is no longer possible, and it’s not supposed to be. What’s waiting before you is the choice to be inspired or feel less than.
When you experience rejection and take it to heart, something shifts within you that focuses on the thought “I’m not worthy”. While this may be painful to experience, it’s actually a beautiful gift. The sense of discord within you is a clear signal you’ve forgotten that creativity is simply a process of becoming a deeper, richer more evolved expression of your unique spirit, including the lessons that come with tuning into and releasing what holds you back from your fullest expression.
The ways you are creative don’t matter, because simply showing up as your true self is already the purest form of creativity. No one does what you do, the way you do it.
The loop between creative confidence and rejection are there for a reason – to help you open your heart to the truth and practice compassion towards yourself, just as you are. Having an experience of feeling rejected gives you insight you didn’t have before to help strengthen your creative confidence and expand it into areas of personal growth. It also helps you realize how you perceive rejection and continue to use it against yourself long after something has transpired.
What Would you Rather Fuel: Creative Confidence or Fear?
With my clients, I see how they are so close to putting themselves and their beautiful, soulful work out there, while simultaneously striving to make it perfect and impervious to rejection. Yet, it’s the fear of rejection that holds them back and forces them into a holding pattern. Or, they let a past experience of rejection live on in their minds and hearts, slowly eating away at creative confidence and building a fear of ever trying again.
The most powerful thing you can do when feelings of rejection bubble up is to ask why someone else’s approval and love is more important than your own. And sit with it. Cry with it. Yell with it. Surrender to it. You are finally getting to the root of why you hold yourself back and give the fear of rejection more power than love.
[bctt tweet=”Self-love is the biggest responsibility you will ever have because no one else can do it for you.”]
Can you love yourself enough to at least listen to the messages you are getting and give them a gentle, helpful ear? Are you willing to write them down in a journal and finally get them out of your head and heart? Is there a way for you to be “OK” with how you feel right, knowing it will pass as you open up to loving yourself more?
The invitation in front of you is to see rejection for what it is – someone else’s opinion that has no reflection on your creative gifts, self-worth or direction in life, OR all the ways you find to reject your own creative self. Are you ready for love to win out?
For a little more reading on similar topics, check out Reframe Creative Hiccups to Move Forward with Confidence and Creativity Kick-Start: Busting Through Creative Doubt. If you want a little extra insight on tapping in your own creative inner guidance, listen to my podcast Flirting with Enlightenment. To set up a coaching session or creative reflection reading with me, see my services.
Photo credit: Fuel pumps – David