Rejection is something creative people deal with a lot! It’s almost a daily constant, so finding healthy coping mechanisms for the rejections that sting the most has been a real work in progress for me.
I wanted to write a bit about grieving creative losses. I’ve probably bored you with my championing of The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron by now, but after almost two years of it gathering dust on my bookshelf, I finally decided to take part in the self-guided 12-week program. It has truly and significantly changed my life and my mindset over the past 8 weeks. I didn’t even realize how much my inner artist was struggling and how some of the coping methods I had in place were really hurting and hindering me.
This week’s chapter was all about grief, and a few “penny-drop” moments came to life that I wanted to share with you.
Grief for a creative is possibly hard to understand if you aren’t pursuing a creative career, and in all honesty, it can also be hard to understand as a creative. A “no,” or even a “not right now,” on a project or idea you’ve been working on can feel like a real rejection. These are obviously on a spectrum depending on the investment of time, energy, and resources you’ve put in, and they can take a toll on your mental well-being, confidence, and overall desire to keep pushing forward or come up with new ideas with the same level of enthusiasm.
In the book, she likens it to a miscarriage. Now, I tread lightly with this comparison as someone who has experienced a miscarriage recently, but I relate to the sentiment. You are excited for the future, for an idea coming to life, being part of your narrative, envisioning what your year or five years will look like when it all comes to fruition, the places you will go, how it will propel you, and you fantasize about everything going well. And then, often due to some external factor, the dream is over, pulled from underneath you, sometimes without explanation or logic.
Then you are left to recover, ponder, and ultimately decide your next step.
There are two ways to go, and I’ve done them both, but I am sharing this because I feel that the real goal is to find a happy medium. Acknowledge the loss but not let it make you bitter or stunt your inner artists creativity.
I have done the “let the floor open up beneath you and get swallowed into the earth or linger in depression and despair” and I’ve also done the “I’ll ignore this and move on like it didn’t hurt me at all.” Both are not very helpful or productive and don’t ultimately support you as an artist, in my personal experience.
So, what I am trying to learn to do—and perhaps this might be helpful to you too—is to find a healthy balance between the two. In rejection, allow myself to feel bummed out, sad, depressed, or even a little angry, but not for too long. Honour the hard work I put into something and the investment. Then, when I am ready, look at what I have learned, what I would do differently, and how I can use this rejection to inform my next steps. Consider why this might have happened and what this closed door is showing me. Is there another way to look at the rejection? Is there anything I can do to pivot?
Action has been the saving grace for my depression; even the tiniest step can move things forward, not backward.
I am curious to see if there is anything you do or avoid doing when dealing with creative rejection or loss, so we can foster a healthy dialogue that might encourage us all to feel less alone, but also ultimately positive about moving forward while keeping our inner artist nurtured.
xx
Comments
