Rejection

Rejection is a badge of honor; it means you're trying.

I try to put on a brave face when rejection comes my way, but a lot of times it simmers on the back burner; boiling and burning to create fumes that engulf me and muddle my outlook until it is bleak. I see my accomplishments through this miasma, and it makes them look to me like accidents. Like I somehow tricked someone into looking past the failure and believing the lies that are my abilities.

I sit in the haze, and it darkens my thoughts, and I am sad again. All this self-doubt, a lifetime of people-pleasing and never trusting my own decisions, the scars that it created, once again bleeding. I distrust my abilities and it makes it hard to try again because putting yourself out there only to have the world say no is scary when you have just come out of the other side of healing.

I am working hard to deal with rejection better because, deep down, I know that rejection means I am trying even if, in the moment, it feels unpleasant. I remind myself that what I have to offer is not for everyone and I am doing the best I can. Do I always believe that? No, of course not. But it is the truth. That voice in my head is a liar and because she sounds so much like me, I forget that she is not me. She is my trauma, she is my fear, and she is the worst part of my mind, but she is not me.