Rejection

Weathering Disappointment

I’m feeling disappointed. I submitted a painting to a juried exhibition and got a rejection email this morning. (Insert sad emoji).

I asked google how to weather disappointment and came across a helpful article on the Harvard Business Review website. Immediately I found something that resonated with me: people often deal with disappointment by underachieving and setting expectations permanently low.

This is a pattern in my life.

I’m a hard worker at things I’m passionate about. If I have an interest in something I will work at it and study it. I’m self-motivating, but it’s usually in areas of my life that don’t get judged or evaluated, areas that don’t receive accolades or compensation.

I lack confidence as a painter. I studied photography in school, participated in critique groups, and got plenty of constructive criticism from professors, but I never got much feedback about painting. Although I went on to study drawing a painting for ten years after I got my BA, it wasn’t through an organized degree program. I’m what they call ‘self taught’. Although I’ve studied two-dimensional design, I didn’t study painting.

Now I’m trying to make a living as a painter and I still struggle to see my work as good. Getting a rejection from a juried show feels like confirmation that I’m just ‘not good enough’.

Also, I’m imagining people asking if I got accepted to the juried show and having to say ‘no’. My partner got accepted and I’m sure many of our artist friends will get accepted too. I’ll be at the opening to support my partner and my friends who, undoubtedly are feeling ecstatic right now, but today I’m hurting.

I want to do two things. I want to feel my pain but I don’t want to get stuck in it. Getting rejected was something I couldn’t control. I submitted a piece of work and the judge did not choose it. I was right to take a risk but the outcome was something I had no power over.

For the past few years I have been asking myself a lot of tough questions about career and income. I traced some destructive beliefs and feelings back to the end of elementary school and found clues as to why my work life is the way it is. What I found was eye opening and insightful. I experienced a lot of overwhelm as a student and because of that I performed poorly. I wasn’t able to ask for help nor did I understand why I was struggling. I decided that it was easier to not care, so that’s what I did. I stopped trying to get good grades. And when student morphed into employee I continued the pattern of underachieving.

Reading that article about disappointment felt like a ‘God thing’. It felt as if my Higher Power was saying, ‘Here’s another clue’. I avoid pain rather than accept that it’s part of life. No matter what career path I could have chosen, failure and disappointment are part of the game. The only option I really have is to either stop taking risks or stop taking rejection personally.

After sitting with my hurt feelings I’m beginning to feel inspired. This makes me want to work harder at what I’m doing. I will grow, either from ‘success’ or from ‘failure’. Both will come and I can decide how to deal with them. I want to work harder at painting. I want to seek out more feedback. I want to get critiqued by artists whose work I admire so that I can get better. And, I want to let God into the process. I am an artist because I want to ‘get my ego out of the way’ and let my divine essence shine through. I’m still hurt, still disappointed, but I have a lot to learn and I’m ready to do it.