rejection is direction

In this episode, I discuss my relationship with rejection while giving a mini review and summary of “Navigate Your Stars” by Jesmyn Ward. 

Transcript

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Hey, how y'all doing? This is your girl Brianna, and this is the Divine Intervention Podcast, where I try my best to make space learn how to take up that space. Today I'm here with a longer episode. Um, it's gonna be titled Rejection is Redirection, and I'm gonna tie that into a book summary slash recommendation, which is Navigate Your Stars by Jasmine Ward. Um, so yeah, I would say, you know, just get cozy because I'm gonna yap a little bit today, and then I'm gonna talk about the book, and I'm gonna tie that in. So, you know, stay with me. But to tell this story, I have to take you to my mind space of where I was my senior year of college. So I'm at the beginning of it. I have always been a very I have very big feelings, I feel things very deeply. Um, I the article I wrote for the collective feels with Monica Coleman called Big Feelings. If you read that, I'll talk a little bit about what I'm gonna talk about today. Um, but I steer today more on the route of me navigating my journey of learning that rejection is redirection and learning how to be comfortable in rejection and what that feels like. Um, my was it my senior year college? I think it was my senior year of college. I had this with this creative writing professor. Loved her write, she was super cool. Um, but she had this running joke in her class where she was like, Yeah, if you're cool enough, you might make it to my 100 rejections club. Now, when she first said it, I turned my head to the side and I was like, girl, who wants to get rejected a hundred times? And she was like, Yeah, like the only way you can be in my club is if you get rejected a hundred times. And the the sentiment behind it was, you know, as a writer, you have to get used to being rejected. You have to get used to like reworking stories and resubmitting them and resubmitting them and cover letters, and you it's just a part of the process. And Jasmine Ward actually talks about this in Navigator Star. She talks about her relationship with becoming a writer and how she graduated from college, and she realized that the thing she was most passionate about, she didn't even feel like she was that good at. Um, and so to know means now, my senior year, I really wanted to be an English teaching assistant. Um, I wanted to go to Zambia. That was like where my heart was set. So when I had a mentor tell me, like, Brandy, you should probably apply to job applications, the voice in my head was just like, girl, for what? Like, I'm finna I'm doing what I told you I'm gonna be doing. I indeed did not end up doing what I thought I was gonna be doing at all. Um, and it took me a minute to come to terms with that because the way that national scholarships work, and I always had a very difficult relationship with them because of the message of the whole episode, rejection is redirection, rejection is just something that I always struggled with because rejection felt like rejection felt like an open wound of somebody basically telling you that even though you just did the best that you could do, it still just was not enough for this particular thing. And for me, it was always a very difficult thing to navigate and to deal with because like I said, I was work, work, work, work, work. I was gonna do everything in my power that I could reach and grasp onto some things you you just gotta let them be. Um I didn't know how to do that, and so when the rejection comes back, and the thing that you really thought you were gonna be doing, you're not doing, it's really hard to come to terms with it, especially when you felt like you did all that you could do, and you know, you you you put your best foot forward. Um, and so for me, my senior year, by the time I started applying to job applications, so before I even knew that I was, you know, rejected from Fulbright. I got to semi-finalist, but after that, I didn't, I didn't get the um scholarship. But who I started applying to jobs, y'all, and I was getting I could get a random rejection on a Tuesday in the middle of a conversation with somebody, and I would have to, I would look at my Apple watch and I would read it and I would just go back to the conversation because rejections to me in my senior year became like second nature, like y'all, they were just they were just having like I could just be chilling and talking to somebody, boom, rejectioning, and I was in a place where I was not only applying to jobs, but I was also sending my writing places, and so I had all of these emotions going of not only do you think I'm not I can't be a paralegal in your office, or I can't be uh a researcher for whatever. Not only am I getting it from that angle, but it was also people just letting me know, like, you know, yay, like your story was okay, but like, you know, we're going with somebody else. And they were coming back to back to back. While I was also in a time period and a space of what in the hell am I finna do with myself? I was like, I've spent four years giving it my all. You're not finna tell me that I've done all of this to now get to the end of it, and like this is all that I'm getting. And I think that I think that people don't really tell you how, like, and it's probably not like this for everybody, it's probably not like this for everybody, but for me, it was rejection after rejection after rejection, and I got to a point to where I was just like, you know what? Sometimes I wouldn't even open the email for real, I would just look at the the first couple of words in the email line, and I'll just be like, oh, on to the next one. Um, but for me, my senior year, I also found that I was so anxious to get to my destination that I just I wasn't appreciating the journey, and I also was not realizing that even in the midst of all of the rejections, I had so much great stuff going on, but I was operating in where I wanted to go, and I wasn't operating where my feet were planted, I wasn't really realizing who I had become, what I built, and how far I came because I was focusing on where I was going to, but more than that, I was getting frustrated because where I was going to did not look the way I wanted it to look. And I was just in this space of just dissatisfaction all around. Like, I just and honestly, the way that my attitude was set up during this time period, you would have thought that I didn't have as much great stuff going on as I had going on. Like you really would have thought that like life was like no, like life was falling apart or something, and it wasn't. And I think that there are times now when I have to catch myself and I have to just like do like a little celebration because I'm like, you know what? This happened around this time last year. You didn't celebrate last year, so we're gonna celebrate this year. Um, but I think in my in my journey, by the time I finally got the rejection from my first option, I reached a place where I just felt defeated. I I didn't really know where to go from there. I was just like, okay, like you know, this is what I was working for this whole time. I don't really know what I'm gonna do now because it's not even like applying to jobs wasn't even my second option. It was my third. Honestly, it was like my it was probably like my fourth. I had a lot of backup plans, y'all. Look, like your girl said, I was really holding on to the tangible. I wasn't trusting that things would fall where they were supposed to fall. And so by the time I got that final rejection, I'm probably one or two months down from having to move out of my place. And I'm saying to myself, well, I'm not finna resign my lease because I'm not staying here. And I was like, and I don't know where I'm going. And I also felt like, and I'm not going back home. And it was because a big part of me felt like I did so much work on myself that to have to return back home, not even in just a job sense, but just in a uh working on myself mindset-wise. Like I felt like I really I laid a lot of ground. Like I really felt like I I built a foundation that going back home, it would have how do I say this? If I felt defeated from Fulbright, I I really just felt like, man, like I've done way too much to turn around and not know where I'm going from here, you know? Um, and even to say that, I think about how many people went and got a bachelor's and then end up doing something that had nothing to do with their bachelor's, or they went to school, and then it's like you have to turn around and you still have to do what you have to do to survive. And I really think it connects back to this this book because Jesmine Ward in navigates your stars, she talks about her experience being first-generation college student and navigating her stars, and learning that in life you're kind of taught that well, if you take this route and you do it like this, and you're this type of person, then this is gonna happen for you. And a lot of times in life, it's it's so much more than just that, like it's it's a mixture of things, it's luck, it's hope, it's connections. And in this book, she talks a lot about how at first when she looked at family, because she's from a small black rural town, and as somebody who's from a small town in the Delta, I really connected with a lot of what she was saying because she talked about how she connected people's outcomes of their life to she was like, Well, it's because of this decision you made, or obviously, like it has to be because of something when in reality, in life, life life, it happens. You you don't really know how things are gonna end up for you, you don't really know where you're gonna end up. Um, and she talked about how college is the beginning, and I I think for me, I didn't realize that college was the beginning, but it's the beginning of you trying again and again and believing in yourself again and again. It's it's the act of trusting that even when you get a no, that eventually your no's will lead you to a yes, and that all of the no's that you got, the experiences of getting the no's are going to prepare you for when you finally do get an opportunity, whatever opportunity it is. And I felt like my shoulders didn't intense until I got my acceptance to a job. I was like, thank god, like I got a job, I got a job. Um but for me even navigating the experience of like working in things when you kind of thought that you were gonna be doing something different, it's for me, it really showed me how many things are like a mental battle. And now I look back on certain situations where I was frustrated and where I was angry because I felt like after full breath, I don't even want to say it was more of a sad thing. I was angry and I was defeated. I felt like stop giving me a long list of all of the things I need to do and the way I need to do them right. If you still gonna get to me and you gonna tell me no anyway. I really felt just frustrated. I felt there's a song called Better by I don't know how to pronounce her name. It's pronounced OGI, but that song was the way that I felt. I was pissed, I was very pissed off. I'm gonna be really transparent. I I felt I felt the way, and so it honestly took a while for me to even realize that even though I did not see that things were working in my favor, that they were working in my favor. And I look back on a lot of situations. I'ma say it to say it now. Now I can look back and I can say there is no opportunity that I got rejected from, that I did not turn around and get something that was so much more fitting to who I am, and that spoke to me, and the lessons that I needed to learn, and that fit the passions that I actually have. Because I also felt like, especially during my senior year, like I said, I was still finding my voice. I was trying to figure out, you know, what do you you know what you care about, but my biggest thing was always that I struggled to vocalize and put it into words to explain to people what it was that I cared about. Um, and I think that's why I loved Navigate Your Stars so much because one of my favorite quotes in it was having tenacity in the face of hardship and getting up and dusting yourself off and trying again and again and again. I like how she connected, how her experience gave her a whole new level of empathy to be able to connect with people because it's understanding that life sometimes just doesn't work out the way that you thought it was gonna work out, and it doesn't go the way that you thought it was gonna go, but it goes the way that it needs to go for you for you to learn what you need to learn. I had to build a whole new level of it. Your mindset just has to be there. Like I feel like now I'm at a place to where, and it's funny, I got a rejection a couple of months ago, and I read the email, and it was the first time where I got a rejection, and I wasn't defeated. I was just like, you know what? Maybe that just went meant for me. Something better is gonna be on the way, and two days later, the the very thing the the better it came, and I guess the lesson or the message that I'm trying to communicate as somebody who I'm gonna be honest, I I really struggled with trusting and holding on to things that were intangible. I I really struggled with it. I remember I had a professor, I went to her office hours my senior year, and I sat in there. And at this point, I would sit in my professor's office hours and just stare at the wall. I'll be like, girl, I don't even really need no real advice right now. I just need another body sitting in the room while I just sit here and I just will stare at the bookshelf. And I remember she told me this particular professor told me two things. As funny as it was. The first one was in connection to just work and community work and service work that I was doing. I was really frustrated. I was extremely frustrated, and she looked me in my face and she told me the lessons that you're learning right now or the things that are happening, she was like, the reasons why other people don't understand is because this lesson is happening for you, and I didn't get it when she I did not get it when she said it. I didn't at all. You know, like when you know how when you frustrated and somebody says something to you and you be like, yeah, whatever, and you kind of just brush it off. That was very much my mood, that was very much my energy, and it circled back because a couple of months later, I was in another situation that was similar to the situation that I was in, and I had a completely new outlook on it because of some of the things that I experienced. That was one of the things that she said to me. Um, especially in leadership, she was just like, You're learning the lessons that you're learning for a reason. The reason why other people don't see it the way that you're seeing it is because you're learning this, it's gonna help you somewhere. So take it and just carry it with you. But then she also shared with me when I was talking to her about just being frustrated. I was like, I don't know where none of the cards are falling. I was like, I'm writing a thesis, I'm trying to finish out strong with GPA. I was like, I'm I'm doing all of these things, I'm pouring into all of these buckets, and I was just like, I don't is is is are things gonna work out for me? That was kind of essentially my question that I didn't really ask, but that was the sentiment. I was just like, What where am I finna end up and what am I finna be doing? Because nobody has given me an answer, and time is ticking down, and your landlord, if you don't pay that rent, you gonna get an answer. So I was like, somebody gonna have to let me know something. And she looked at me and she was like, Well, Brianna, now is the time period for whatever you believe in. She was like, Go talk to it because that's what you need, that's what you need. And I stared at the wall for a minute. Keep in mind, y'all. My thesis was on the intersection of faith and mental health. I think it's so ironic how even a lot of the things I was studying at the moment was the very thing that I needed. But I was skipping over all of that. Just like you know what? Yes, that's what I'm studying, and that is exactly what I'm doing, and that is exactly what I care about. But I'm just gonna do a detour around that because I want an answer. And my senior year taught me that you ain't gonna get your answer, you're gonna get what you're gonna get regardless, and that in and of itself is what you need, and it taught me a lot about kind of like what Jasmine Ward talked about in the book with adapting, how adapting to what situations become versus what you thought they were gonna be, and still showing up as yourself, and when I say yourself, I during this time period I had like a new therapist, and she's she's lovely, I love her. But she told me one time, she was like, Don't let the fact that you're not where you thought you were gonna be affect the way that you show up in the space, and she was like, you know, still be yourself, she was like, still care, still pour, still, she was like, You're still you that doesn't change just because you know you didn't get the outcome that you wanted. And she was just really big on, you know, just keep trusting um that everything for you is working the way that it's supposed to be. I think for me, it was a lot of, and of course, all this connects back to alignment. It's really hard to believe that you're where you're supposed to be when you're not where you thought you would be, and it took a while for me to get comfortable with the fact that where you're supposed to be isn't always gonna be the image that you had in your mind, it's not always gonna be what you thought it was gonna be or the way that you thought it was gonna be, but it's still your story, and you're still learning things that are beneficial to you, you're learning something that you need to learn. I'm reading another book, it's called Hide's Feet in High Places, but that's probably another book that I'm gonna talk about. I'm gonna loop it into right now, too, because the shepherd was guiding the main character to the high places, and he said to the main character, I purposely took you the difficult route so that you could develop the skills you needed to develop on your way through the difficult route. I think for me, even in like listening to Jasmine Ward in this book and how she talked about perseverance and looking at the world around you and continuing, even when things do not make sense to you, even when you cannot figure out why it didn't go the way that you thought it was gonna go, and genuinely just believing that it's going to be okay, and that even if you don't necessarily understand where you at, you're there because there is something at that destination, or at that not even the destination, at the pit stop rather, that you need that is gonna help you once you get to the destination. I think that and I feel like I sometimes I struggle with finding my words because at the end of the day, I'm still learning, I'm still growing, I'm still going, so I can't really give like a final thing. I would just say if you are listening to this and you're a senior in college, it's understanding that that feeling that you feel isn't you're not the only person that feels that. I think there are also a lot of emotions my senior year that I had to like lock, I had to clock in and realize that like you're not the only person that feels like that. Like there are a lot of people that feel like they're just floating, and if they don't feel like they're just floating yet, that feeling is going to they're gonna feel it eventually. Everybody has like a time period where you're kind of just free-flowing and you're trusting, and for me, trusting was a really, really hard thing to do because my third tattoo says walk by faith, and funny enough, that's the thing that I always struggle with, and that's that's kind of why I got it tattooed because I knew that as somebody who always found comfort in this idea of well, if I just work hard, then you know it's gonna work because I'm I'm you know, I'm doing my part, and for me, I felt like my last year of college or even these past couple of months rather, because I feel like I went through a time period where nothing made sense to me, and then everything just started to fall in line, and I was like, wow, so I literally just had to keep going, like I just had to, you know, I had to I had to ride it out. Um it's really just me sitting there reflecting because to me I was so stressed, and uh one of the biggest things I've realized lately is how much stressing that I would cause myself worrying about stuff that after you do your part, it's twofold. Yes, you do your your works, yeah. You do your part, but after you do your part, you really do have to just let go and believe that with as much goodwill as you put back into into the world that it's gonna make its way back to you, and believe that you are worthy of good things, and I think that was a complete otherfold of it because I I had to ask myself, do you think that you're worthy to receive the things that you're asking for? And why do you feel like you gotta hit backflips in order to get what you're asking for? Do you think that you're worthy of it? Not because of what you can do for somebody, or or how many different ways you can show up, or how many backflips you can hit, or or how many different ways that you can make yourself useful. Do you think that you are worthy of what you're asking for simply because you are yourself and you're worthy of it, and I think that for me, I had to sit and have a lot of a lot of journaling sessions because even in redirection, it took a lot of me learning that like you did not not get something because you weren't worthy. You didn't not get something because you didn't do something good enough, it just wasn't meant for you. God never delivers anything to the wrong address, He very much knows where he, she, they, them, very much knows exactly where everybody is, and so if you did not get something, or it did not work out for you, or it did not happen in the way that you thought that it was gonna happen, it's not because you were not worthy, it's simply because it was not for you. I think it took a lot of me realizing that just because you hope for things, that doesn't always mean that what you hope for is in your best interest, and I think that's a really hard thing to sit with when it's something that is a good opportunity. I think for me, with the phrase rejection is redirection, it took a minute for me to sit in it because I had to make myself sit in it. I sat with that phrase for a couple of months, probably a cool nine months. I sat with that phrase, and I really struggled to sit with it because I would write it down and I would look at it and just be like, whatever. Like it wouldn't even be like a real, like it wouldn't, it wouldn't be a real me sitting with it. It would be like, okay, like this phrase keeps coming up for me, but it took a lot for me to realize that in the story that's being written of my life, I don't quite know the direction that it's going in. I don't I don't quite know what words that the pen is gonna write across the paper. I I couldn't tell you. But I know for me, it took a lot of me sitting with accepting that my journey is mine, and it's it's not gonna look not only like anybody else's, but there are gonna be some things that are gonna come easier, there are gonna be some things that are gonna come harder. Jasmine Ward also talks about this in her book, but there are also gonna be things that you probably thought you were gonna do, and you realize that you find happiness in something completely different, or you realize that there's another path that you did not know was there, that I guess it's kind of your own to discover. I guess to end this episode, because sometimes y'all, I hit the camera and I record, and I I'm gonna be honest, I have a idea of what I'm gonna say, but I never really know what I'm gonna say until I get on here and I start talking because I still be working through ideas or whatever. But the back of this book says, work hard, hold your dream tightly to you, and do everything you can to you can to realize it within reason. And I think for me in this episode, rejection is redirection to me connected to a lot of different things, but I feel like the point that I had to sit the most with was what I did. I think that I was worthy of the things that I was asking for. And are the things that I'm asking for in alignment with me, or am I asking for it because it's what I think I'm supposed to be doing? But yeah, this is a really good book recommendation. Navigate your stars. I think it's really good for if you are sitting with your own story or the trajectory that your life is going, and you might not either you don't quite know where you're going, or things just look differently than you thought they were gonna look, or you're just navigating a little bit of or a lot of a lot of bit of rejections, and you need something to ground you, so yeah. Feel free to listen to this book. I feel like the first time I listened to it, it was an audiobook, and it was a really good listen for me, especially the time frame and the phase of my life I was listening to it in. I was just like, oh girl, like you you really ate with this one. It's a really, really, really good book. I loved even the line of I tried not to bow under the weight of rejection. So if you get the chance, definitely give it a listen or give it a read, whatever works best, and yeah, I'll see you in the next one.