...fragments, increments...

i was rejected by email this morning from a creative venture that i was excited about. my excitement was two-fold: one to be involved w/ something that sounded right up my alley, and two, i was pretty sure i would get it (this of course has a sub-compartment of ego validation). i attemped to not get pulled into the currents of the rejection but only w/ minor success. dribbles of depression and anger kept arising. later i stood in the kitchen getting ready to leave for work and bigger waves washed ashore, waves encompassing history and things outside the present, outside the right now. Impressions, conclusions, arrivals all built on shadow and sand. Later still, at work, it continued to gnaw away. mm and i have been in the habit of celebrating our rejections in a formal manner, a vocal declaration of our intent, a salute to the effort not the result. I worked to move my awareness to this arena. Later, I came upon this passage from Pema C:

But the real core instruction is, whenever you're feeling uncomfortable, don't believe what you're saying to yourself. Right then is the time to not believe what you're saying to yourself.

And what we're saying to ourselves at those times are really old habits. We're reinforcing really old habits. That's what we do when we're uncomfortable. We don't leave it with just hooked or triggered. We seek to get the bubble back together— or whatever language you want to use— by talking to ourselves, in a way that really strengthens old habits. And they're usually very self-destructive habits.