When I saw, on social media, that the founder of a magazine that consistently rejected my work had died, I felt that old feeling of rejection rise up again. It brought up another more recent interaction, too, when, on the cusp of being super jazzed about being able to apply my creative gifts to songwriting, my guitar teacher told me that my writing confused her, then proceeded to deliver a lecture called “you need to learn how to write so others can understand it”.

My jaw dropped. I felt like laughing hysterically at the ridiculousness of her statement. I also felt incredulous, angry, outraged, flabbergasted. I wanted to scream, “I’ve got a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly!!! Have you ever even written anything others want to read?!” But the feeling that persistently stuck around, curiously, was … rejection.

Rejection is interesting, because it’s one of those emotions that isn’t based on anything factual or true about our self, yet we have all experienced the devastation of feeling rejected.

What is the actual experience of rejection, really, though? It is acknowledging a mismatch of energies. Dis-resonance. When two people or things are no longer in alignment, we must go different ways. It’s a neutral fact. No one’s fault. The truth is, when you experience “rejection” someone simply recognized the dis-resonance between you before you did. Someone has to take initiative in that.

If they use words that are unskillful, which is often the case -because face it, parting ways is hard to do – it may feel hurtful, but that’s not rejection. And it’s not a statement about anyone’s worthiness, lovability, talent, beauty, creativity- or anything. On an energetic level it means feeling anything less than the 100% awesome sauce you both deserve to feel, together or apart.

Here’s the thing: deep down you always know when shared energies are, or are gradually becoming, a mismatch but your Ego, for its own reasons, persists in its attachment to making this thing/relationship work.

When I inquired within and asked if I needed this magazine’s approval or this teacher’s praise, I heard “of course not, you didn’t like them anyway.” What?! It was true, though. I didn’t like the magazine; the articles more often than not did not resonate with me. In fact, I had long ago cancelled my subscription… yet I had wanted them to like me? Interesting.

My guitar teacher, too. While she was a good teacher and I was progressing well enough with her, her energy did not match with mine. After every session, I would feel something akin to jealousy coming from her and this would last throughout the week. I decided I would deal with it, so I could learn how to play guitar. But did I like it? No, I did not.

Why did I persist in these strained, dis-resonant relationships? My Ego stubbornly continued submitting articles to a magazine that consistently rejected me because of a desire to be seen, recognized, appreciated, valued…and a fear that I didn’t deserve any of it. I was afraid of being invisible. And because like attracts like, they totally ignored me! Ultimately, they even stopped sending me the common courtesy of an acknowledgment/rejection letter.

When I dug deeper into my relationship with the guitar teacher, I realized I was familiar with energies of unworthiness and jealousy, which in a sense made it more easy for me to accommodate, or at least to willfully overlook what was happening. I was doing that energy to myself in another area of my life, where I felt I wasn’t enough. When she literally told me that I, a writer, didn’t know how to write, it was such a ludicrous statement that it finally woke me up.

Leo New Moon Intuitive Energy Practice: You Do You

Many of us have conflicts around being truly seen and valued for who we are. In certain company, we do not feel bright and shiny, we feel less-than, wrong, or invisible – because we are in the wrong company. That’s the key phrase, here. If we feel wrong or invisible, if we feel someone is not seeing our essence, they are the wrong people for us right now. If we experience feelings of rejection, we simply haven’t gone deep enough, yet, to recognize that fact for our self.

We all deserve to feel the pure expression of standing in our own light, and being warmly received. If we aren’t, it’s not a sign to change our self, but to recognize mis-alignment and re-affirm that we deserve to feel nothing less than awesome. Sometimes that takes the form of learning to feel awesome on our own, with little external validation or appreciation from others, for a time. That’s an extremely worthy pursuit. External validation is a fickle, unreliable thing anyhow. After all, what happens when forms in your life change and an adoring audience is no longer there? You still exist.

Leo is the sign associated with being seen, loved and adored for our creative essence and soul expression. The Sun is its ruling planet. The Sun simply shines without holding back, trusting its own capacity to be warmly received.

In a nutshell, honor your self. Trust yourself. During Leo season: You do you.

(as an aside, as I was writing this my iPhone suddenly played the sound of an applause – out of the blue!)

Here’s the practice:

Get quiet. Ground, root, center. Sink into your spine and belly a bit more. Feel into any feelings of unworthiness, rejection, feeling invisible, unseen, unloved etc.  Set the intention to release.

Go underneath the self of social conditioning, and into the all-knowing Soul.

Go to that quiet, still place inside, and ask any of the following that resonate for you:

Do I need to be seen/loved/appreciated by another, to exist?
Do I need my creative efforts to have audience in order for me to feel worthy- to know I matter?
Do I need applause, approval, recognition, love from others?
Do I need to change my approach, style or alter my True Self in any way for others?

Listen deeply for the answer (hint: The Soul will answer “No” because that’s the Truth).

Allow this Truth to soothe and connect you to the Real You. Sink back into the “I AM” of who you are. You are inherently worthy, seen, loved and appreciated. You deserve to feel as awesome in your relationships as you feel about your morning coffee– or anything else that consistently delivers joy for you. Allow that to inform everything You are and do.