Lately my friend Gina and I have been talking about trying rejection therapy. It’s this game that I heard about on NPR. The idea is that you intentionally put yourself in situations where you know you will be rejected (like walking up to a stranger and asking for a ride to another city). Eventually you get rejected so many times that it stops feeling destructive.  

It seems like a good idea to me. Managing rejection is an important life skill. If you never experience it in your career or love life, well good for you. You are a Kardashian. The rest of us gotta deal. 

Then the other night I got an email that reminded me that I am already doing rejection therapy: I’m a writer. 

It wasn’t a suprise. It is story I’m proud of but the magazine was a reach for me. I’ll submit to them again in the future. They will get quite practiced at rejecting me, if I have anything to say about it. 

Here’s the funny thing that I noticed: this was the first time that the rejection didn’t illicit a pain response. When I first started sending stories to editors and began collecting rejections, it registered as a physical ache in my chest. Like the wound to my pride was so intense it rattled my rib cage and bruised my heart. The first two or three emails reduced me to tears and it took days to recover. 

Lately, however, when I’ve been mingling at conferences or workshops, I’ve been hearing how many rejections the other writers have received and I’ve started feeling like a poser. Or, at the very least, a lightweight. They have serious battle scars and stories from the trenches that make my experience feel like – not a war – but a paper route in a middle class neighborhood. 

“I fell off my bike and everything! And there was this grumpy guy who never paid on time. Also, he had a really nasty Pomeranian…”

I came home from the last one thinking “I have GOT to get some more rejections! I NEED these people to take me seriously!!!”

Notice, the thought wasn’t “I need to get more publications,” which should be the goal. It was “I gotta go get roughed up out there so I can say I paid my dues!”

I’m not sure that speaks well of me. But I can say that the morning after I got this recent rejection I gave my story a little spit shine, found another magazine that seemed like a plausible fit, pounded out a cover letter and sent that kiddo back out into the field to take some more abuse. And that seems like a good thing. 

So, thanks Rejection Therapy! I appreciate what you have done for me! And for the record: you can’t have a ride either. 

About Rachel Lewis

I am a writer, ceramic artist, knitter, and stepmom. As a playwright, I had six short plays produced in showcases and festivals in Manhattan, Salt Lake City, and Austin. My full-length play, Locking Doors, was presented by Wordsmith Theatre Company in The New Lab Theatre (University of Utah) in 2005. I co-wrote a teleplay titled “Thank God I’m Atheist” which won the 2015 “No God But Funny” contest founded by the Center for Inquiry. My short nonfiction essay, “It’s Coming Down,” was published by the online literary magazine Halfway Down the Stairs. My essay "The Red Rock Chronicles" was published in Contemporary West magazine. I currently work in pharmaceuticals professionally and write recreationally, but dream of making the transition to write professionally and do pharmaceuticals recreationally. I am a Utah native and live in Salt Lake City with my family and our Goldendoodle. I am working on a collection of humorous non-fiction essays and a second full-length play. Follow me at: rachelclewis.com @rachel_lewis_ut (Twitter) @rachel_lewis_ut (Instagram)

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