Like most people, I really struggle with the feelings and emotions that surface around the experience of rejection. It comes with an element of grief – having to let go of what you thought was going to happen and to learn to embrace what actually happened instead.

I am a school teacher, and last weeks of Term 2 can only be described as hectic. It was made more so by the fact that I applied and interviewed for a different teaching role, at the same school I currently work in. In my current teaching role, I teach Grade 5/6 students as a part of a teaching team. There are three of us teachers in charge of the Grade 5/6’s – three teachers for over fifty, ten to twelve year olds. To say that it’s hectic, is an understatement. I am currently contracted until December of this year, which means that when the 2025 school year comes to an end, I could find myself out of work.

When an ongoing position, teaching Kindergarten came up at the same school, I didn’t initially apply. I had several conversations with staff, including the principal and those conversations led me to let the application slide. I felt like I was abandoning the Grade 5/6 team, letting the students and my colleagues down. Grade 5/6 is a tough gig and it’s difficult to find staff ready to bunker down, dig in and ride the onslaught.

However, a few days later, I changed my mind, spoke to the vice principal and put in a late application. It all happened quickly and I was called in for an interview. I went in grossly under-prepared, with little to no expectations about the kinds of questions I would be asked and how I would answer. The interview did not go badly. But, later that day I got a late phone call telling me I wasn’t successful. The position went to someone with more experience working with children from birth to five years. I was reassured that my application and answers to the interview questions were fantastic – I just didn’t have the experience they were searching for.

This sense of rejection re-kindled a lot of anxiety regarding my future. I had dared to hope that I would get the ongoing position, which would solve all of my future financial, living situation and job challenges. But, the phone call put an end to all of that. I had no choice but to sit with it – to ride through the waves of the “I’m not good enough,” and “I’m not seen or valued” thought spiral which threatened to drag me down and hold me down. But the only way out is through, and once I came through the other side, I could see the reason why.

I was rejected, from a position that wasn’t right for me. After all, rejection is simply a case of re-direction. Rejection creates space for new things. I don’t have any answers yet as to what I’m going to do, or how I’m going to solve my future challenges, but I have a renewed sense of creativity in a fashion. It gives me permission to think outside the box, to review and realign with what I want and need out of life and out of my career pathway, maybe even to create a new pathway for myself.

Rejection hurts and there’s no way of sugar coating the emotions, thoughts and feelings that it brings to the surface, but once you work your way through that you can find clarity and a certain peace with the rejection you experienced. For anyone going through a sense of rejection, I urge you to ride it out, to process without becoming the thoughts and feelings, and to find the light at the end of the tunnel, because there you will find the freedom to get creative, the freedom to realign, and revise and maybe, just maybe, find a different path to wander for a while.