The spiritual lesson in rejection

Some rejections sting more than others.

The very day I posted my entry on the Eagle and the Chicken, Alberto and I received notification from a fairly well-known literary agency informing us that they would not be taking us on as clients. Their exact words were:

“You have some really terrific nuggets of powerful transformation throughout the book. I can see why you have been published and won awards as the writing is clear and engaging. The market here in the US is extremely competitive even in spiritual books. I receive hundreds of memoirs a year on personal healing journeys and of course we are always looking for the next big breakout book. I did not feel that I would be able to position your story as such.”

I want to emphasize that this agent was incredibly polite and professional, and I do believe sincere.

But I can’t describe how shocked and devastated we felt. We REALLY believed this was THE agent for us.

After the shock came the anger, then the indignation, and then the dreaded insecurity. Maybe the book is never going to break out, after all. Maybe it’s not as good as we think it is. Maybe we should change some of the content. Why are we still putting in all that time and energy into something that apparently doesn’t have commercial appeal?

We had received that email, coincidentally, just as I was sharing the story of the Eagle and the Chicken, and this agent was on the list. In the story, an eagle is raised among chickens, and so believes it is a chicken because its surroundings remind it that it is so.

That’s when it hit me. We were beginning to believe that our book was a chicken, when in our hearts, we know it is an eagle. The beautiful notes and comments we receive from readers tell us it is an eagle.

But the moment an “expert” tells us otherwise, everything is cast into doubt.

We forget who we are.

We forget all the moments of magic and grace that following our dream has brought us.

We forget that we are not alone in this journey, and that a greater hand is always present, writing through us the words that often only the heart can understand.

The moment we realized this, everything shifted.

We saw the great gift that this experience offered us. We saw the agency for what they truly were: the messengers in this beautiful drama.

And so, to celebrate this knowing, we decided to go out for lunch! As we opened our front door, this was what greeted us:

A peanut in its shell. We have no idea how it got there. Probably just a squirrel leaving it there for some reason. But its message was clear. It is a seed, and all seeds hold the knowledge to grow into their magnificence. How they know when to grow is a mystery in so many ways. But grow they must. As will every seed you plant, every dream you follow, every whisper you heed.

You are an eagle, no matter what the voices around you, and especially within you, keep saying.

~Mony