When Feedback Hurts (and How to Keep Going)

(sand shaking) (mouse clicking) (bright music) Headspace Studio. (peaceful music) Hey friends, it's Rosie. Welcome back to Radio Headspace. So let me take you back to the first time I wrote a book proposal. I was nervous but excited. Writing a book has always been a dream, and when I finally sat down and poured myself into the pages, I stitched together the beginnings of an idea I really believed in. It wasn't perfect. I mean it was far from it, but it was mine. It felt like a piece of my heart was typed out in black and white ink. I was living in Portland at the time, and a friend of mine I'd met was a New York Times bestselling novelist. This novelist coached writers on how to publish their work, jackpot, right? Or so I thought, who better to ask for feedback than someone who's been there, done that and crushed it? Enter ominous music, this will not end well. So I sent her my proposal, half done, half polished, but full of heart. And what I got back was the most brutal feedback I've ever received. I don't mean tough love, I don't mean constructive criticism. I mean, she tore it apart, line by line, sentence by sentence. Not much was left when she was done. And listen, I'm not a wimp. I can take feedback. I've been in enough workshops, production meetings, therapy sessions, and awkward relationships to know when critique is helpful. But this was different. It wasn't about the work. It felt like it was an assault on me and the audacity I had to even try. And I'll be honest, it stung bad, like really bad because when you create something, anything, it's personal, right? Even when you tell yourself it isn't, even when you say you're not precious about whatever it is, you can meditate, journal, quote the Buddha, et cetera, but sending your art into the world always carries risk. And when it gets torn to shreds, dear one, it feels like you've been torn too. This is where the middle path comes in clutch, the middle path is about holding two truths at once. Yes, my proposal needed work and no, my worth wasn't tied to it. Yes, feedback can hurt and no, feedback doesn't define me. That's the trick with this type of scenario. Let's call it a failure. Since our brain loves extremes, I failed. So I'm a failure. I messed up once, so I'll never succeed. But the middle path reminds us, failure is neither fatal nor final. It's just information. Psychologists even have a term for this mental spiral, catastrophizing. This is the tendency to take one negative event and turn it into a story of permanent doom. Like my book proposal got shredded, therefore, I'll never publish anything. Therefore, I'm not creative, therefore, I suck. Does that sound familiar? Yeah, I get it. And yeah, we all do it. But studies on resilience show that...