It’s Christmas show season again.

My feed is full of rehearsal shots, first-day selfies, opening-week buzz.

New beginnings everywhere you look.

But not me. Not this year.

This year, I went up for five Christmas shows and I didn’t get any of them.

One, I met every single criteria in the job description – but I didn’t even get an interview.

One went to a local artist – fair enough but there ARE no local producing theatre opportunities where I live so it always stings.

One, I’d developed from the ground up – directed a previous version, lived inside its world for months, co created the DNA of the piece – but they picked someone else.

The other two – no luck and no feedback. Combined with a year where I had only ONE directing job on the books, it all really really really hurt.

And the story I started telling myself was: I’m not good enough anymore. People have decided I’m not capable so I’ve slipped off the lists.

I cried. I doubted everything – my ability, my instincts, whether I’ve peaked and need to retrain in cyber before I’m too old to do that too.

Half way through the year, a friend asked if I was okay. I said yes – the automatic answer – because this is part of the life we signed up for, isn’t it? – so you shouldn’t complain.. But he waited.

And in the silence he left, I cried again. Because the truth was: I wasn’t okay. I’d lost confidence in myself, and I didn’t know how to get it back. I felt so long out of the directing game that I had started telling myself the story that I didn’t know how to do it anymore. And a few months in, I was believing it.

That’s the danger of the stories we tell ourselves – they start as protection, then quietly become belief – and before you know it, they are more true than they should be.

Luckily, I’ve been around the block enough times to know that for me, action is the antidote to anxiety and inner-doom-voices. I knew I just needed to get to rehearsals for Lightning Boy in a months time, and a shift would happen as I’d be directing again and it would all come flooding back.

(It did. It always does)

So in the meantime – I filled the space with living: I read books. I booked trips. I said yes to as much as I could and hung out with joyful people.

I ate good food and learnt a few new recipes.

I joined a gym and made a playlist that I looked forward to putting on.

I muted a few people on Instagram!

I found things to laugh about.

With the help of good friends, I reminded myself – often – that value and visibility are not the same thing.

And then yesterday, I bumped into one of my favourite actors in the street – funny, generous, a total joy to work with. I’d directed her once, ironically enough, in a Christmas show.

We hugged, caught up, and she told me she doesn’t have a Christmas show this year either.

And let me tell you – if she doesn’t have a job, then the ecosystem is officially screwed.

Budgets, timing, economics, luck – all these unseen forces that have nothing to do with talent or worth.

The facts are: the industry is tough. There isn’t enough work to go around, and that seductive “good/bad” binary – the idea that getting a job means you’re winning and not getting one means you’ve failed – isn’t real. It’s not helpful. It’s not true – and on an emotional level, we can’t afford to keep internalising every “no” as personal.

The really unexpected thing is: I’m okay now. I thought I’d wake up every day of rehearsal season with that ache that says ‘you’re missing out and everyone else is making work and you’re not..’ Another story I told myself that wasn’t constructive!

So to pursue FACTS not FEELINGS – life filled back in. The world didn’t collapse. I’m still here, still making things, not in rehearsal but working with even more great people than ever in ways that I couldn’t have predicted back in the Christmas show interview weeks.

Anyway. This isn’t really a story about me at all. It’s a love letter to everyone sitting out this season – the actors, musicians, directors, makers – who know that ache all too well. To everyone who should be posting rehearsal room selfies but didn’t get lucky – you’re not alone, and you’re not behind.

And maybe the lesson is that resilience isn’t about being tough or thick-skinned but ACTUALLY about accuracy – choosing the story that helps you grow, not the one that grinds you down. Not making things mean something they don’t.

So if you’re in your own “not this year” season, ask yourself:

What story are you telling yourself today?

And if it’s cruel, catastrophic, untrue or IN ANY WAY smaller than you deserve – rewrite it.