Can you Survive Winning?

​Rewind time to... mid-March 2020 
What were you doing?

I was at the Idyllwild International Festival of Cinema in California receiving the Best Supporting Actress award for Wuthering Heights. We sensed the growing crisis; that was the day gathering limits were recommended. I accepted the award with joy and gratitude, acknowledging my film team, family, and friends.

The world was coming to a full stop as the award ceremony was happening. I charged off to the grocery market soon after the plane wheels came to a halt to purchase essential items as Shelter in Place notices went up around the world. Within a day after arriving home, COVID-19 turned into a global shutdown. The celebratory glow of the award quickly collided with a new reality.

I went from feeling on top of the world award-winning actress to feeling like a real-life survivor in an unfolding apocalypse. I found myself staring at stripped bare grocery shelves with an unexpected question —what does winning mean when the world is in crisis?
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Instead of celebrating with friends and family, I masked up and went to work. As an essential employee at my job, I moved between home and work like a lost cork in the ocean, armed with bottles of sanitizer like light sabers against an invisible enemy.

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I sensibly set the award aside on the entertainment hutch.  Life demanded attention.

I helped a friend with yoga videos as she moved her yoga business online. Dropping necessities off to sick friends, I reorganized daily life around the basics of safety and health. I filled time with deep cleaning projects and long-ignored household tasks with more zest than I’d ever had before to calm the anxiety swirling in my body and mind. Like many people, the full stop of activities in my world brought forward too — an inner reckoning of how I went about life.
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Every time I passed the award though, I felt something tugging at me.

Sometimes it was exhilaration. Other times it felt uncomfortable — almost inappropriate — to have such a joyful accomplishment as the world was facing suffering and a state of emergency for survival. 

I began asking myself more questions…  What does winning actually mean?

Searching online for guidance in articles about success psychology, mindset, and achievement, I found plenty written about how to reach success —but almost nothing about what happens emotionally and mentally after you arrive there, aside from a few flatly worded articles about not making winning your identity. Even less about how to integrate success and there was nothing about how to do that when the entire world is in turmoil.

In curiosity, I turned the question around and looked at the other side it: how to handle losing. I thought perhaps the two subjects would be written about side-by-side. There were endless articles about resilience, making a comeback, and how to integrate/use the experience of losing to help reshape your inner landscape. That territory was familiar to me. I’ve spent years reworking losses and also, quietly minimizing my accomplishments and convincing myself that was the safer and more humble way to move through the world.

My heart kept telling me that owning myself  — no matter what is going on — was important because it planted purposeful, helpful seeds in my life now and for the future. I stepped up care of my mental, emotional, and physical health and finally got myself out into the mountains. I needed to find my center and also, stop cleaning every god blessed thing in sight.

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On the mountain top, I took a long time to observe the weather moving in and out of the area. Because of the pandemic, I was at a complete stop from my usual high-speed way of doing life. I was able to feel my stitched-together self-concept and the poor-quality self-talk that came with it.
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Winning required a different conversation with myself, and I realized I didn’t yet know how to have it. All I could hear was a cascade of questions. How do you hold onto a winning feeling, so it becomes part of your inner landscape of words in a healthy, progressive, thoughtful way? And more importantly, why? 

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​Meanwhile, the world continued to change rapidly. The pandemic deepened. The tragic death of George Floyd ignited global protests and difficult national conversations about justice and equality. Like many others, I opened up my heart, rolled up my sleeves to participate and learn. I marched in Black Lives Matter demonstrations, listened deeply, amplified voices, donated where I could, and stayed engaged in the work of understanding and change.

At the same time, everyday life continued asking things of me.

I supported family members through health challenges and one of my own. I helped coordinate a major office move at my job while coworkers faced crises of their own. With the help of my brother, I built a small creative space in my garage so my artistic life could continue and maybe even thrive in a very different environment. I submitted digital auditions as the film industry shifted online, studied acting and filmmaking, improved my photography skills, wrote poetry, filmed a short piece of my own, was cast and filmed on a closed set for a virtual play festival, patronized local businesses, snowboarded, and continued supporting the independent films I was involved with.
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I experienced moments of exhaustion, deep fear, laughter, grief, and unexpected growth. For example, I was invited to be a guest artist at a local college sharing my acting knowledge and experience. Supporting family and friends through Zoom, rather than my usual in-person exuberance, left me feeling displaced.

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As I returned to nature regularly to ground and recharge, I realized something important.  Winning the award had never really been about the trophy.

It was evidence of something deeper — years of showing up for my craft, for my collaborators, and for myself. The recognition represented discipline, resilience, and the unseen persistence required to pursue artistic work over a span of time. That recognition is a reminder my work has value. That value can be carried forward into how I show up for my communities, art, collaborations, and responsibilities.

The real question was not whether the award mattered. The real question was…. Would I allow myself to fully acknowledge what it represented and own my efforts?
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Pretending not to see your own accomplishments, even in difficult times, does not serve anyone. It diminishes the work that was done,
people who helped make it possible, and it can keep inner narratives in a powerless state rather than an empowered one.
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​Now... mid-March 2021
The world is slowly emerging.

We are greeting each other in person.  We are making it. Our lives will never be quite the same. Choosing to shift from busyness to connection makes room for compassion to grow. I find myself registering more gratitude now that I've stopped the frantic pace of life and become more intentional.

Over the past year I realized accepting success does not mean ignoring the struggles of the world. If anything, it strengthens my capacity to contribute meaningfully and honors my part in my life story.

I chose to deeply listen to myself and recognize the most life-giving conversation is the one you have within yourself; that conversation has power to bless you and others when it’s healthy and whole. 

The award became physical evidence of something I hadn’t fully recognized before — the discipline, persistence, and belief required to stay committed to a craft over time. There is celebration in such a win, and there is also responsibility.

Without fully realizing it, I had taken the empowered winning feeling, decided what winning meant to me, acted on it, and quietly put it to work in all areas of my life throughout the year.

The award is a constant reminder.

Showing up matters.

Dedication matters.

Creative work matters.

Perhaps most importantly, acknowledging our own efforts with honesty and gratitude matters.

Success is not something we are meant to hide from or apologize for. It is something we are meant to carry forward with awareness, humility, responsibility, and yes, ownership and joy.

And maybe that is how you survive winning — by allowing it to deepen the way you live, work, and show up in the world.

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