The Creative Process of an Actress
Poetry, Stillness, Growth, and the Inner Life
 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? 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.  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. 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.  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. 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?  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. 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.  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?
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. 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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I posted pictures earlier this summer I was cautiously pleased with… and something shifted. On a rainy day in June, I dragged an old crate out of my closet and dumped it onto my living room floor. It opened into a colorful scatter of my life—play programs, photo shoots, class certificates, behind-the-scenes snapshots from creative adventures that felt like they belonged to someone else. Kneeling there, I felt warmth in my chest—and noise in my head. I rubbed the back of my neck, trying to quiet it. As I sifted through the pile, my fingers caught on a set of black-and-white photographs. I stopped. They took my breath away. My eyes softened. Holy hell.  Leigh Kiernan | Photographer I slipped backward into the time they were taken. Early twenties. New town. Two toddlers. Single parenting. Almost no support system. I didn’t have language for boundaries or a stable sense of self yet. I absorbed everything... offhand comments, projections, quiet judgments... and turned them inward. There was also this strange assumption from the outside: if I looked a certain way, then I must be confident, fine, untouched by struggle. I wasn’t. The way I appeared and the way I felt did not match. I tried to explain that gap to people—sometimes to those who cared, sometimes just to anyone who asked. Most responses went nowhere. So I kept searching, but without tools, I defaulted to whatever voices were loudest around me. And too often, those were the ones that diminished me. Looking back, it’s not surprising the modeling I explored didn’t go anywhere. I didn’t know how to stand inside myself, let alone support what I was building. Sitting on the floor years later, those same images in my hands, something began to shift. Because the woman in those photos? She didn’t look unsure. She looked direct. Present. In control of her space. She looked like someone who already had something. And I couldn’t reconcile that with the story I had been telling myself about her. About me. Emotion rose fast—hot, disorienting, undeniable. I started to see her from the outside. And at the same time, I could feel everything she didn’t know yet. She didn’t know she would go on to act in dozens of stage productions, work in film, train in different cities, or keep showing up creatively in new ways. She didn’t know she would build a life through heartbreak, raise her children, navigate loss, or keep going through moments that would bring her to her knees—and still get back up. She didn’t know how much resilience she carried. Or that it would shape her into someone stronger, clearer, and more grounded in her spirit. And maybe most of all-- she didn’t know that the story she believed about herself wasn’t the truth. At some point in that moment, sitting on the floor, I realized: I had been hiding from my own evidence. I hide myself… from me.  Leigh Kiernan | Photographer That realization didn’t feel gentle. It felt confronting. But it also felt clean.
Because if I was the one doing the hiding, then I could also stop the hiding. In the months leading up to that quiet rainy day, I had already been doing deeper internal work... trying to take more ownership of my path, my voice, my craft. Something in me knew I was ready for a different level of honesty with myself. Those photos met me there. They didn’t ask for explanation. They didn’t negotiate. They simply showed me what was already true. Connection—with others, with our work, with our lives—is rarely neat. The connection we have with ourselves is no different. I’ve spent years trying to organize it, make it make sense, tie it up cleanly. It doesn’t work like that. For me, vulnerability isn’t polished. It’s uneven, sometimes uncomfortable, sometimes quiet, sometimes strong. It asks me to look directly at myself —without editing. And in that crate, in those photos, I saw something I hadn’t fully allowed before: evidence of effort evidence of courage evidence of someone who kept going For a moment, I let myself feel it. And then—I almost dismissed it. That old pattern. See it. Minimize it. Move on. But this time, I caught it. Instead, I stayed. I let myself acknowledge something simple and, for me, hard-earned: I was brave. Not because everything worked. Not because I had it figured out. But because I started. Because I kept going. Because I continued to move toward something I didn’t fully understand yet. That matters. More than I’ve ever allowed it to. There’s a quiet shift that happens when you begin to change the way you speak to yourself. Not in a forced or performative way... but in a way that actually lands. For a long time, my internal narrative was shaped by fear—fear of being misunderstood, criticized, dismissed. And in response, I learned to downplay myself before anyone else could. To question what was good. To hesitate where I could have stood. But those patterns aren’t permanent. They can be seen. And they can be changed. I don’t have a perfect formula for that. What I do know is this: when I stop outsourcing the authority over my own story-- and begin to take responsibility for how I see myself-- something steadies. There are still moments where I want reassurance, where I look outside myself for confirmation that I’m on the right path. And I’m grateful for the people in my life who offer support, perspective, and care. That matters too. But what those photos gave me was something different. They gave me proof. Proof that I had already been showing up. Proof that I had already begun. Proof that there was something real there—long before I knew how to name it. And that changes how I move forward. I used to wait. For clarity. For permission. For someone to reflect back to me that I was enough. Now, I understand something more grounded: that sense of enough doesn’t arrive from the outside. It begins the moment I decide to stand inside what’s already here. No more explanation needed. As I stepped into the premiere last month for “What Separates Us,” I felt sucker punched in my gut with pain and sad emotions; it was hard to breathe. I panicked to sift and sort it out fast as I was celebrating a fantastic day with friends and family. I didn’t want to wreck it. For a few minutes, I stopped moving, stood frozen, feeling almost paralyzed. My thoughts raced… my heart pounded in my cheeks. I felt hot and held in an insane urge to pee. I thought... Why was I feeling this set of emotions on a big day of celebration?? My mind spun backwards through a kaleidoscope in time... 48 months ago… my dad was diagnosed with liver cancer, my daughter broke her kneecap and a loved ex-family member was in the hospital fighting for her life and buried a dear family pet cat. I was still feeling memories of sleeping in the hospital and doctor's offices, death, chemotherapy, and surgeries pelting my brain. 15 years ago… I got divorced. I started single parenting life with my daughters. I felt like I a scarlet letter D had been painted on my chest. More hot redness filled my cheeks. 2 years ago… I went through round one of two very painful breakups with a guy that cost me nearly the same heart pain as my divorce. My heart felt like it slid down my body and smacked onto the floor with a soft, painful thud. In this moment of having big joyful emotions, my body conjured up those big sobbing emotional pains as if they happened yesterday. From the moment I walked into the theatre for my film I went from feeling an on top of the world winning feeling to feeling confused, panicky and pained. Perception and focus are everything. I fought to steady my breathing and refocused on what I also learned and grew through in this time frame in the past… 48 months ago… I got to be with my dad, one of my life heroes as his body fell apart piece by piece through cancer, chemotherapy, and diagnostic surgeries. He taught me so much more about the spirit of bravery through his dying. My daughter taught me so much about the fight for recovery and stayed after her athletic goals after she had surgery and rehabbed a cracked-in-half knee cap. I opened my heart for more forgiveness than I thought possible with my ex-family while supporting my daughters as their grandma was dying. My other daughter taught me about the power of presence as she spent time with my dad and her grandma, as they both were dying, whilst she simultaneously finishing her senior year in college. 15 years ago… I braved into a new world of being on my own while sharing custody of my daughters with their dad. With the help of a federal Displaced Homemakers Loan, I purchased a home for us, found steady employment, and began again in life. We learned to communicate more clearly through a ton of emotional heartache which happens when a family breaks up because of divorce. 2 years ago… I learned I loved so fully and was so committed to a man in relationship that I lost myself. With my soul broken open, I took every tear I cried and turned it into valuing my life, the love I give and share, and the world I created. Through the second break up which happened a year and a half ago, I learned to repeat to myself, “I am lucky to have me” on a frequent basis. Every day I made the courage to look love in the eye again. Two views of my life played a mad game of ping pong in my head. On one side was the devastation, hurt, panic that I felt when things go wrong and on the other was the thoughtful life reflection of what I made out of it. Re-framing perceptions of how I feel about those hard-to-handle life events fueled my resilience and decisions to keep moving. Back to tonight… My best friend was here from North Dakota. One of my daughters, my mom, ski buddy, soul sister friends, hiking buddy, dear work friends and SO many other close friends made time to come. There were so many people there in spirit and offering distance support. People around me were happy. Our film group overcame so many odds and obstacles to get to this very day. The film won best picture in Alaska. Personally, I have more artistic projects in the works AND I have on a hot dress, cool shoes, amazing hair and nails, and I am healthy… it was SO hard not to be hard on myself for not focusing on the "good" celebration feels! I fought back buckets of tears. Tonight things were going amazing but I felt the same out-of-control emotional bursts inside that I felt when my dad was diagnosed with cancer and I went through divorce and breakups. Finally, after standing still long enough, I figured I needed to manage my panicky pain by gliding around talking and greeting people, signing posters, seating family and friends, and reminding myself what time and space I was in. It helped, but I couldn’t figure out what the hell was wrong and it was getting worse. THIS WAS A GREAT DAY!!! echoed over and over in my head. I made a beeline to the bathroom. As I paced in there, I mentally grabbed every calming thought I could get. Then a question popped into my mind. So where/when does winning start? F*** it, I thought, hot tears rolling down my face. I don’t know!! Then that part of me, my inner champion whose voice sometime sounds like Mufasa from the Lion King, speaks from my heart to my head... It started when I made the leap of faith to make something good out of this crazy Earth ride we're on and embracing all the fireworks that start off in my mind, heart, and body because I care deeply. It started when I made the best choices I could in all of my life, including my acting, and began giving to myself inch by inch a sense of believing I deserved to be happy and to be proud of my life. Heaving out a heavy breath, I made this in-the-moment faith leap again and chose to win over the panicky emotions. I took those out-of-control feelings and decided I was going to celebrate full out and started to clean up my face. The panicky feels were ghosts of the past revisiting me because I was open and flowing freely with all my emotions. They're important because they're in my emotional fabric, but they're not important right now. I also realized I was winning even when these big, seemingly out of place emotions took me over for awhile. I was a winner because I engaged the mad ping pong head game. I was a winner because I showed up to celebrate a huge accomplishment! I earned this! These past four years making this film included some extremely difficult times and woven through those things was a great piece of film art that I acted in and helped create! It makes my heart glow and feel all mushy warm with pride. And, in the past 15 years, I have stayed the course growing myself as an artist. All of those emotional fireworks from all sorts of events in the past years fuel my passion for bringing my art to life. So here's a great big cheers to celebrating it!  Photo credit: Claire Reitz Shout out to my editors: Rachel Riitano & Jaime Lue Inflore .Remember. Every person you meet is fighting for value, balance, and life Some are fighting diseases like cancer; Others fight for daily balance with chronic illness or physical debilitation like diabetes, blindness, missing feet, or recovery from accidents. Some are fighting to find and hold their value in this world because of their gender, race, age, or religion. Some are battling mental & emotional hardships. Some are holding three jobs to make their world just barely stay upright. …and this only touches on a few. Be a badass and choose to love yourself kindly and gently Make that second badass choice and let that self-love spread into kind action to others  Holy cats, I have been on a huge wild learning curve this summer with several different film projects. With so many different hats I wore both in front of the camera and behind it, figuring out what and how the heck to say things is really hard sometimes, especially if you want to guide, direct, present an opinion, teach, share your feelings, or allow for discovery… and saying it in such a way that feels authentic, heartfelt and assertive is a whole other level to consider.
I arrived on set a few weeks ago of The Big Muddy Web Series to meet new and returning cast & crew. I always have stomach butterflies from excitement and anxiety before every artistic endeavor. It matters to me to bring my A-game each and every time in art…and in life! As we rolled into the first scene location, the director instructed me to rehearse actors and set up some basic blocking and threw me the reins. Even though I worked with the director and crew last year, I still feel it’s new every time. I felt my throat lump up, so I took a huge gulp and called the actors needed for the first scene. After having them read through the lines a few times, I staged them approximately where they might start at the beginning of the scene. We discussed where the set exits and entrances were. We talked about the actions each one might be doing. I noticed slight blank and puzzled looks at times so I kept re-phrasing my words again and again to see which line of communication I put down would be picked up. My head was swimming. I had two lines of talking going on, the one inside my head connecting me to my soul and the other line directing my outside communication to the actors. I observed differences in acting experience and body awareness. I kept thinking and honestly sort of panicking, how am I going to get these guys to link elbows and express their character when the camera rolls? All them had focus and determination, which gave me a starting thread to weave them together. I kept thinking, you can do this, you can DO this! Playing with creative muses is great fun and they seem to have their own timing when it comes to expression. Then the light bulb went on…be fiercely encouraging, both in my head and in my rehearsing game (fiercely...meaning hang onto that inner hellion in you that wants to win and share that win with others). Being fiercely encouraging means communicating in a respectful, truthful, uplifting, sometimes funny way to allow for growth, discovery, and expression so we can create some pretty badass things in art and life. When I choose to communicate this way, I also heal myself and it can lift us all back up into a place of openness, trust and sharing. As I kept running the scene rehearsal (and every scene rehearsal after that) I focused my energy best I could to encourage everything that went right and figured a way to carefully phrase how an actor might consider another choice when things felt stuck or needed more development. As we gained momentum rehearsing, I was tickled to hear about character discoveries actors made to apply in their scene. I appreciated and listened to their ideas and concerns making them a priority in rehearsing scene movement and action. As sappy as it may sound, I was honored by each person who shared their trust and allowed me to rehearse and co-create. Every actor brought their life experience and willingness to learn. I couldn’t have been more proud to work with this bunch (and you can see that by the smile on my face, thanks Clayton for snapping the picture!) My faith in sharing and making some things transparent about my thoughts and creative processes is that it will resonate with you solidly and empower you to get your buns moving on a project or goal that has been calling your name. Be fiercely encouraging talking to yourself and kick it up a notch, two or three. Get after it, live out loud in life and art with love.  Uggg, creativity, what are you going to do with it? I’ve sat down to write a bunch of times and have flung the pencil down and quit. Every time I tried to write, my head throbbed in the soft spots on either side of my head. One side of my brain fired out brilliantly lit ideas complete with glitter and sound effects, the other side open fired back with filthy negative shards of glass. Irritated, I crumpled my nearly dozen efforts and hurled them onto the floor. I will get to it later.
It’s later. It’s time…and I’m determined. Kicking the floor mess aside, I firmly sit down at my desk, focused. I really, really want to write something important, make an impact, be spectacular, uplift, encourage, motivate… write something that makes me sound smart. Before ideas evaporate, I speedily write down one idea per page. However, I can’t get more than a few supporting lines written under each one before I hear a high pitched noise in my ears. I crumple up more paper ideas and chuck them on the floor. With my teeth grinding, I sit and stare at yet another fresh blank piece of paper. About a half hour goes by. More topics pop into mind but nothing is blowing my hair back. I pick up a pen, a marker, and for fun, a highlighter. All of them end up on the floor. In bursts a thought of, colored pencils! Yes!! That’s what I need! Paper with no lines. I can draw an idea first and it will inspire the words. I am so excited I pop up and down like a jumping bean on my seat. I pick out the sharpest one and draw a hefty horizontal line. Feeling the pencil drag across the paper, I think, yeah, this is IT! I feel a warm, fuzzy feeling fill up my stomach. Smiling, I lift the colored pencil off the paper and wait for more inspiration. The heater in my house kicks on. I hear the tick-tocks from the living room clock. About 20 more minutes pass. Well…where the hell is more inspiration? Hellllooo, I am waiting, waiting here for that perfect idea, that one idea that will spark off the chain reaction of brilliant words that will knock everyone’s socks off. I want that inspiration. Right now. So I take off my vest and socks, toss them onto the floor…maybe I need to be more comfortable. I feel hungry so I make a pb&j, grab a glass of water, eat and put the dishes on the floor. With a heavy sigh, I pick up another colored pencil, I lay my sleepy head down and feel the stiff paper on my cheek. A short bit later, I wake up, rub the drool off the paper. Oops, not making very much progress. More one-line ideas and very loud veto’s in my head. Abruptly, I sit up and pitch my head backwards and beg God, oh, for the love of me, can I pllllleeeeeease, can I please just have one idea…just a really, really, really good one?!! I got up, snatched a few books for motivation. Another half hour goes by as I quickly snap them open and closed and fling them on the floor. I don’t want anyone else’s inspiration leaking all over my writing. It's so quiet in my house I swear I can hear dust building up on the furniture. This…is painful. More ideas zip into my mind and blow up. I feel a huge deep wounded pain in my chest. I do not want to fail. I just. Want. To. Be. Goooood at sommmething. Be smart. I want this one perfectly right idea. Crrraap, why can’t I come up with one, just one, really, really good idea? What the heck is wrong with me? I stand up rubbing my chest and stomach. Grrrrrreat. Indigestion. Another half hour of what feels like airport time goes by as I fidget, get edgier, angry and stomp around. I plop down cross-legged in the middle of the junk on the floor. I couldn’t help it, I started crying. I lay down in the mess of paper snowballs, books, and dishes. I start moving my arms and legs making a carpet angel. My mind was pounding the hell out of me. I have no idea worth sharing. I will not be able to write a damn thing this month. I can’t, I can’t, I Can’t, I CAN‘T… have a “perfect” idea …there’s no such thing. I can… maaaybee express what’s in my heart. Cheesy. Maybe. Maybe that will be ok. My very pathetic crying slowly turned into bits of soft giggles. In the middle of my creative mess, I am thunderbolted with the same a-ha I’ve had a bazillion times. You don’t need to be perfect, just be real and try. It’s ok. You’re ok. That “perfect” little shadow friend knocks you on your ass and kills your expression every time. I throw my arms across my face blubbering out loud that I thought I fixed this nagging icky piece of myself. I feel a little ridiculous for getting this worked up, ok, maybe alot. Yup. Ok. Time to give this a break, get out and run around, shake it off. Let me be ok. I know I am not the only one having a great big heart that wants to do everything perfect. If you are being beaten down by your “perfect” little shadow, take my idea and take a break! Change the channel of what you are doing and thinking. Get out. Play. Connect with people, do one of your favorite things! It’s ok. You are ok. You and I are both perfectly messy, human and that’s...awesome! PS...I have rewritten this blog and corrected it about 18 times, I am going to need a BUNCH of play time ;) 
 Six or seven weeks later ~ I'm still here! Heck yeah, holy cats and wow! I think, that me writing today, is cause for celebration! I got on my positive pants and determination boots.
Self-talk. It's one of those things we do. And it's so talked about that sometimes I roll my eyes when I hear people reference it. Blah-dee-friggin' blah. Yeah, I talk to myself. I talk to myself in the shower. All good stuff :) I talk to myself out loud when no one's home. I do a pretty good job cheerleading myself through the day. I talk out loud to drivers when I feel they need a consciousness check...I like positive framing for things, so I call it “road irritation.” ;) Under my breath, I whisper about frustrations while I’m at work. I coach myself when I'm working out or doing things that I really want to be good at... I talk to myself silently in my head all day long. We all do. Every so often, I am able to hear a deeper running repeating sound bite in my head, loud and VERY clear. Sometimes, it’s productive. Sometimes though, yuck, not so much. When I was in Nicaragua last summer, I sat for long periods of time looking at the ocean listening to the waves hit the shoreline. At first, it was relaxing and sort of mesmerizing. It made me curious. I wondered what kind of sea life could be swimming right out in front of me just below the surface, living their life. I've always had a deep fear of the ocean. Ocean life, from plankton to whales, living in that deep opaque water makes me want to pee my pants. I imagine that anything in it could swallow me up in one gulp, if I dared to even walk out ankle deep. The longer I sat, I noticed the world around me becoming more and more still. In the stillness, I heard this loud, crappy voice. I looked around wondering who was being that loud. But it wasn’t a voice outside me. It was a voice inside me. It was an incessant run of thoughts… “You're not skinny enough. You're not tan enough. Why did your relationship fail? Why are you so weird? Why aren't you farther along in life? You should be more fit. Why didn‘t you see earlier that your dad‘s health wasn’t so good? Why are you scared of the ocean? You’re too old to learn to surf. Why aren't you making use of every minute of every day to be productive? And on and on and on and on. I let it run for awhile thinking, “Oh this has got to have an end to it sometime soon. I am on holiday and having fun.” It was deluge of silent self-cutting so intense my eyes were frozen in a wide-open stare. I started shaming myself because I know better than to talk that way to myself that way. I shamed myself more because I wondered why I didn't have full awareness each day of this negative chatter. And then I became embarrassed about why I didn’t stop it. The words swimming below the surface of my skin were swallowing up my goodness and positivity. Eventually, tears rolling down my face, I finally said to the voice, “Stop it, for some whatever reason I can’t figure out, I love you”… and in that minute, it stopped. “Holy crap.” I thought. “Saying something nice to myself, stopped that deep non-stop negative thought line pooping all over my day.” I decided I wanted to be better…better just for me. In the past month’s of drowning in a lot of heartache pie, it became my inner champion’s mission to improve that negative running thought line. No small feat if you have ever tried this. I didn’t want the insanity of too much self-absorbed navel gazing nor did I want to spend a mountain of time tracing the bread crumb trails back to the ultimate culprit. So I decided, for lack of a better way to phrase it, to keep my beach learned simplicity. I chose to begin a lot of months ago, to recognize and tell that running negative critic voice, I love you, it‘s ok. I didn’t choose to do this for the rest of my life. I chose to do it just for one day. And then one more. And then one more. And then one more… Sometimes it’s a simple thing that gives your vibe a boost. It’s awesome to see how my improved self-talk lights up other people’s faces that I am dealing with all day long. The improved feeling in my own heart and mind is pretty good too. If I could wave a magic wand and lift that unproductive self-talk outa you, I would! (I still believe in magic :) Consider yourself hugged though and be encouraged to tune into your thoughts today. Just for one day, today. For the love of you, say to those runaway negative thoughts, “I love you and it’s ok.” PS: A day after I wrote this, my friend Jaime posted in her blog about a project that a bunch of us did in Taking Back Pretty for a Big Sky Dance Works class. A class designed to share struggles and celebration to boost self-esteem in life and in performance. I wrote this letter to myself as part of that project. What a good way to give yourself a break of understanding ~ Check out her blog as well! www.decomposingjaime.com |
Creative writing by Mary Riitano...I'm an actress sharing my creative process through personal stories and poetry - exploring acting, growth, my voice, and my inner life as an artist. 
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