September 21, 2023 • 25 mins
As a girl who lives by her to do list... I find the idea of surrender extremely uncomfortable.
How am I supposed to trust that the work I am doing, the work I am putting out into the world, the people I am meeting and connecting with - that it will all lead to the kinds of roles I want to play, and stories I want to tell?
I am not good with things I can't control.
This week I'm sharing about how I am rethinking the idea of surrender. So it doesn't reflect a lack of agency, but rather an amplification of my creative spark.
Come check out the Hot Mess series on TikTok, and watch as I lose my mind - and find it again - writing, producing, and acting in a show!
#CreatingIsHealing🦋
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Hi my friends. I am sitting here trying to figure
out if I can properly translatethis idea that I have, that I
wanna talk to you guys abouttoday. And realizing that kinda
what I talked about lastepisode, which was the , um,
artist work of translating someinside into the outside. So
(00:23):
here goes, I've been thinking alot about surrender, which if
you know anything about me ispretty much the thing I suck at
the most. I may have a littlebit of control issues. Um, no,
truly, like I love a plan. Ilove a four step , 10 step, a
(00:44):
five-year plan, and like a 10step action plan, right? I like
knowing that if I do A, B, C,it will lead to X, y, z. I am
so jealous of people who havetraditional jobs like, I don't
know, being a doctor or alawyer or something where
there's a very delineated wayof climbing the ranks of
proving yourself and then beingable to reach a higher level of
(01:06):
success, which is also probablywhy I'd be incredibly bored
doing that because I think, Ithink we are drawn towards the
things that we need to learn.
And I think we are drawntowards the things that we find
hard. 'cause there's somethingthere to teach us. And I think
that's why I love art so much,because being an artist is so,
(01:31):
so much of a rollercoaster andso much of, you know, they have
this saying for actors thatyou're only as good as your
last film. So if your last filmwas a huge success, everybody
wants to work with you. If yourlast film was a flop, nobody
wants to work with you. And Ithink something similar applies
(01:52):
to music, I'm sure, to being avisual artist, having the art
gallery showing, right? There'sthis constant need to create
the next big hit. And what'shard about that is they're , as
much as they're trying toalgorithm their way into a big
hit, nobody actually knows whatthe hell the next big hit's
gonna be . And so there's noactual formula for success,
(02:15):
which is why it's the mostmaddening and the most
fascinating of things topursue. And, and when I think
about being an actor, and Ithink about, again, I like a
to-do list. I like a thing thatI'm going to do every day that
I'm gonna know is getting mecloser to my goal. And one of
(02:37):
the things that I find mostcurious and hard and
interesting is what is thatchecklist? If the goal is to
attract or be right for thenext acting role, that is a
really good fit for me. Yes,there are auditions, yes, there
are meeting people, there areall these things that you can
do, but it's this fascinatingthing where again, there's no
(03:00):
ex , it's not, the auditionssort of come outta the blue.
They often land in your inboxmonths apart when you haven't
heard from your agent in awhile and you've been doing
other things entirely. There'sthis really out of left field
since to how opportunities comeyour way. And I would imagine
(03:22):
this is true even of likewriting a book. You know, I
think you write a book and yousubmit and submit and submit
'em . I get a whole bunch ofdenials and maybe you're going
out and meeting people and thenyou, you meet the friend of a
cousin, of an agent who thentakes a chance on you. Like
there's so much of it about itthat's ineffable. There's so
much about it that cannot beproperly explained. You look at
(03:43):
anyone's career trajectory, whois an artist, there are all
these things that happened thateveryone's career is incredibly
different. Everyone'strajectory is incredibly
different. And again, there'snot like a whole ton of like,
you go to this school, you getthis degree, you apply for this
job, you figure this out, and Ihave a brain that likes Excel
spreadsheets. I have a brainthat wants to know what the
(04:05):
system is. I have a brain thatwants to know, tell me what to
do today. That is my checklist.
That is my to-do list. I crushmy to-do list, and I know I'm
one step closer to the thingthat really matters to me. And
so I've been thinking aboutwhat it is to put surrender on
my to-do list, which is such anoxymoron, but very me , um,
because I like things that Ican do. And I feel like, well,
(04:27):
if surrender's on my list, thenI can check it off for the day.
But what I mean by surrender isstaying open to the next
opportunity that is coming foryou. I think what I've always
found hard about surrender isthis feeling of inaction, this
feeling that I don't controlanything, that I don't know
where I'm headed, that I'm justfree falling into a world of
(04:51):
people making films and TVshows and putting on plays. And
I might not want to be a partof that. Like I love c s I , I
respect the f out of what it'sdone, but I don't really wanna
tell the story of someonegetting murdered every week.
It's just not great juju forme. Um, and I know that. And so
(05:11):
I think those are incredibleroles, but I wouldn't
necessarily want to beattracting that role, right?
And so I've always kind of feltthis sense of how do you know
that the opportunities that arecoming for you are the ones
that are gonna align with whoyou wanna be and also match
with the kind of career you'retrying to shape for yourself?
(05:31):
And I don't think anyone has ananswer, which is again, part of
the psychological warfare ofbeing an artist. But I had this
idea for a project , um, whichI'm still , uh, nibbling on,
but got a little sidelined withmy shoulder having some issues
these past , uh, almosttwo months now. And, and I got
(05:54):
stuck on this idea. If, if Icreate for myself when I
perform for myself, then howwill I know if it's getting to
the right people, how will Iknow that it's going to land me
the next role? How do I get itjust in front of the right
people? How do I even know who?
And there's a strike going on.
So no one is actually activelyauditioning or developing, but
people are definitely writingscripts thinking about their
(06:16):
next project, hoping that whenthe strike ends, they get to go
back to work, right? So noone's actively looking, but
everyone's always thinkingabout creative next projects.
So who's got the script or thefilm that maybe just premiered
at , uh, Toronto Film Festivalor is going to Sundance , um,
or was in Sundance earlier thisyear and their next project
would be a really great fit forme, but I don't even know who
(06:37):
they are yet, who is likedoing, like, I love when I
watch shows on Netflix and I amjust awed by how brilliant and
and yummy and perfect and soexciting for me as an audience
to discover that that showexists. And I didn't even know
who the showrunner was beforethat show happened. So I like
to think about like, how do youeven find the people who have
(06:58):
yet to spark the idea of thething that you wanna be a part
of and how do you show themthat you would wanna be a part
of that and you would be reallyright for that, right? That's
the math equation my brain isalways trying to , um, put
together. And I, again,control, feel a lot of anxiety
about just throwing the netwide and which I think is what
(07:23):
probably is the best idea andthe best advice, right? Is put
a whole bunch of stuff outthere all the time consistently
so people can discover you. AndI think what's always been hard
for me about that is controland feeling like, well, if
everybody sees everything, thenI don't know what I am
attracting. And I don't know ifit's gonna be a c s i , God
(07:44):
bless them kind of role. Uh ,which honestly, I could have so
much fun with if it was like aone off . I just don't know
that I wanna do seven years ofthat. But again, great show ,
um, or if it's gonna be like a, an indie , uh, God , I'm
thinking of Taylor Sheridanwrote , um, river, it's gonna
drive me crazy now, this reallygreat film. Um, and nobody
(08:06):
quite knew who he was and heblew up and made , um, the
Paramount Show Yellowstone,which has been this huge, huge
hit, if you haven't heard aboutit. Anyway, wind River is this
phenomenal, phenomenal filmthat was like a tiny film that
did all of these , um, filmfestival circuits and the gems
that you don't know exist,right? That you don't even know
(08:28):
that people are writing and,and creating. Um, and, and so
what I've been thinking aboutis this idea that surrender is
not just like being a, myvisuals are so weird, a dead
fish. Like not just being likea floppy, you have no agency,
(08:51):
you have no life. You are justkind of like waiting for
something to pick you up, whichI think is what I've always
associated with surrender. Andinstead, I've been thinking a
lot, and I'm gonna get woo withyou guys about energy and about
how our thoughts are energy. Weknow this, we know that we as
humans, our electricalcurrents, we know that our
(09:12):
thoughts transmit. We've noidea how, but there has been
research showing that people ,um, who pray and meditate and
send good thoughts towardplants, the plants thrive, and
people who send hatefulthoughts toward plants, the
plants Chile up and get sick.
We know that our thoughts havepower. We know that our
(09:33):
thoughts transmit maybe not inwords, we certainly don't know
how, but we know that, thatthat we're all antennas and
we're all receiving and sendingall the time. And one way to
look at it that's more maybetangible is, again, dating is
such a great microcosm of wayof looking at life. But let's
(09:54):
say you're on a date and you'rereally feeling yourself and
you're feeling really justenchanted with life and you're
feeling cute and you're feelingwhatever, you're gonna lean
into the person and you'regonna be curious about them,
and you're gonna be charmingbecause you feel good about
yourself, you feel good aboutwho you are, and you're
genuinely cur curious and youfeel really safe. And , um,
(10:15):
there's that space to fullybloom into who you are. And you
can be very , uh, excited,right? Versus if you're
feeling, if you're thoughtsabout yourself are that you're
not enough, that maybe thisisn't the right time, that you
don't know what to say, thatum, maybe you know, what you're
(10:36):
gonna say is stupid. Your wholebody will sort of close up.
You're gonna stop making eyecontact. You're gonna, you're
gonna be, you're gonna be , um,looking to them for permission.
You're gonna be hesitant aboutwhat you say, you're gonna be
quiet, you're gonna eat yourown words, right? You're just
gonna swallow into yourself.
And that is a very concrete wayin which our thoughts about
(10:56):
ourself translate into theactions that we take, into the
ways that we show up and relateto other humans. So same about
your book or your piece of ,um, fine art or your sculpture
or your acting. If you feelincredibly good and like it
adds value to the world andit's important for people to
(11:17):
see and it brings delight andentertainment, you're gonna be
excited talking about the workthat you do. And you're gonna
wanna meet other directors andwriters and talk about what
they think is important in theworld and what kind of stories
they wanna tell, right? Versusif, which I do a lot of , um,
you're questioning what is themeaning of acting and does it
make any sense? And the worldis on fire and we should really
(11:37):
worry about that. And you'rejust gonna keep pulling into
yourself and into yourself andinto yourself until it gets
really hard to meet someonefrom a clear place where your
brain is clear and you're notjust sort of nattering at
yourself about all the ways inwhich this might be a bad idea
and you're able to see them andthen make something great
together. And so I think a lotabout, and a lot of the work
(12:01):
that I do is cleaning up thosenarratives that I hold, right?
I, I am fascinated by the factthat I can watch hours of
Netflix and feel like it isteaching me about how to human.
It is teaching me aboutrelationships and life and
heartbreak and loss and loveand friendships and growing up
(12:22):
and be so grateful for theamount of television and
theater and music and art thatis in my life that sustains me
and walks the path of being ahuman with me. And somehow
still turn it on myself andsay, well, my stuff isn't good
enough. I don't know the valueof what I'm doing. I should
(12:42):
definitely have a more concretejob where I can show you
exactly what the value of thisis that I do. That's a
dichotomy that I live with. SoI'm always kind of exploring it
and curious. But what I'm awareis that it does this thing
where I can talk about somethings with confidence and ease
and joy and charm because I'mexcited about them and other
(13:04):
things, especially acting thatmatter to me. I tend to get
very closed off and doubtfuland curious and judgy , and I
don't know if I'm enough andblah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
right? And so if we think aboutthat transmitting, we think
about that as the place where Ihave control, where I have
agency to do work since I likea checklist and a to-do list,
(13:26):
which is why a lot of mychecklists are about doing
journaling and figuring out mydaily practices to get clear
about those narratives thataren't serving me. Those
thoughts that I have that Irepeat to myself that just make
me play small and get curiousenough about them, about why
they're important to me, why Ihold onto them, how they keep
(13:48):
me safe, how they think theyare protecting me, or how they
believe they're protecting me,and how to have a different
relationship to them so that Ican feel incredibly safe and
also do the thing that mattersto me. So that's part one of
the like surrender, being aninside job and having agency
within your surrender. And theother part of it was that in
(14:12):
everything that we do, and thisis hard for me, but it's like
one of those things where like,I know it when I see it from a
bird's eye view, but when I'minside of it doing it myself,
I'm like, really? But I thinkwe know this to be true. Like
this project that I was workingon had to do with choosing
different , um, excerpts fromnovels and using them as
(14:33):
character studies and thenrecording them as one minute ,
like Instagram, like acharacters almost like a
monologue and putting them onInstagram. And of course I got
in my head about, you know, whyand who will see this and what
does it matter and am I goodenough, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah. But also the largerquestion was, what will this
(14:53):
lead to? Again, I have a 10year plan brain that wants to
know how do I reverse engineermeeting the person who's gonna
make the film that I'm mostexcited about, who's gonna make
the TV show that I really wannabe a part of? And I have a
really hard time trusting thatif I just keep showing up with
my own ideas about what'simportant, with my own
curiosity about the world, withmy own take on how to bring a
(15:16):
character to life that willeventually align with the
people who are doing similarexciting stuff. And so it
occurred to me as I was lookingfor different pieces of
writing, how even the act ofchoosing those pieces of
writing was revealing somethingabout the kind of stories that
I wanna tell. And that meansthat my antenna is transmitting
(15:36):
from that place of these arethe stories that really light
me up. These are the charactersthat most light me up and when
my antenna is lit up with thatis what I'm transmitting. That
is where I'm excited, that'swhere I feel my most true self,
my most alive. Again, it's woo, but we resonate. It's the
high vibes thing, right? If Iam feeling good at that energy,
(15:58):
someone else who also feelsgood at that energy is gonna be
attracted. We don't know how,but we know this to be true.
Um, and so the work becomesfurther and further looking
into yourself and getting moreand more solid in, where do you
feel that spark? What excitesyou about that role? What
excites you about creating thatcharacter? Is it an accent? Is
(16:21):
it a physicality? Is it thelocation? Is it the costume? Is
it, you know, playing with ageor a backstory? Is it the
language itself? All of thesethings are different for
different people and whateverit is that lights you up. And
this is what's interesting too,because when I'm in my flip
side where I'm looking outsidein and trying to figure out
what will someone else see inthis performance, how will they
(16:43):
judge it? How will they, howwill I know if they think it's
good enough is really what itcomes down to? Then I give out
my agency and I'm actually notin a place of surrender. I'm in
a place of trying to anticipatethe judgment so I can solve for
the judgment by controllingwhat I anticipate someone else
will think, right? When, whenyou say it like that, it's
(17:05):
completely insane andcompletely impossible. But
that's what the control braindoes. It's it's deepest,
deepest desire is to keep ussafe. And its deepest belief is
that if it can controleverybody else out there and
all of their thoughts and allof their actions, I will be
safe. We sadly can't do any ofthat. I can't even know what
other people think. Um, I can,might maybe know what they say,
(17:27):
I can maybe know what theywrite. Um, but even that can be
rife with subtext. I don't knowwhy they do what they do. And I
certainly will make myselfcrazy. I have enough thoughts
of my own guys, . Idefinitely don't wanna be
trying to figure out someoneelse's thoughts, but that's
what my brain spends its timedoing, trying to figure out how
will this performance matterenough to the person I most
(17:47):
wanna impress and what do Ineed to this person that I
don't even know, by the way?
How , what do I need to do inorder to make sure that they
see it and are impressed by itand take x, y , z action of
like offering me a role, right?
That's where my brain is going,seven steps ahead of me. And it
takes away this ability to sayto myself, why this? Why am I
(18:09):
excited by this? I don't needto know why, but just how do I
follow that excitement? How doI follow that spark? How do I
follow that? I'm feeling itkind of thing that you want on
a first date, right? How do I,how do I follow that? And then
trust that if what I'm puttingout into the world comes from
that genuine, this was excitingto me because of this topic,
(18:30):
because of this relationshipthat explored, because of this
language, because of this.
Like, I like period pieces. Youknow, I wanna wear a costume
and I wanna be in the 18hundreds or this whole thing
like , uh, p b s masterpiece,I'm always like, I wanna be in
the corset with the horses old school movies. Um ,
that was a dream like back in,in acting school. So like if
(18:51):
you know what you're lit up by,it doesn't mean that all those
things are gonna come to you,but you're gonna get closer and
closer at finding those peoplebecause you are coming from
that place of this is whatexcites me and this is what I
resonate at. And when Iresonate and when I have s real
clarity over what I resonateand what lights me up, this is
(19:13):
super woo . But that energyconversation gets louder,
right? Those thoughts arelouder, they broadcast further,
yes, in a sense of like you put'em on Instagram, they actually
broadcast further. But in termsof how you move in the world in
terms of how you reach out byemail or dmm someone in terms
of how you show up for yourselfevery day , you have permission
(19:35):
to be most excited by whatexcites you and the more you
can lean into staying true tothat, but also falling in love
with the being true to that.
And I think that is the hardestpart. I think again, the world
is hard. Capitalism is hard,but also humans are all scared
(19:59):
of being vulnerable. And theway that we protect our
vulnerability is by judgingourselves so harshly before
anyone else can judge us. Andit makes it really hard to fall
in love with your true deepestdesire to express your true
artist because all we wanna dois judge it first to keep it
safe rather than share it andmaybe not be understood, maybe
(20:22):
have our heart broken , maybenot get the role we were really
excited about. And those thingsare really hard to do. And so I
think we proactively makeourselves wrong in the things
that we want most becausethat's so much safer. And I'm
not saying this is intentional.
I'm just trying to figure outlike where my brain is turning
(20:45):
against itself in the beliefthat all our brains are always
trying to keep us safe. It istheir absolute golden rule. It
is their only, only purpose forbeing is to keep us safe. And
from that premise, anythingthat I think even if it sounds
really hateful or wrong, isactually always trying to keep
me safe. Which is a reallyopens up so much curiosity to
(21:06):
look at how you were thinkingand why you were thinking. And
so from the surrender to to-dolist, right, it changes from,
so the non surrender to-do listis let me make a list of 10
people I wanna impress and letme figure out how to get in
front of those 10 people andlet me figure out exactly what
outfit and what cute hair andwhat I should say and what I
(21:29):
should do so that they willlike me. Um, which honestly
might work for some people andmight work for a short time.
But the truth is, the more youdo that, the more further away
you get from your inherentself. And all we want as
artists is to be our mostinherent self, right? The thing
that is most resonating,touching, moving to us is to
see someone in their fullhumanity. So the more that we
are putting on masks for otherpeople, for them to like us,
(21:51):
the further from our ownhumanity we get distanced, the
less we have to share, the lessspark we have, the less
interesting, the less far wecan go. Um, and so the flip
side, the surrender isfollowing the spark, which
(22:13):
sounds so much more fun and somuch easier and somehow is
harder because it's morevulnerable. Because all the
questions of what if someonedoesn't like it? What if it's
the wrong thing? What if theperson I most wanna impressed
turns out not to be impressed?
What if they say no? You know,it's all the dating dilemma of
how do you show your true selfand hope that person likes you
and what do you do if theydon't? And the answer is always
(22:37):
you lick your wounds and youlove yourself harder. But I
don't think we get taught thatso much. I think we get really
good at, let me figure out acuter dress. Let me figure out
how to lose more weight. Let mefigure out how to make more
money. Let me figure out how tobe more impressive and more
secure in all these externalthings so that they can't help
(23:01):
but choose me, which makessense. But ultimately leaves
you really empty. And thehardest thing is if you got all
the money and the thinness andthe pretty clothes and they
still don't choose you, youkind of got nothing left 'cause
you haven't been working onloving yourself even more. I
(23:23):
have no idea how this episodeturned into like a dating 1 0 1
thing. Um, but I do absolutelythink so much about how dating
is art and art is life, datingis life like, it's all just
about vulnerability and beingtrue to yourself and being able
to stay true to yourself evenwhen the world , um, might not
be getting it or liking it. SoI don't know how to end this
(23:47):
episode, you guys , um, otherthan I'm still in this
conversation with myself. Andso I hope you'll be also about
if the word isn't surrender, ifthe idea isn't surrender, what
is the thing that allows youthat gives you permission to
fall deeper into, To follow, tofall deeper into the rabbit
(24:12):
hole of like, where is yourtruest desire and what sparks
you and what are you mostexcited to say in the world?
And then how do you keep givingyourself more and more
permission to say that? And howdo you trust more and more that
as long as you are able to saythat more clearly and more
loudly, not shouting, just withclarity and with focus and
(24:34):
standing in that that's howpeople can see you clearly and
know what you stand for andthen they can come find you.
That's what I'm gonna try topractice as I move forward the
rest of this year. Um, I hopethat made some amount of sense
to you guys. As always. I'moften still working on things
(24:56):
when I come here to talk. And Ilove being in this journey with
you about what it means to liveauthentically, what it means to
live as a human, what it meansto want desperately to stay
safe and need to stay safe forown mental health. We all need
to be safe for own physicalhealth. We all need to be safe.
(25:17):
And also in order to be knownand loved, we also need to be
seen and we need to be able toreveal our true selves. And
that's always gonna be adynamic and attention of being
human, of being an artist, ofbeing in community. And I'm
here for it. I don't got awhole lot of answers, but I I'm
(25:40):
certainly always looking fornew ways of tackling the age
old problems of what it is ,um, to be human and to have
something to say about it. Bewell , my friends, I .
Hi my friends. I am sitting here trying to figure
out if I can properly translatethis idea that I have, that I
wanna talk to you guys abouttoday. And realizing that kinda
what I talked about lastepisode, which was the , um,
artist work of translating someinside into the outside. So
(00:23):
here goes, I've been thinking alot about surrender, which if
you know anything about me ispretty much the thing I suck at
the most. I may have a littlebit of control issues. Um, no,
truly, like I love a plan. Ilove a four step , 10 step, a
(00:44):
five-year plan, and like a 10step action plan, right? I like
knowing that if I do A, B, C,it will lead to X, y, z. I am
so jealous of people who havetraditional jobs like, I don't
know, being a doctor or alawyer or something where
there's a very delineated wayof climbing the ranks of
proving yourself and then beingable to reach a higher level of
(01:06):
success, which is also probablywhy I'd be incredibly bored
doing that because I think, Ithink we are drawn towards the
things that we need to learn.
And I think we are drawntowards the things that we find
hard. 'cause there's somethingthere to teach us. And I think
that's why I love art so much,because being an artist is so,
(01:31):
so much of a rollercoaster andso much of, you know, they have
this saying for actors thatyou're only as good as your
last film. So if your last filmwas a huge success, everybody
wants to work with you. If yourlast film was a flop, nobody
wants to work with you. And Ithink something similar applies
(01:52):
to music, I'm sure, to being avisual artist, having the art
gallery showing, right? There'sthis constant need to create
the next big hit. And what'shard about that is they're , as
much as they're trying toalgorithm their way into a big
hit, nobody actually knows whatthe hell the next big hit's
gonna be . And so there's noactual formula for success,
(02:15):
which is why it's the mostmaddening and the most
fascinating of things topursue. And, and when I think
about being an actor, and Ithink about, again, I like a
to-do list. I like a thing thatI'm going to do every day that
I'm gonna know is getting mecloser to my goal. And one of
(02:37):
the things that I find mostcurious and hard and
interesting is what is thatchecklist? If the goal is to
attract or be right for thenext acting role, that is a
really good fit for me. Yes,there are auditions, yes, there
are meeting people, there areall these things that you can
do, but it's this fascinatingthing where again, there's no
(03:00):
ex , it's not, the auditionssort of come outta the blue.
They often land in your inboxmonths apart when you haven't
heard from your agent in awhile and you've been doing
other things entirely. There'sthis really out of left field
since to how opportunities comeyour way. And I would imagine
(03:22):
this is true even of likewriting a book. You know, I
think you write a book and yousubmit and submit and submit
'em . I get a whole bunch ofdenials and maybe you're going
out and meeting people and thenyou, you meet the friend of a
cousin, of an agent who thentakes a chance on you. Like
there's so much of it about itthat's ineffable. There's so
much about it that cannot beproperly explained. You look at
(03:43):
anyone's career trajectory, whois an artist, there are all
these things that happened thateveryone's career is incredibly
different. Everyone'strajectory is incredibly
different. And again, there'snot like a whole ton of like,
you go to this school, you getthis degree, you apply for this
job, you figure this out, and Ihave a brain that likes Excel
spreadsheets. I have a brainthat wants to know what the
(04:05):
system is. I have a brain thatwants to know, tell me what to
do today. That is my checklist.
That is my to-do list. I crushmy to-do list, and I know I'm
one step closer to the thingthat really matters to me. And
so I've been thinking aboutwhat it is to put surrender on
my to-do list, which is such anoxymoron, but very me , um,
because I like things that Ican do. And I feel like, well,
(04:27):
if surrender's on my list, thenI can check it off for the day.
But what I mean by surrender isstaying open to the next
opportunity that is coming foryou. I think what I've always
found hard about surrender isthis feeling of inaction, this
feeling that I don't controlanything, that I don't know
where I'm headed, that I'm justfree falling into a world of
(04:51):
people making films and TVshows and putting on plays. And
I might not want to be a partof that. Like I love c s I , I
respect the f out of what it'sdone, but I don't really wanna
tell the story of someonegetting murdered every week.
It's just not great juju forme. Um, and I know that. And so
(05:11):
I think those are incredibleroles, but I wouldn't
necessarily want to beattracting that role, right?
And so I've always kind of feltthis sense of how do you know
that the opportunities that arecoming for you are the ones
that are gonna align with whoyou wanna be and also match
with the kind of career you'retrying to shape for yourself?
(05:31):
And I don't think anyone has ananswer, which is again, part of
the psychological warfare ofbeing an artist. But I had this
idea for a project , um, whichI'm still , uh, nibbling on,
but got a little sidelined withmy shoulder having some issues
these past , uh,
(05:54):
stuck on this idea. If, if Icreate for myself when I
perform for myself, then howwill I know if it's getting to
the right people, how will Iknow that it's going to land me
the next role? How do I get itjust in front of the right
people? How do I even know who?
And there's a strike going on.
So no one is actually activelyauditioning or developing, but
people are definitely writingscripts thinking about their
(06:16):
next project, hoping that whenthe strike ends, they get to go
back to work, right? So noone's actively looking, but
everyone's always thinkingabout creative next projects.
So who's got the script or thefilm that maybe just premiered
at , uh, Toronto Film Festivalor is going to Sundance , um,
or was in Sundance earlier thisyear and their next project
would be a really great fit forme, but I don't even know who
(06:37):
they are yet, who is likedoing, like, I love when I
watch shows on Netflix and I amjust awed by how brilliant and
and yummy and perfect and soexciting for me as an audience
to discover that that showexists. And I didn't even know
who the showrunner was beforethat show happened. So I like
to think about like, how do youeven find the people who have
(06:58):
yet to spark the idea of thething that you wanna be a part
of and how do you show themthat you would wanna be a part
of that and you would be reallyright for that, right? That's
the math equation my brain isalways trying to , um, put
together. And I, again,control, feel a lot of anxiety
about just throwing the netwide and which I think is what
(07:23):
probably is the best idea andthe best advice, right? Is put
a whole bunch of stuff outthere all the time consistently
so people can discover you. AndI think what's always been hard
for me about that is controland feeling like, well, if
everybody sees everything, thenI don't know what I am
attracting. And I don't know ifit's gonna be a c s i , God
(07:44):
bless them kind of role. Uh ,which honestly, I could have so
much fun with if it was like aone off . I just don't know
that I wanna do seven years ofthat. But again, great show ,
um, or if it's gonna be like a, an indie , uh, God , I'm
thinking of Taylor Sheridanwrote , um, river, it's gonna
drive me crazy now, this reallygreat film. Um, and nobody
(08:06):
quite knew who he was and heblew up and made , um, the
Paramount Show Yellowstone,which has been this huge, huge
hit, if you haven't heard aboutit. Anyway, wind River is this
phenomenal, phenomenal filmthat was like a tiny film that
did all of these , um, filmfestival circuits and the gems
that you don't know exist,right? That you don't even know
(08:28):
that people are writing and,and creating. Um, and, and so
what I've been thinking aboutis this idea that surrender is
not just like being a, myvisuals are so weird, a dead
fish. Like not just being likea floppy, you have no agency,
(08:51):
you have no life. You are justkind of like waiting for
something to pick you up, whichI think is what I've always
associated with surrender. Andinstead, I've been thinking a
lot, and I'm gonna get woo withyou guys about energy and about
how our thoughts are energy. Weknow this, we know that we as
humans, our electricalcurrents, we know that our
(09:12):
thoughts transmit. We've noidea how, but there has been
research showing that people ,um, who pray and meditate and
send good thoughts towardplants, the plants thrive, and
people who send hatefulthoughts toward plants, the
plants Chile up and get sick.
We know that our thoughts havepower. We know that our
(09:33):
thoughts transmit maybe not inwords, we certainly don't know
how, but we know that, thatthat we're all antennas and
we're all receiving and sendingall the time. And one way to
look at it that's more maybetangible is, again, dating is
such a great microcosm of wayof looking at life. But let's
(09:54):
say you're on a date and you'rereally feeling yourself and
you're feeling really justenchanted with life and you're
feeling cute and you're feelingwhatever, you're gonna lean
into the person and you'regonna be curious about them,
and you're gonna be charmingbecause you feel good about
yourself, you feel good aboutwho you are, and you're
genuinely cur curious and youfeel really safe. And , um,
(10:15):
there's that space to fullybloom into who you are. And you
can be very , uh, excited,right? Versus if you're
feeling, if you're thoughtsabout yourself are that you're
not enough, that maybe thisisn't the right time, that you
don't know what to say, thatum, maybe you know, what you're
(10:36):
gonna say is stupid. Your wholebody will sort of close up.
You're gonna stop making eyecontact. You're gonna, you're
gonna be, you're gonna be , um,looking to them for permission.
You're gonna be hesitant aboutwhat you say, you're gonna be
quiet, you're gonna eat yourown words, right? You're just
gonna swallow into yourself.
And that is a very concrete wayin which our thoughts about
(10:56):
ourself translate into theactions that we take, into the
ways that we show up and relateto other humans. So same about
your book or your piece of ,um, fine art or your sculpture
or your acting. If you feelincredibly good and like it
adds value to the world andit's important for people to
(11:17):
see and it brings delight andentertainment, you're gonna be
excited talking about the workthat you do. And you're gonna
wanna meet other directors andwriters and talk about what
they think is important in theworld and what kind of stories
they wanna tell, right? Versusif, which I do a lot of , um,
you're questioning what is themeaning of acting and does it
make any sense? And the worldis on fire and we should really
(11:37):
worry about that. And you'rejust gonna keep pulling into
yourself and into yourself andinto yourself until it gets
really hard to meet someonefrom a clear place where your
brain is clear and you're notjust sort of nattering at
yourself about all the ways inwhich this might be a bad idea
and you're able to see them andthen make something great
together. And so I think a lotabout, and a lot of the work
(12:01):
that I do is cleaning up thosenarratives that I hold, right?
I, I am fascinated by the factthat I can watch hours of
Netflix and feel like it isteaching me about how to human.
It is teaching me aboutrelationships and life and
heartbreak and loss and loveand friendships and growing up
(12:22):
and be so grateful for theamount of television and
theater and music and art thatis in my life that sustains me
and walks the path of being ahuman with me. And somehow
still turn it on myself andsay, well, my stuff isn't good
enough. I don't know the valueof what I'm doing. I should
(12:42):
definitely have a more concretejob where I can show you
exactly what the value of thisis that I do. That's a
dichotomy that I live with. SoI'm always kind of exploring it
and curious. But what I'm awareis that it does this thing
where I can talk about somethings with confidence and ease
and joy and charm because I'mexcited about them and other
(13:04):
things, especially acting thatmatter to me. I tend to get
very closed off and doubtfuland curious and judgy , and I
don't know if I'm enough andblah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
right? And so if we think aboutthat transmitting, we think
about that as the place where Ihave control, where I have
agency to do work since I likea checklist and a to-do list,
(13:26):
which is why a lot of mychecklists are about doing
journaling and figuring out mydaily practices to get clear
about those narratives thataren't serving me. Those
thoughts that I have that Irepeat to myself that just make
me play small and get curiousenough about them, about why
they're important to me, why Ihold onto them, how they keep
(13:48):
me safe, how they think theyare protecting me, or how they
believe they're protecting me,and how to have a different
relationship to them so that Ican feel incredibly safe and
also do the thing that mattersto me. So that's part one of
the like surrender, being aninside job and having agency
within your surrender. And theother part of it was that in
(14:12):
everything that we do, and thisis hard for me, but it's like
one of those things where like,I know it when I see it from a
bird's eye view, but when I'minside of it doing it myself,
I'm like, really? But I thinkwe know this to be true. Like
this project that I was workingon had to do with choosing
different , um, excerpts fromnovels and using them as
(14:33):
character studies and thenrecording them as one minute ,
like Instagram, like acharacters almost like a
monologue and putting them onInstagram. And of course I got
in my head about, you know, whyand who will see this and what
does it matter and am I goodenough, blah, blah, blah, blah,
blah. But also the largerquestion was, what will this
(14:53):
lead to? Again, I have a 10year plan brain that wants to
know how do I reverse engineermeeting the person who's gonna
make the film that I'm mostexcited about, who's gonna make
the TV show that I really wannabe a part of? And I have a
really hard time trusting thatif I just keep showing up with
my own ideas about what'simportant, with my own
curiosity about the world, withmy own take on how to bring a
(15:16):
character to life that willeventually align with the
people who are doing similarexciting stuff. And so it
occurred to me as I was lookingfor different pieces of
writing, how even the act ofchoosing those pieces of
writing was revealing somethingabout the kind of stories that
I wanna tell. And that meansthat my antenna is transmitting
(15:36):
from that place of these arethe stories that really light
me up. These are the charactersthat most light me up and when
my antenna is lit up with thatis what I'm transmitting. That
is where I'm excited, that'swhere I feel my most true self,
my most alive. Again, it's woo, but we resonate. It's the
high vibes thing, right? If Iam feeling good at that energy,
(15:58):
someone else who also feelsgood at that energy is gonna be
attracted. We don't know how,but we know this to be true.
Um, and so the work becomesfurther and further looking
into yourself and getting moreand more solid in, where do you
feel that spark? What excitesyou about that role? What
excites you about creating thatcharacter? Is it an accent? Is
(16:21):
it a physicality? Is it thelocation? Is it the costume? Is
it, you know, playing with ageor a backstory? Is it the
language itself? All of thesethings are different for
different people and whateverit is that lights you up. And
this is what's interesting too,because when I'm in my flip
side where I'm looking outsidein and trying to figure out
what will someone else see inthis performance, how will they
(16:43):
judge it? How will they, howwill I know if they think it's
good enough is really what itcomes down to? Then I give out
my agency and I'm actually notin a place of surrender. I'm in
a place of trying to anticipatethe judgment so I can solve for
the judgment by controllingwhat I anticipate someone else
will think, right? When, whenyou say it like that, it's
(17:05):
completely insane andcompletely impossible. But
that's what the control braindoes. It's it's deepest,
deepest desire is to keep ussafe. And its deepest belief is
that if it can controleverybody else out there and
all of their thoughts and allof their actions, I will be
safe. We sadly can't do any ofthat. I can't even know what
other people think. Um, I can,might maybe know what they say,
(17:27):
I can maybe know what theywrite. Um, but even that can be
rife with subtext. I don't knowwhy they do what they do. And I
certainly will make myselfcrazy. I have enough thoughts
of my own guys,
trying to figure out someoneelse's thoughts, but that's
what my brain spends its timedoing, trying to figure out how
will this performance matterenough to the person I most
(17:47):
wanna impress and what do Ineed to this person that I
don't even know, by the way?
How , what do I need to do inorder to make sure that they
see it and are impressed by itand take x, y , z action of
like offering me a role, right?
That's where my brain is going,seven steps ahead of me. And it
takes away this ability to sayto myself, why this? Why am I
(18:09):
excited by this? I don't needto know why, but just how do I
follow that excitement? How doI follow that spark? How do I
follow that? I'm feeling itkind of thing that you want on
a first date, right? How do I,how do I follow that? And then
trust that if what I'm puttingout into the world comes from
that genuine, this was excitingto me because of this topic,
(18:30):
because of this relationshipthat explored, because of this
language, because of this.
Like, I like period pieces. Youknow, I wanna wear a costume
and I wanna be in the 18hundreds or this whole thing
like , uh, p b s masterpiece,I'm always like, I wanna be in
the corset with the horses
that was a dream like back in,in acting school. So like if
(18:51):
you know what you're lit up by,it doesn't mean that all those
things are gonna come to you,but you're gonna get closer and
closer at finding those peoplebecause you are coming from
that place of this is whatexcites me and this is what I
resonate at. And when Iresonate and when I have s real
clarity over what I resonateand what lights me up, this is
(19:13):
super woo . But that energyconversation gets louder,
right? Those thoughts arelouder, they broadcast further,
yes, in a sense of like you put'em on Instagram, they actually
broadcast further. But in termsof how you move in the world in
terms of how you reach out byemail or dmm someone in terms
of how you show up for yourselfevery day , you have permission
(19:35):
to be most excited by whatexcites you and the more you
can lean into staying true tothat, but also falling in love
with the being true to that.
And I think that is the hardestpart. I think again, the world
is hard. Capitalism is hard,but also humans are all scared
(19:59):
of being vulnerable. And theway that we protect our
vulnerability is by judgingourselves so harshly before
anyone else can judge us. Andit makes it really hard to fall
in love with your true deepestdesire to express your true
artist because all we wanna dois judge it first to keep it
safe rather than share it andmaybe not be understood, maybe
(20:22):
have our heart broken , maybenot get the role we were really
excited about. And those thingsare really hard to do. And so I
think we proactively makeourselves wrong in the things
that we want most becausethat's so much safer. And I'm
not saying this is intentional.
I'm just trying to figure outlike where my brain is turning
(20:45):
against itself in the beliefthat all our brains are always
trying to keep us safe. It istheir absolute golden rule. It
is their only, only purpose forbeing is to keep us safe. And
from that premise, anythingthat I think even if it sounds
really hateful or wrong, isactually always trying to keep
me safe. Which is a reallyopens up so much curiosity to
(21:06):
look at how you were thinkingand why you were thinking. And
so from the surrender to to-dolist, right, it changes from,
so the non surrender to-do listis let me make a list of 10
people I wanna impress and letme figure out how to get in
front of those 10 people andlet me figure out exactly what
outfit and what cute hair andwhat I should say and what I
(21:29):
should do so that they willlike me. Um, which honestly
might work for some people andmight work for a short time.
But the truth is, the more youdo that, the more further away
you get from your inherentself. And all we want as
artists is to be our mostinherent self, right? The thing
that is most resonating,touching, moving to us is to
see someone in their fullhumanity. So the more that we
are putting on masks for otherpeople, for them to like us,
(21:51):
the further from our ownhumanity we get distanced, the
less we have to share, the lessspark we have, the less
interesting, the less far wecan go. Um, and so the flip
side, the surrender isfollowing the spark, which
(22:13):
sounds so much more fun and somuch easier and somehow is
harder because it's morevulnerable. Because all the
questions of what if someonedoesn't like it? What if it's
the wrong thing? What if theperson I most wanna impressed
turns out not to be impressed?
What if they say no? You know,it's all the dating dilemma of
how do you show your true selfand hope that person likes you
and what do you do if theydon't? And the answer is always
(22:37):
you lick your wounds and youlove yourself harder. But I
don't think we get taught thatso much. I think we get really
good at, let me figure out acuter dress. Let me figure out
how to lose more weight. Let mefigure out how to make more
money. Let me figure out how tobe more impressive and more
secure in all these externalthings so that they can't help
(23:01):
but choose me, which makessense. But ultimately leaves
you really empty. And thehardest thing is if you got all
the money and the thinness andthe pretty clothes and they
still don't choose you, youkind of got nothing left 'cause
you haven't been working onloving yourself even more. I
(23:23):
have no idea how this episodeturned into like a dating 1 0 1
thing. Um, but I do absolutelythink so much about how dating
is art and art is life, datingis life like, it's all just
about vulnerability and beingtrue to yourself and being able
to stay true to yourself evenwhen the world , um, might not
be getting it or liking it. SoI don't know how to end this
(23:47):
episode, you guys , um, otherthan I'm still in this
conversation with myself. Andso I hope you'll be also about
if the word isn't surrender, ifthe idea isn't surrender, what
is the thing that allows youthat gives you permission to
fall deeper into, To follow, tofall deeper into the rabbit
(24:12):
hole of like, where is yourtruest desire and what sparks
you and what are you mostexcited to say in the world?
And then how do you keep givingyourself more and more
permission to say that? And howdo you trust more and more that
as long as you are able to saythat more clearly and more
loudly, not shouting, just withclarity and with focus and
(24:34):
standing in that that's howpeople can see you clearly and
know what you stand for andthen they can come find you.
That's what I'm gonna try topractice as I move forward the
rest of this year. Um, I hopethat made some amount of sense
to you guys. As always. I'moften still working on things
(24:56):
when I come here to talk. And Ilove being in this journey with
you about what it means to liveauthentically, what it means to
live as a human, what it meansto want desperately to stay
safe and need to stay safe forown mental health. We all need
to be safe for own physicalhealth. We all need to be safe.
(25:17):
And also in order to be knownand loved, we also need to be
seen and we need to be able toreveal our true selves. And
that's always gonna be adynamic and attention of being
human, of being an artist, ofbeing in community. And I'm
here for it. I don't got awhole lot of answers, but I I'm
(25:40):
certainly always looking fornew ways of tackling the age
old problems of what it is ,um, to be human and to have
something to say about it. Bewell , my friends, I .
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