July 29, 2021 • 59 mins
Actor and Mindfulness Teacher Stephanie Nash Explains how mindfulness can be used to help with common challenges professional artists face every day.
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Stephanie's links:
website: www.strategic-mindfulness.com
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YouTube: https://youtu.be/r1Cpt2VSReo
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I'm your host, Tony Angelini. Thanks for listening. Find out more at www.creativemindset.org
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Stephanie Nash (00:01):
For an actor to play a character, you can't
judge it. If you're playingHitler, if you're playing, it
doesn't matter who you'replaying. You can't judge your
character you have to go intothe character and we're having
an empathy shortage in our worldright now. We're having a hard
time with people having empathywith other people. And the craft
(00:23):
of acting is empathy onsteroids. It's not just having
empathy with someone it'sbecoming, okay, internalizing
them.
Tony Angelini (00:32):
You're listening to the creative mindset podcast.
I'm Tony Angelini. Today I'mtalking with Stephanie Nash
about common challenges thatartists face every day. This is
part two of our series on theconnection between spirituality
and creativity. Now Stephanie isthe founder of Strategic
Mindfulness. She is amindfulness meditation coach,
(00:55):
and a body language expert andshe also has a flourishing
career as an actor. Televisioncredits include Jane The Virgin,
Snowfall, Weeds, Agents ofSHIELD, Angel, NYPD Blue, and
quite a bit more. You'll findher on insight timer, you'll
find her on clubhouse, you'llfind her on Facebook. And we're
(01:15):
really excited to have her hereon the Creative Mindset podcast.
Hey, would you considersubscribing? Subscribing is
free, and it helps the podcastgrow and continue to provide
good content. If you were tobecome one of us by subscribing,
we'd be eternally grateful. NowStephanie, and I spoke over the
internet.
Stephanie Nash, thank you forcoming to talk with me.
Stephanie Nash (01:38):
It's a delight to be with you, Tony, thank you
for inviting me.
Tony Angelini (01:42):
For those who don't know, Stephanie is a
prolific actor, and a graduateof the Yale School of Drama.
Stephanie Nash (01:48):
It was an amazing experience to be there.
Tony Angelini (01:51):
If you watch TV and movies, I guarantee you've
seen Stephanie, and your a livetheater actor. And you've had a
smash hit one woman show. Butthat's not all. Stephanie is a
mindfulness meditation coach,and expert. And the founder of
(02:15):
strategic mindfulness,strategic-mindfulness.com where
you can find a plethora ofinstruction and workshops and
other great information to helpyou on your mindfulness
practice. I wanted to talk aboutall these things and point out
that all of this not just theacting, but all of this is
creative; they are creativeendeavors. You have workshops,
(02:36):
you have instructions, don't youteach in the corporate arena?
Stephanie Nash (02:39):
Yes, I do. I teach corporate I teach. I go
into educational institutions.
I've spoken for psychologistssix pointing you back went
before mindfulness was abuzzword, I'd have to go in and
or when it started, be abuzzword especially I'd go in
and say okay, this is whatmindfulness is. And this is how
it can help what you do. Rightnow I'm being asked to do a lot
(03:02):
of stuff, obviously, forfrontline workers and medical
community and people who arereally burned out caretakers,
that kind of stuff. Yeah, no, Iwork with all sorts in my
nonprofit is Mindfulness Arts,where I started that just pretty
much since art was what I knew.
That was, I started withartists, and I worked a lot with
(03:25):
performance anxiety. And so Iteach what we now call
presentation skills at UCLA artsand healing and their social
emotional arts program. And, andI just slip mindfulness into
everything I do,
Tony Angelini (03:40):
right. That's, that's awesome. In fact,
earlier, I was thinking she wasa mindfulness coach, when
mindfulness coaching wasn'tcool.
Stephanie Nash (03:48):
That's my line before it was cool. And it's
cool now, in case you didn'tknow.
Tony Angelini (03:52):
Would you say there's... your mindfulness
expertise, would you say thatsupports your creative
endeavors? Or would you say theopposite is true? Or would you
say it's all kind of holistic?
Would you say they support eachother?
Unknown (04:07):
Well, the word holistic to me applies to everything all
the time. Specifically, we'retalking about mindfulness.
There's no question thatmindfulness isn't just one
skill. There are differentskills that are that come in as
part of mindfulness, but there'sno question that it supports the
(04:28):
creative process in the creativeendeavors and helps you function
better focus better, helps youhave more relaxation. When
you're doing create, like Italked about performance
anxiety. I remember, CharlieRose was interviewing Anthony
Hopkins one time, and I'm datingmyself if anyone still remembers
(04:51):
Charlie Rose, he was my favoriteshow. But Charlie Rose turned to
Anthony Hopkins and said, "Iheard you say that the most
important part about acting wasremembering your lines." And
Anthony Hopkins said,," Did Isay that? No, no, the most
important thing about acting isrelaxation." He said if you're
relaxed to remember your lines,and I remember when I started
(05:12):
teaching, directing theater, intheater, directing actors,
there's a point when actors getoff script, you know, they're
they're on script doing alltheir blocking. And then you
take the scripts that were inthere, like, they can't remember
where they go. And they call forline meaning they're in a scene
with their brother saying, Whydid you do that, and then they
can't remember the next line andthey just say "line" and then
(05:34):
the stage manager tells themwhat their next line is, well, I
would say, "breathe" , Iwouldn't give them the line, I
would just say breathe, andthey'd look at me like dogs
tilting their head, but thenthey'd remember their line. And
that was actually preparing themto be relaxed and present on
stage, you know, in that way,and I talk about I was, I was
(05:56):
just interviewed for something.
And she pulled a quote out ofwhat I said, like relaxation,
something like everyone doesn'tknow how to relax or relaxation
is an important skill, I can'tremember what she said. But if
you're not able to relax,regardless of your situation,
it's something you can work onis a skill. And it's one of the
skills of mindfulness that helpyou be present. So you can do
(06:16):
your best work when you're justrelaxed and present. And then
your greatness comes through andthe concentration keeps that
other mind from going well, am Idoing it right? What do they
think you know, all that stuff,and you can just stay focused on
what's important for thatparticular creative art, whether
it's, you know, I tend to doones that are in front of, like,
(06:37):
I help people with one sit infront of people. I don't work a
lot with artists. But I do haveartists and writers that I'm
helping them move into the like,when they're stuck. And they
can't think of ideas, there aremindfulness tools that we can
use to help them and bodylanguage tools to help them
relax and allow the creativeideas to come through, like
(07:02):
where are your best ideas? Inthe shower? Okay, why? Relax. So
I, you know, when I was workingwith executives at Warner
Brothers, and then they had allthese creative people, and I
said, "Everyone gets your ideasin the shower. So you got to
create a shower for all youremployees, you know?", And so
how do we do that? So yes, Somindfulness is no question
(07:23):
enhances, for me, and forpeople, I work with the creative
process, it gives you veryvaluable tools for that.
Tony Angelini (07:32):
Reminding actors when you were directing to
breathe. When an actor is onstage, I guess the goal is to be
in the moment, right? And to becompletely present in the
character that they'reportraying, and in going on the
journey of the play, and andwhat's the difference between
actually being in the moment andmindfulness? Would you say
(07:55):
they're two sides of the samecoin? Or totally unrelated?
Unknown (08:00):
Yeah, well, I'm just going to work with your
phraseology there. You saidbeing in the moment. So to me
being in the moment and beingpresent. For me those words mean
the same thing. But I thinkyou're asking, when an actor's
doing a good job is is thatmindfulness is that your
question?
many actors are very familiarwith being in the moment. Is
(08:23):
that akin to mindfulness?
Okay good. I'll make thatdistinction. So the way I'll
define mindfulness is tuninginto your sensory experience,
what you see, hear, feel, taste,smell, your thoughts and
feelings. Tuning into that inthe present moment, without
trying to control it, withoutjudging it, with acceptance and
(08:43):
clarity. So that would bemindfulness. That would also for
me define presence. What anactor's doing would go, and
mindfulness comes from, if we'regoing to go get Buddhist on you,
It comes from Vipassanameditation. What actors do is
(09:05):
more akin to ????????, whereyou're replacing your sense of
what the words are in your head,you're replacing. So with
actors, you're not just tuninginto your sensory experience and
being okay with it, you'reactually creating and doing
something with it and you'rereplacing your internal voice
(09:27):
with that of the character.
You're replacing how you holdyour body with how the character
holds their body. You'rereplacing the emotions that you
have with that of the character.
you're replacing the what yousee around you as the world of
the character in ??????, theyreplace it with deities and
(09:48):
????? and various things likethat with the notion that if you
can, because all of that is yoursense of self, and if you can
replace your sense of self, thenguess what, what is the self? So
it gives you a little freedomfrom this, "oh, I'm attached to
this sense of self." So it's a,it's a different spiritual path
in that sense you're replacingwith something else. But then
(10:11):
you realize what you have isn'tthat solid in the first place
anyway. And that's why actorsoften tend to get into spiritual
experiences a lot, becausethey're giving up their sense of
who they are, to go becomesomeone else. I have a long
thing I'm writing called Actorsand Empathy. Because for an
actor to play a character, youcan't judge it. If you're
(10:34):
playing Hitler, if you'replaying, it doesn't matter who
you're playing, you can't judgeyour character. You have to go
into the character, and we'rehaving an empathy shortage in
our world right now. We'rehaving a hard time with people
having empathy with otherpeople. And the craft of acting
is empathy on steroids. It's notjust having empathy with
(10:56):
someone, it's becoming them,okay, internalizing them. And so
I'm writing a thing about whatwe can learn from actors, for
empathy. It's a whole thing I'mwriting now, because I think
it's really important. So mydistinction between mindfulness
is, I'm present in this moment,with acceptance.You feel your
feet, you feel your breath, youfeel your hands, you might have
(11:17):
emotions in your body, that'sokay. That's just what's
happening. It's movement is anactor, I'm deliberately
cultivating to let go ofwhatever I identify as me and
become somebody else. And when Ido that, when I do become that
character, and I move like thatcharacter, and I think like that
character, and I feel like thatcharacter, I am also wanting the
(11:42):
practice of mindfulness of beingin the present moment, I'm in
the present moment as thatcharacter. And that's something
that a lot of beginning actorshave a hard time with, because
they're so busy doing thecharacter they're trying to show
it, they want you to see it,they're not really resting in
it, and resonating at it. That'swhere we want to go as actor.
(12:04):
All actors don't go there but onfilm, sometimes you can get the
one good take where they did.
But in theater, you can't messaround. In theater, you got to
really do it, because you'realone on that stage. So that's,
that's my best description ofthe difference between distinct
mindfulness versus acting andhow mindfulness applies to
(12:26):
acting. Does that make sense?
Tony Angelini (12:29):
Yes, that's very clear. So how would an actor in
the theater who doesn't knowanything about meditation or
mindfulness, but they're acting?
It seems to me it would be toughfor that actor to actually start
becoming self aware, right?
Especially somebody who's beenin the business for a while,
(12:50):
right? So where would theybegin?
Stephanie Nash (12:53):
Well, I will say all my acting training happened
before I had a clue aboutmindfulness or spiritual path or
anything like that. All mytraining was before any of it.
What I found when I moved into,and then I'll answer your
question, but when I moved intothe mindfulness communities, and
I came in in a different way, Ihad an experience at an acting
(13:15):
retreat that shifted everything.
And then I went, "Oh, I got tolook this up" But what happened
to me tends to happen a lot toactors, because the tools that
people use in a mindfulnessmeditation practice are tools
that actors already cultivate.
They just don't think too oftenpoint them in this direction, or
(13:36):
use them this way, or get out ofthem in this way. So I find
actors slide into this quitequickly and easily because
they've already cultivated thetools, they just haven't thought
to kind of turn the light thatway. I started mindfulness for
actors classes 20 years ago, andI couldn't, oh, I can only get a
handful of actors to comebecause they weren't interested
(13:58):
in that they wanted to befamous. They just wanted to know
if a casting director was goingto be in the room. Now I was in
LA. And this was not a theatercrowd. Although I did do some
for some theater groups and theneveryone really did come and got
a lot out of it. So in answer toyour question of where do actors
go to find this? Luckily, we'rein a time now where you can just
(14:20):
open your computer and find aplethora of mindfulness for
anyone to try to get mindfulnessfor actors, I have a mindfulness
for actors group on clubhouse onThursdays at 11am. If anybody
wants to join that, yeah, it's ait's a mindfulness for actors
and I do some exercises, but wediscuss practical applications
(14:42):
of mindfulness for actorsbecause what I do in that room,
it's not just what actors aredoing on stage, I'm in LA now,
there isn't a lot of theaterhere. This is TV film,
commercial land, but a big partof being an actor, if you're a
professional actor, and I'vebeen a professional - that's
been my main income for 35,almost 40 years - is there's
(15:07):
the craft, the skill that wedevelop, where you have to be
open and emotionally availablein the business of it beats that
out of you. The business of itis rejection, not support and
judgment, and oh my god. So Ioffered that class for the
(15:28):
unique stress that professionalactors have to balance this
business side. You've got to beable to cry on cue, but don't
cry if you don't get thataudition. So I want to help
actors as the human being bebalanced, so that they're able
(15:49):
to be open and do the creativepart, and able to handle the
business without becoming apuddle.
Tony Angelini (15:57):
Any advice on how to do that? I actually have a
list of things that creativepeople have told me that they
deal with and financial worryand rejection, the business side
of it is a major, majoraffectation for their for their
work. Any advice on some thingsthey can do to deal with that?
Stephanie Nash (16:20):
Yeah, well, that goes into for me in the starving
artists, like some of us takethat seriously, or take that as
a memo. I've logged in, out ofmy four decades of acting, I've
(16:42):
probably had two of them thatweren't in the starving
category, but definitely weren'tin the wealthy category. Let's
put it that put it that way.
Until I started doingcommercials, TV commercials as
you know, I've been a TV Mom.
I'm more known more than the TVshows, Although some people
watch all those TV shows likeSnowfall and Jane The Virgin,
ones that have like followings.
People see me on those but I'vebeen a mom on TV commercials for
(17:06):
so long, that people come up tome on the street and hand me
their children. Okay. And theydon't know why. They don't know
why they just go, "You'refamiliar when you watch my kid?"
and I'll sit there and say, "Youknow, people take children." And
they'll say, "I'll be rightback." You know, I'm like, now
I'm joking. It's not on thestreet. But if I'm sitting
somewhere people will. They'lljust trust and I swear to God,
(17:28):
and before the pandemic, I can'tsay this now.
Tony Angelini (17:32):
Get out of town! I thought you were joking.
Stephanie Nash (17:34):
No, I literally have had people leave something
and we're sitting somewhere andthey say, "Will you watch my
child?" I've had people do thata lot.
Tony Angelini (17:43):
Wow.
Stephanie Nash (17:44):
Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm shopping in a store,
people come up to me and ask mewhat to buy all the time. And I
think it's because subliminallythe commercials, that's when you
were supposed to go to thebathroom, or they're busy. Now
most people fast forward tothem, but I was on before
everyone was fast forwardingthrough commercials. So I'm in
(18:05):
this unconscious level onpeople's psyche. And I swear I
could have gone up to people andlicked my thumb and wiped their
face the way mother does. Andthey probably would have let me
and as a director, it was veryhelpful because I just had that
mom vibe, you know, now youcan't touch people. And it's you
know, it's a different world.
Tony Angelini (18:22):
I would like to watch you walk down the street
and just tell people "Straightenup! Tuck in your shirt! Pull up
your pants!"
Stephanie Nash (18:33):
Yeah, I wasn't that kind of mom. I was the cool
mom. I'm like "It's okay, comeon, let's do this." I was that
mom. So So I made a living beingthe cool, funny mom. I've logged
in a lot of years, you can justgo to stephanienash.com and
watch a bunch of moms on there.
In the last 10 to 20 years nowI'm aging out of mom and now I'm
(18:55):
the other person I do otherthings. So the issues that
artists have a lot of them and Italked about this mindfulness
for actors for this specificstress of actors, but artists in
general, you know,screenwriters, composers,
directors, and I taught filmdirectors for 15 years, I taught
(19:17):
them how to work with actors.
And, you know, they don't theydon't graduate and get million
dollar jobs, you know what Imean? They're struggling, and
they're struggling to do astraight job and then try to do
their art on the side. And ifthey have kids, sometimes they
give up their art to become acorporate person so that they
(19:40):
raise their kids, and this, whatyou're talking about in terms of
getting making money and allthat kind of stuff. For me, that
that goes in the category ofstress. And, unfortunately,
that's not just limited toactors. And especially now with
the pandemic. A lot of peoplehave lost their jobs and homes
(20:02):
and various things. So the worryabout money in and what's your
next job going to be and thatdifferent with actors as you're
always in a state ofunemployment, you get a job and
then the job is going to be oneday or a week and then you're
unemployed again, So you'reemployed most the time, so that
like, what will my next job bethat there's that anxiety, but
(20:25):
the stress you're talking aboutis the financial stress is one
that I don't think is limited toartists. I think a lot of people
have that especially. And Ithink it's fueled by, also,
expectations. We expect to livein have a different kind of
living than in Thailand, okay.
or someplace else where, there,I could just have a hut, and I
(20:49):
can sit there, you know. Here,we need our cell phone, and we
need our HBO and we have otherexpenses and things that we
want. And in addition to nothaving that, we have self
judgment, as we compareourselves to other people who
have things we don't have. So inanswer to your question, "what
(21:09):
to do about that", that would befor me, like I have various
meditations, I teach that Ihave, "oh, this is a good one to
help you get concentrationquickly. This is a good one to
help unplug the spinning mind"But for stress, meditation in
general, even if it's not amindfulness practice, just
(21:30):
anytime you're just sittingstill with an intention to just
not do something, even if yourmind's going, "Oh, my God, oh,
my God", the deep mind sortsitself, when you just get still.
It's kind of like a snow globeand it goes to the bottom. And
so if you can do some kind ofdaily practice, because
(21:51):
remember, with Anthony Hopkins,relaxation is a skill. So that
relaxation skill is the one thathelps with stress. And remember,
my definition of mindfulness wastuning into your sensory
experience with acceptance. Soif you're feeling anxiety, we
go, "I don't want to acceptthat." Well, what if you did?
What if you went, "I have afeeling here in my chest. It's
(22:14):
like a knot. It's going likethis." And usually we go, let me
have a drink. Let me go for awalk. Let me let me yell at the
waves. Let me do something todistract myself. With
mindfulness, we can say, Okay,I've got that there, and rather
than saying "That's a horriblething, and I should not have
that!", you're in a human body.
(22:37):
God bless you that you havethat. And tune in to where are
you feeling that sensation,detach it from the story that
you're saying over and over andover to yourself in your head
that's putting logs in the fire.
Like, why do you need to thinkof thought five times or 20
times? You got it the firsttime, right? When you repeat the
thought. It just makes this getbigger and bigger and tighter.
(22:58):
And, you know, we're like, we'relike a mess. So when you turn
all of your attention just tothe body - this is just one way
to go, by the way - but when youturn all the attention and say
"this is here", and treat itlike "What if that was a puppy
on the side of the road?" Okay,let me just look at it. Let me
breathe around it. "Is theresomething I can relax? Oh, yeah,
(23:19):
my shoulders are above my ears.
Can I move the shoulder down?
Ah, oh, yeah. Oh, can I drop myjaw? Okay, let me breathe around
it okay begins to dissipate.
It's still there. It's beginningto dissipate, right? Let me
breathe around it. Let me kindof get to know it." Welcome it,
you know, because then what wedo is emotions are there to
(23:41):
motivate and direct ourbehavior. It's part of being a
human being, when we resist themor judge them or say they're
bad, yhat works the way ofsetting holds a jewel. It's the
only analogy I have, and I knowwe think of jewels as good
things. I think of emotions asgood things. But if a setting
holds a jewel, you only needlike five little things there to
(24:01):
hold that friggin expensivediamond people buy. And if only
one or two fall away in thediamond falls out. So that's
what we want to do with ouremotions. The minute we judge
it, the minute we tend to roundit, that holds it in place and
make sure it's going to staythere. And if we can just relax
around it, what happens is itstarts to move on through and I
(24:24):
call that processing emotions.
And I liken it to digestion.
Because when we digest food, weget the nutrients, part of it
becomes us, but we get thenutrients and we get rid of the
waste, right? So emotions arethere to give us information to
go "Ah, I'm alive!" Feel itfully, allow it to flow on
(24:45):
through like weather likeclouds, and it goes on through
and then you get rid of the partyou don't need anymore. And you
have that wisdom from it. Youlearned something from that
experience. You're a richerhuman being, a wiser human being
from having felt that full.,Probably a more compassionate
one, too.
Tony Angelini (25:04):
That's amazing.
Good advice. So basically, don'tresist it. Don't pretend It's
not there. Don't hang on to it.
Don't ruminate with it, right?
Stephanie Nash (25:16):
And then you learn these skills.
Tony Angelini (25:17):
Just accept it.
Stephanie Nash (25:18):
Yeah. And with mindfulness, I'm going to use -
my teacher Shinzen Young talksabout three core skills that
anything that has these threecore skills is meditation. And
some things you wouldn't thinkof. And some meditations don't
have those three core skills.
And he says they're really not,but one is concentration. And I
already mentioned that. theability to put your focus where
you want it when you want it onwhatever you deem relevant for
(25:42):
as long as you want withoutdistraction. Hmm. Would that
helps you do the things you wantin your life better? I think so.
The second one is equanimity,which is where the relaxation is
the acceptance, that's where thepresence comes in. The third
one, and this is just formindfulness, is sensory clarity,
where you start... I've haven'tmentioned that much. But like
(26:04):
the tuning into where theemotion is. That's sensory
clarity, you've been havingemotions a long time, but you
probably weren't tuning in toexactly where it was in the
body. But sensory clarity. Ihelp people taste their food,
it's a specialty of mine,helping people with compulsive
issues with food, you know, youclose your eyes, and you really
taste your food, you'reincredibly satisfied after 10
(26:24):
bites. They say why used to eatthe whole gallon of that now
after.. some people go, "Youhave to turn by time satisfied,
like that's in problem." I go,"That's not a problem." But you
know, you get this richerexperience of everything you see
everything you hear everythingyou feel in the body, it's it's
much richer. And the claritycomes in, in a positive way for
(26:46):
richness in it comes in.. is astrategy for working with
issues, in that you're reallyseeing all the components that
are actually present in themoment. Not what you think
should be, not what was therelast time, not what you're
afraid is there. The equanimityhelps you accept it's there, the
(27:06):
concentration helps you staywith it. With the sensory
clarity, then it's like you cansee what's going on. And I use
the analogy of it's like, we'reall driving around with really
dirty cars, and the windshieldis so dirty, we can't see. And
we wonder why we're running intothings. You know, and sensory
clarity, cleans your windshield,and you go, "oh, there's a
(27:31):
bicyclist. Oh, okay. Don't wantto hit them. Oh, there's traffic
coming on the other side. Okay,I didn't know why I kept running
into things all the time." Andthe sensory clarity helps you
see all the ingredients that arepresent, all the components, it
also helps you in a deeperlevel, as you get deeper in your
practice, see through. See thatwe're more than just the body,
(27:55):
we have a deeper, richerexperience that transcends what
we normally think of is, "thisis me, this is my world." You go
"Oh, wait, there's a wholenother", if I think of it, like
Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz,it's like you open the door,
there's color. Oooh,
Tony Angelini (28:18):
Love it, Love it.
Oh, and all this is verypowerful. You know, another
issue that artists seem to bedealing with - and recently the
general population - isisolation. You know, painter may
spend six hours and sometimessix weeks on a masterpiece, or
writer. In fact, acting isreally one of the only
(28:44):
collaborative arts I can thinkof right?
Stephanie Nash (28:47):
Dancing, acting.
Yeah, those would all becollaborative. And so you're
asking about the isolation?
Tony Angelini (28:57):
Yeah. How do you deal with the isolation? What
are some ways people cancontinue to work effectively and
deal with the pain of isolation?
Stephanie Nash (29:05):
For some people, isolation is a refuge. For other
people isolation, you just usedthe word pain. So there's a kind
of spectrum. Like I go off bymyself for one to three weeks at
a time where I'm alone on amountain with no human beings.
And for me, that's just I callit my people fast because
(29:27):
everything I do with acting andteaching I'm so engaged and so
present with people and I go,"okay, unplug." And some people
become artists because they're -not become artists... But in
fact, it goes both ways. I havea dear, dear friend who is a
(29:47):
professional artist, and Inoticed this too. I lived with
models in New York, beautifulwomen. I mean, you would just
come out the kitchen and go "ohmy god, you're just so
beautiful." And what I learnedand this is in my 20s These
women were so beautiful thatthere were certain skills they
never developed, becauseeveryone was doing things for
them all the time, because theywere so beautiful. And they
(30:08):
never had to learn to do certainthings, you know, because people
would just do things for them.
And they go, "okay, you know,that's just what happens." And I
found that with the artists, Iknew, certain social skills
never got developed, becausethey were spending more time
alone, they weren't spending asmuch time with other people. And
or you could maybe argue thatthe people who don't have social
(30:28):
skills might be the ones who aredrawn to things that are alone,
I knew I was going to be anartist. At one point, I just
didn't want that much timealone, then. So I just wanted to
mention all that. It's just anall artists aren't suffering
because they're alone, but someare and, and with the pandemic,
I addressed this a lot.
(30:51):
Everyone's come out. Now. It'slike everyone's come out. But I
am. And I'm going to show yousomething I use because there's
something called oxytocin, whichis called the hugging hormone.
And it's the hormone that helpsus feel socially connected and
engaged, and it's releasedduring sex, it's released when
(31:14):
mothers have babies, you know,it's a bonding, it's a bonding
hormone. People weren't gettinghugged enough before the
pandemic, okay, no one wasgetting hugged enough before the
pandemic. And during thepandemic, people were literally
going into crisis over it. Andso I learned this now that I
(31:38):
didn't come up, well, I came upwith part of this, and I can't
remember, you know, whenever Ilearned something from someone,
or started giving them credit,and go, Okay, I got this from
this person. You know, after acouple decades, you just can't
remember who you got it fromanymore. So whoever I got it
from, I'm thanking you. Butthere are three ways. And I used
this a lot. In the pandemic, inmy teaching, the two things I
(32:01):
use most were this, and laughingAs much, if not more than even
mindfulness just to kind of helppeople. But one was ways we can
touch our own body to releaseoxytocin to help us feel
connected. And one is you take,the way I do it is you take the
hand you write with, and you putit on the opposite upper arm
(32:24):
below the shoulder above theelbow. And you can do I believe
the study on this had a strokingdown. I have also discovered
that squeezing the way you wouldsqueeze someone going "I
gotcha." You know, someone's gotyou. And just kind of doing a
gentle stroke there can be verysoothing and comforting for
(32:45):
people. I have a lot of peopledo this before going on stage.
Some people do this at varioustimes. And you know, I sometimes
go back and forth between thesqueeze and the stroke. And that
literally releases the oxytocinthat helps us feel more
connected with the world. Thesecond one is one that we is
more socially kind of known andaccepted. And it's touching on
(33:10):
your chest, below your clavicleand above your breast. I believe
that the study that I learnedthis from, there was a gentle
kind of stroke that's like asoothing thing there. I find
that press is similar to this, Iadded the squeeze here, the
presses this, this is a commonthing. We'll do that someone's
(33:32):
talking, we go, oh, oh, I feelthis. And so we think of this as
I feel with my heart kind ofthing. But this is known to be.
And a lot of people it's verycommon. When I'm teaching this,
a lot of women say oh, I do thatall the time. That's my self
soothing, right? And so thatone's No. The third one is my
favorite. And it's not known.
And I've got an older gentlemanin Norway who had pain in his
(33:57):
back and I was working with him.
And we discovered that the painin his back was connected with
fear so that when we just, youknow, when we worked through and
let go of the fear the pain inhis back went away and it was
just really great. And then wehad something else come up and I
taught him this one and Iwatched this man do this. So we
have more nerve endings in ourhands and face and the rest of
(34:20):
the body. Okay, that's why lips,sir, you know, where we have
intimacy. Romeo and Juliet'sfirst touch was a touching a
kiss with the touching of palms.
Okay. And so, and we holdinghands, that's an intimacy here.
So if you take your hand and youplace it on your cheek in a very
light tender way. And I believeagain, the study I got this from
(34:46):
it, it was a gentle soft stroke.
But I have found in teachingthis for years, that some people
just place their hand there andthey just kind of place their
head there. And they do thisgentle stroke. Now this is not
commonly used, we might come upwith someone and do this, we
(35:07):
might do this to ourselves, butnot this is what we do when we
cherish someone. Mothers do thiswith babies. When young lovers
are first falling in love, theyjust look in each other's eyes
and in touch the cheeks, right?
It's this cherished, gentletouch. And whenever I guide
people in these, I'd say, okay,feel what it's like to be the
(35:29):
person extending the care.
you're squeezing someone, you'rethe one saying it's okay, you're
the one cherishing. Now letyourself be the one being
cherished, being held, beingstroked. And these, I worked
with these three in various wayswith people during the
(35:57):
pandemic, I use these a lot withpeople. Now I also teach
presentation skills. And I endedup one time I was teaching
presentation skills in the classand somebody asked me about self
compassion or self judgment. AndI happen to have shown this, and
everyone - and this is at UCLAarts and healing. Anything at
(36:21):
UCLA, everything you do, likeright after they give, there's a
rating, there's like they getthese forms where they judge
you, oh, "what did you think ofthis class scale of one to 10?"
And the feedback on that foreverybody It was like, "oh,
passion, one was so good." And Ididn't even intend that for
presentation skills. But Iincorporate that into the work
(36:43):
because of what people said ofhow that really helped them. So
that's, that's my main answer tothat question of isolation.
Another one is, and we can do itnow without masks. If you're
feeling isolated. And you canfeel isolate if you're in an
office building with a lot ofother people, you don't have to
(37:04):
be alone to feel isolated,right. But even if you go
outside and walk down thestreet. It's great for
isolation, it's especially goodfor depression. Make somebody
else smile, Just and do that andtell me what happened. Their
(37:25):
response literally gives a waveof "Oh", back to you. And your
goal was just to make themsmile. And you get a full out of
you know, oxytocin, serotonin,it's, it's a joy. Is that fun?
Tony Angelini (37:39):
Love it. I love it. I want to go back to when
you were teaching presentationskills, you included some talk
about self judgment and selfdoubt. And actually negative
self talk is one of the thingson the list that I was going to
ask you about. So how do you -how would you deal with - I
mean, that's very prevalent,especially with artists,
Stephanie Nash (38:00):
I could say negative self judgment, I could
say is especially prevalent withwomen. I could say negative self
judgment is especially prevalentwith anyone who's speaking in
front of other people orsomething like that. I have a
course on letting go of negativethinking and judgment, I have a
10 week course on it. Because Ithink it's so prevalent, you
(38:28):
know, you've probably heard thispeople say if somebody else said
to you what you say to yourselfin your head, you can tell them
to go take a flying leap. We'revery unkind. We're very unkind
to ourselves. And, and it's ahabit pattern that goes deep and
it usually goes into when thebrain was forming, you know,
(38:51):
when when were young when theclay was soft. And that how we
internalized. Not necessarily -people think, "Oh, yeah, cuz my
parents told..." your parentscould have said, You were the
best thing since sliced bread.
But you could have had, "Oh, Ididn't do that. Right. So I'm
wrong." You know, you could haveinternalized negative self talk,
it doesn't mean your parentswere talking negative to you.
But I, it's very few people I'vemet in my life who don't have
(39:16):
some negative self talk withartists. The difference with
artists is, it can - well witha lot of people it can get in
the way of you performingfunctioning well in what you do.
The differences with artists,and especially actors. The self
talk needs to be self talk orthe character. And if it's not
(39:38):
the self talk or the character,you left the scene you left
being present, because the selftalk isn't in the present
moment. It's in the past or thefuture. And so if our goal is to
be present, you've got to be asthe character thinking, and so I
have a whole 10 week or 10...,And you do go about your own
(40:00):
pace course on it, that Irealized I could have probably
done twenty.
Tony Angelini (40:07):
Really?
Stephanie Nash (40:08):
Yeah, I broke it down the first five of
unplugging the talk of learningto get the freedom of unplugging
it to get a moment of rest fromit. And that's where we use the
mindfulness a lot. And then thelast five was about "Okay, now,
what are we putting in?" Whatnew seeds are we doing? What new
(40:31):
plants are we planting in there?
Yeah, first we tilled the soil.
And that's the pulling it out.
That's a tilling soil of sorts.
And also, it's very empowering.
I'll give you just an example.
One of the first things I do inthe course - well first I teach
people how to relax. We want tolearn how to chill in the body,
(40:56):
okay, learn to let things go andreally identify where kuantan
is, and go Let it go. And it'snot like tension is bad. You go,
Oh, it's another opportunity tolet go. But the second thing I
have people tune into is noticewhat happens in your body when
you have a negative thought. Sohave a positive thought. And I
used to have this adorable puppyhere. I keep them over my desk.
You can I know if you can seehim.
Tony Angelini (41:17):
I know he has his own Facebook page!
Stephanie Nash (41:21):
He does he does he see he's not living anymore,
but he's still making peoplesmile. He lived to be 16. I
want to go like he goes, youknow, it's like, he made people
smile after he was gone. So I'llsay look at the puppy, and
everyone goes, "Oh,look at thepuppy!" What are you feeling?
Because we don't notice pleasantfeelings in the body. So part of
(41:43):
it is tuning into when you go,"Oh, I love that." And but then
our focus is on what we love.
And the conscious brain isn'tnoticing the positive feelings
in the body. That's how the partof the rewiring happens. The
other thing is when you have anegative thought, what's
happening in the body? Rememberbefore I said the process, it
turned to the body? "Oh, everytime I think that, oh, I get
(42:05):
something here, I get somethinghere." So you start to notice
what happens with negativethinking. And because the first
thing I teach him is to relax, Isay "okay, you have negative
thinking. Is there something youcan let go of? Is there
something you can relax?"Sometimes just releasing your
jaw and your shoulders can helpthe negative thought go. So
that's the second thing I teachthem. The third thing I teach
(42:28):
him is to and I picked thissequence, because I've done it
for 20 years, and I found itreally helpful. But the third
thing I teach people is, "okay,you're walking down the street.
And this negative thought comesup. And it's coming again, and
it's coming again." What can youdo in that moment to unplug it?
Well, the same part of thebrain, one part of the brain
(42:53):
processes auditory thinking. Sothe same part of the brain that
processes that voice in yourhead, that's saying all the
negative things, processes, thesound of the traffic and the
birds and the kids playing inthe dogs. So in that moment,
when you're hearing it, listenout and hear whatever sound is
there. It's like you haven'teaten food, and you're just
(43:16):
going to really like, Listen tothe tick of a clock. Listen to
right now I've got some trafficoutside, say I've closed the
door. So it's a little quiet inhere. But like sometimes I've
listened to I said, this 100before him, I had 120 pound dog,
and you would just listen to himbreathe, you know, just listen
to some sound outside of you.
(43:39):
And that unplugs the thought inyour head and you get a little
moment of awe, there's a momentwithout it. I just needed to be
able to rest on the side of thepool without that thought there.
Because we go have gotten wethink the thoughts like it's
everywhere, you know, it's not,it's in one little part of the
brain. So that's like the thirdthing I do. Then I get into more
(44:02):
mindfulness techniques like see,hear feel and stuff like that.
But that's an example of theunplugging of the negative or of
any thinking but especiallynegative in noticing what
happens. Relaxing around itunplugging and then you can work
with "Where would I like mythought to go and why?"
Tony Angelini (44:22):
Hmm, man, I love that I can relate to that as a
sound designer, you know,listening critical listening all
day long. Before I say this, Iwant to ask you can I find that
course onstrategic-mindfulness.com?
Stephanie Nash (44:36):
Yes.
Tony Angelini (44:37):
Or where would I find that course?
Stephanie Nash (44:39):
My website is strategic-mindfulness.com I just
wnt you to know I've got a dashin there. That its
strategic-mindfulness.com. Andif you go there on the front
page, it'll say link to thatcourse and you can go there and
I've got a stripped down versionof it. On the insight timer app,
(45:02):
I'm all over the insight timerapp. And I've got a stripped
down version of it that's like,each little, it's like 15
minutes here, the one that I'vemade has got videos, it's not
just like little 15 minuteguided meditations, it's got
videos of "okay. Today, welearned relaxation. Now, here's
a video of how to incorporatethat practically into your daily
(45:24):
life." So after each lesson,there's a video about "Okay,
now, realistically...", I reallyI really love practical
application of mindfulness.
People said, No, I just want tobecome enlightened, I say, well,
what's getting in the way of youbeing enlightened is where all
your problems are. So whatever,whatever is, your issue is what
you need to work through. Solet's just bring me your issues.
(45:45):
And let's do practicalapplications of it. And you're
going to see your life gettingeasier and better, because this
isn't about being goodmeditators. This is about your
life being better. And someditation is just the gym to
work out the muscles for yourlife to be better. And you might
get enlightened along the way.
The term my teacher Shinzen usesis purification, where you're
(46:08):
getting the gunk out of the waythat gets in the way of the
natural bliss and joy andclarity. And his greatest
compliment, is, "You have done alot of purification."
He doesn't say you'reenlightened.
Tony Angelini (46:24):
He's an amazing man. I don't know him
personally, I did go through theyou know, I'm a member of
unified mindfulness. I wentthrough that first course, the
see hear feel was very powerful.
But what really clinched it forme, and every day I do this, is
the concept of gone, where youwere talking about listening to
(46:45):
the traffic, you know, and I'llpurposely listen to a bird or a
car and just pay attention tilthat car passes what I call the
threshold of silence. Andsomething about that is just
quite relaxing. And it works forme. Different things work for
different people.
Stephanie Nash (47:02):
In all the interviews I've done, no one's
ever brought up Gone. Gone islike a secret, golden event. And
and let me just describe it sothat people listening know what
we're talking about. My teacherdeveloped - he's developed a lot
(47:22):
of techniques and tools that arenow just part of how I see the
world. But one of them and thisis it kind of a magical thing.
We tend to as human beingsnotice the moment something
arises, "oh, there's a sound. Ohthere's a feeling. Oh, there's
.." you know, and we go and weall it monkey mind a little bit
We go, "oh, there's the light" And we're constantly like a c
(47:47):
ild like a little kid going,"Oh, look at that. Look at that
" And we don't tend to noticwhen something leaves, li
e for example, that anxiety wealked about, "It's here. It'
here. It's terrible." Ande often don't notice when it lea
es, because we just went off ino something else. We're lik
, "Oh, yeah, where was that anxity? Yeah, it was gone a
hile ago." So noticing thethe ending of something is kind
(48:08):
of important. what he's done herwith gone is you don't go," it
as there. It's not there." Its not like it's the absence of
the thing. With gone, somethinyou're looking at something new
are tuning into in that momen, you just, Tony just descr
Yeah, it certainly enriched mypractice. Sometimes I'll sit out
bed a sound. And sounds areusually where we start. I
(48:28):
start people with external sunds and with the breath becaus
we know when the breath is gne. And if you're right th
re for the instant of vanishin, not like it's there. It's not
there, the instant it makes atransition from being there.
ctivity to nothing. Thatinstant of vanishing it's an in
(48:51):
tant. It's you can't like hangout in it. It's just an instant.
By turning in - I'll quote Shizen here, by noticing the
nstant of vanishing you are,ere's the quote, "turning you
attention like a vector towardhe source." Now what does t
at mean? You can think ofhe source is being where everyth
(49:13):
ng comes from and everythng returns to. you can thin
of people abiding in the soures, kind of an enlightened st
te, and we actually kind ofare getting little hit
of enlightenment all day longwe dismiss it. And by tuning
nto those moments that - my fvorite thing for Gone is takin
people out to fountains and hve them watch bubbles, because y
(49:35):
u know, the bubbles gonna pop.
And the minute the bubble pos, it's almost like there's thi
moment where you kind of falln for a second. It's just an
nstant. It's a falling in. It'smicro moment of no self. It's a
micro moment of just lettingo. And so the way you descri
ed it, what did you say, divin? I can't remember what word
ou used for it but deliious or something. It is supp
(49:56):
ies this amazing - and people g, "what do you mean watch the
nstant gone? At first, it's lika video game like that's gone
But when you really do it, istarts to kind of pervade you
being in a certain kind of wayAnd then you start realizing th
porousness of everything. Anthere's Gone everywhere. But
just wanted to explain what Gonwas. And why it's a key mom
(50:19):
nt to notice that instead of vanshing. That was brilliant of hi
to come up with that. It'ssomething for us to tune into.
And I have seen so many peoplethat change their whole
practice. When they startedadding that to it, it added a
richness and they didn't knowwhy. So
(50:45):
See now that's an advanced seethat shows you've been doing it
on the porch here, and I have anevening cigar, and I watched the
leaves move in the wind, thebreeze, you know, wind is often
constant, but a breeze comes andgoes, I notice when the leaves
change from movement tostillness. And it's just
(51:13):
a while. That's harder for a lotof people, but like you've been
doing it a while you startseeing it all over the place.
That's beautiful. That'sbeautiful. Thank you for sharing
that.
Tony Angelini (51:23):
Well, thanks to Sinzen for thinking of it, you
know, but I do want to hit onresistance. So do you have any
advice or input or tips maybefor artists who might be
experiencing some pretty severeresistance towards their
masterpiece, or writing or, oreven acting. Anything,
(51:46):
resistance can be pretty toughto overcome.
Stephanie Nash (51:52):
Resistance is a combination of thoughts that are
often - a lot of them aresubliminal below the threshold
of consciousness. The consciousone might be "Oh, yeah, but look
over there, I can be online."you know, that conscious one,
what might be going to thedistraction, but there's,
there's, it's a combination ofthought. It's a combination of
(52:14):
body sensations. And there mightbe mental images there too. Now,
my teacher Shinzen will say,"well, when you have resistance,
look at the resistance, youknow, where is it in the body?
What are the thoughts? What arethe feelings?And and he has a
whole story about how he didthat one time. However, I find
(52:35):
that's not practical for a lotof people. You need a level of
sensory clarity, to really go"Oh, resistance, why I don't
want to do that, oh, let me turnin and look at that." Because
resistance is often a, "I don'twant to do it" So if you don't
want to do that, you don't wantto look at what the feelings
(52:57):
are, that are keeping you fromdoing that either. Right? So
that's it's kind of a mole cyclethere of like, I'm going to
resist look and get the feelingsto, but I do want to mention
what he would say would belooking at how the resistance is
manifesting. So he would say inin the same way, we talked about
processing emotions earlier,when the resistance comes up,
(53:19):
the first probably tangiblething to do is say, "What are
you feeling in the body? Can yourelax around it and let it
flow?" What I do when I'mworking with artists, and this
is especially for writers andcomposers, or people who are
what I call Genesis artists,where you're creating the thing
(53:44):
in the first place, and, andthere isn't a deadline, there
isn't accountability, you know,you're kind of on your own. And
other people have other thingsthey do. But one of the things I
do is you can look at what thefeelings are, but then have a -
(54:06):
how do I want to say this? Iused to say if you can't get
concentrated, get fascinated.
Like a four year old with aladybug, you know, it's like,
like here, I've got a littleblue ball microphone and go
look, it's got all like I couldgo "Oh, yeah, that's a
microphone" or I could look atit and go, "Oh, look, it's got
all these little things." Andthe kid just kind of comes in
and gets kind of fascinated. Sowhat I do for myself and help
(54:30):
others is say, the minute we go,"it's that thing. It's this huge
thing. I don't want to take iton, it's too much." What part of
it is the coolest, the neatest,the most fun for you? Do that
first. I did it with meditationtoo. When I'm starting people in
a practice. I find a meditationthat I know is going to have
(54:52):
good results for them. But Ifind what people like because if
they've got juice they'll do it.
If I give him a meditation theydon't like that's like the
vitamins don't do any good inthe bottle. You got to take
them, right. And so if I wantsomebody to do something, and
Shinzen says that to me all thetime, he says, "Oh, I see you're
(55:12):
making it fun." I say "I thinkthat helps." He's like, "Oh, I
don't I make it academic. I wantit to be scientifically
precise." And I said, "I know.
And that's kind of why I like toadd fun." So we can have a good
time. So I do I in like, whenI'm guiding meditations, I think
(55:33):
it should be a party, I think itwould be a good time. So and art
should be that way, too. So thatwhole middle section of your
book, you're going, Oh, I got tostart at the beginning. Who
says? Pick the part you like,What's an interesting thing in
there that really engages you?
You go, oh, what's the story youwant to tell? What? If I'm
(55:55):
dealing with a composer, I say,what's the theme? What's the
riff you want to go inthere?Just play with that go to
the thing you like, where yougo, Oh, I love that. Because
when we talk about highconcentration that we're
developing in meditation,everyone has experienced what we
would call heightenedconcentration. And that means
you were working on somethingand you did not realize hours
(56:18):
went by you were really gettingsomething done. And you didn't
know that children and dogs andthings were happening, you were
just so focused, right? That's astate of heightened
concentration. That's what wecultivate in meditation. Well,
that happens when you'refascinated when you're
interested. It happensnaturally. So I say, get
(56:38):
interested, get fascinated, findsomething in there that you're
interested in. And if it's yourcreative art, there's got to be
something in there you'reinterested in? Who says it has
to be at the beginning of thathuge middle section. It could be
just something there. And thenyou can continue from there. Oh,
yeah. Let me go back beforethere. And then once you're
hooked in, in the zone, you'rehooked in in the zone, your
(57:00):
creative artistry comes. Sothat's kind of the end, that's a
strategy. That's not likemindfulness would be look at the
feelings, let them flow, thenfind something fascinating. So
that's kind of a sequence.
That's one sequence. I do a lotfor resistance.
Tony Angelini (57:16):
I love it. Well, thank you very much. You've been
so generous with your time it'sbeen so fun. You you do put the
fun in, is I was gonna ask youif there's anything that you do
that you're not very good at?
Don't answer that. It's arhetorical question.
Stephanie Nash (57:35):
Yeah. I'm not good at taxes. Yeah, I'm good at
creative, fun. And You know,we're not on the planet that
long. So I think enjoying theride is important. James Taylor
(57:57):
has a song, THE SECRET OF LIFE.
And Shinzen at the end of his,at the end of his retreat,
Sometimes he'll read Ts Eliot'sTHE FOUR QUARTETS. And he reads
these poems. And I lead aretreat now. And I'm going to
lead a great poet and I read thelyrics to James Taylor's THE
SECRET OF LIFE. And he says, TheSecret of Life is enjoying the
(58:18):
passage of time. Any fool can doit. There ain't nothing to it.
You know, who knows how we gotto the top of the hill, but we
might as well enjoy the ride,right? And so I think of
mindfulness as a way of gettingthe suffering out of the way so
we can enjoy the ride. And ifwe're gifted and privileged
(58:38):
enough to be creative artists,we have been given a privilege
to be able to offer to otherpeople, ways for them to enjoy
the ride. And so I thank you fordoing this podcast on
creativity, and I hope somethingwe said here today helps people
(58:59):
enjoy their ride.
For an actor to play a character, you can't
judge it. If you're playingHitler, if you're playing, it
doesn't matter who you'replaying. You can't judge your
character you have to go intothe character and we're having
an empathy shortage in our worldright now. We're having a hard
time with people having empathywith other people. And the craft
(00:23):
of acting is empathy onsteroids. It's not just having
empathy with someone it'sbecoming, okay, internalizing
them.
Tony Angelini (00:32):
You're listening to the creative mindset podcast.
I'm Tony Angelini. Today I'mtalking with Stephanie Nash
about common challenges thatartists face every day. This is
part two of our series on theconnection between spirituality
and creativity. Now Stephanie isthe founder of Strategic
Mindfulness. She is amindfulness meditation coach,
(00:55):
and a body language expert andshe also has a flourishing
career as an actor. Televisioncredits include Jane The Virgin,
Snowfall, Weeds, Agents ofSHIELD, Angel, NYPD Blue, and
quite a bit more. You'll findher on insight timer, you'll
find her on clubhouse, you'llfind her on Facebook. And we're
(01:15):
really excited to have her hereon the Creative Mindset podcast.
Hey, would you considersubscribing? Subscribing is
free, and it helps the podcastgrow and continue to provide
good content. If you were tobecome one of us by subscribing,
we'd be eternally grateful. NowStephanie, and I spoke over the
internet.
Stephanie Nash, thank you forcoming to talk with me.
Stephanie Nash (01:38):
It's a delight to be with you, Tony, thank you
for inviting me.
Tony Angelini (01:42):
For those who don't know, Stephanie is a
prolific actor, and a graduateof the Yale School of Drama.
Stephanie Nash (01:48):
It was an amazing experience to be there.
Tony Angelini (01:51):
If you watch TV and movies, I guarantee you've
seen Stephanie, and your a livetheater actor. And you've had a
smash hit one woman show. Butthat's not all. Stephanie is a
mindfulness meditation coach,and expert. And the founder of
(02:15):
strategic mindfulness,strategic-mindfulness.com where
you can find a plethora ofinstruction and workshops and
other great information to helpyou on your mindfulness
practice. I wanted to talk aboutall these things and point out
that all of this not just theacting, but all of this is
creative; they are creativeendeavors. You have workshops,
(02:36):
you have instructions, don't youteach in the corporate arena?
Stephanie Nash (02:39):
Yes, I do. I teach corporate I teach. I go
into educational institutions.
I've spoken for psychologistssix pointing you back went
before mindfulness was abuzzword, I'd have to go in and
or when it started, be abuzzword especially I'd go in
and say okay, this is whatmindfulness is. And this is how
it can help what you do. Rightnow I'm being asked to do a lot
(03:02):
of stuff, obviously, forfrontline workers and medical
community and people who arereally burned out caretakers,
that kind of stuff. Yeah, no, Iwork with all sorts in my
nonprofit is Mindfulness Arts,where I started that just pretty
much since art was what I knew.
That was, I started withartists, and I worked a lot with
(03:25):
performance anxiety. And so Iteach what we now call
presentation skills at UCLA artsand healing and their social
emotional arts program. And, andI just slip mindfulness into
everything I do,
Tony Angelini (03:40):
right. That's, that's awesome. In fact,
earlier, I was thinking she wasa mindfulness coach, when
mindfulness coaching wasn'tcool.
Stephanie Nash (03:48):
That's my line before it was cool. And it's
cool now, in case you didn'tknow.
Tony Angelini (03:52):
Would you say there's... your mindfulness
expertise, would you say thatsupports your creative
endeavors? Or would you say theopposite is true? Or would you
say it's all kind of holistic?
Would you say they support eachother?
Unknown (04:07):
Well, the word holistic to me applies to everything all
the time. Specifically, we'retalking about mindfulness.
There's no question thatmindfulness isn't just one
skill. There are differentskills that are that come in as
part of mindfulness, but there'sno question that it supports the
(04:28):
creative process in the creativeendeavors and helps you function
better focus better, helps youhave more relaxation. When
you're doing create, like Italked about performance
anxiety. I remember, CharlieRose was interviewing Anthony
Hopkins one time, and I'm datingmyself if anyone still remembers
(04:51):
Charlie Rose, he was my favoriteshow. But Charlie Rose turned to
Anthony Hopkins and said, "Iheard you say that the most
important part about acting wasremembering your lines." And
Anthony Hopkins said,," Did Isay that? No, no, the most
important thing about acting isrelaxation." He said if you're
relaxed to remember your lines,and I remember when I started
(05:12):
teaching, directing theater, intheater, directing actors,
there's a point when actors getoff script, you know, they're
they're on script doing alltheir blocking. And then you
take the scripts that were inthere, like, they can't remember
where they go. And they call forline meaning they're in a scene
with their brother saying, Whydid you do that, and then they
can't remember the next line andthey just say "line" and then
(05:34):
the stage manager tells themwhat their next line is, well, I
would say, "breathe" , Iwouldn't give them the line, I
would just say breathe, andthey'd look at me like dogs
tilting their head, but thenthey'd remember their line. And
that was actually preparing themto be relaxed and present on
stage, you know, in that way,and I talk about I was, I was
(05:56):
just interviewed for something.
And she pulled a quote out ofwhat I said, like relaxation,
something like everyone doesn'tknow how to relax or relaxation
is an important skill, I can'tremember what she said. But if
you're not able to relax,regardless of your situation,
it's something you can work onis a skill. And it's one of the
skills of mindfulness that helpyou be present. So you can do
(06:16):
your best work when you're justrelaxed and present. And then
your greatness comes through andthe concentration keeps that
other mind from going well, am Idoing it right? What do they
think you know, all that stuff,and you can just stay focused on
what's important for thatparticular creative art, whether
it's, you know, I tend to doones that are in front of, like,
(06:37):
I help people with one sit infront of people. I don't work a
lot with artists. But I do haveartists and writers that I'm
helping them move into the like,when they're stuck. And they
can't think of ideas, there aremindfulness tools that we can
use to help them and bodylanguage tools to help them
relax and allow the creativeideas to come through, like
(07:02):
where are your best ideas? Inthe shower? Okay, why? Relax. So
I, you know, when I was workingwith executives at Warner
Brothers, and then they had allthese creative people, and I
said, "Everyone gets your ideasin the shower. So you got to
create a shower for all youremployees, you know?", And so
how do we do that? So yes, Somindfulness is no question
(07:23):
enhances, for me, and forpeople, I work with the creative
process, it gives you veryvaluable tools for that.
Tony Angelini (07:32):
Reminding actors when you were directing to
breathe. When an actor is onstage, I guess the goal is to be
in the moment, right? And to becompletely present in the
character that they'reportraying, and in going on the
journey of the play, and andwhat's the difference between
actually being in the moment andmindfulness? Would you say
(07:55):
they're two sides of the samecoin? Or totally unrelated?
Unknown (08:00):
Yeah, well, I'm just going to work with your
phraseology there. You saidbeing in the moment. So to me
being in the moment and beingpresent. For me those words mean
the same thing. But I thinkyou're asking, when an actor's
doing a good job is is thatmindfulness is that your
question?
many actors are very familiarwith being in the moment. Is
(08:23):
that akin to mindfulness?
Okay good. I'll make thatdistinction. So the way I'll
define mindfulness is tuninginto your sensory experience,
what you see, hear, feel, taste,smell, your thoughts and
feelings. Tuning into that inthe present moment, without
trying to control it, withoutjudging it, with acceptance and
(08:43):
clarity. So that would bemindfulness. That would also for
me define presence. What anactor's doing would go, and
mindfulness comes from, if we'regoing to go get Buddhist on you,
It comes from Vipassanameditation. What actors do is
(09:05):
more akin to ????????, whereyou're replacing your sense of
what the words are in your head,you're replacing. So with
actors, you're not just tuninginto your sensory experience and
being okay with it, you'reactually creating and doing
something with it and you'rereplacing your internal voice
(09:27):
with that of the character.
You're replacing how you holdyour body with how the character
holds their body. You'rereplacing the emotions that you
have with that of the character.
you're replacing the what yousee around you as the world of
the character in ??????, theyreplace it with deities and
(09:48):
????? and various things likethat with the notion that if you
can, because all of that is yoursense of self, and if you can
replace your sense of self, thenguess what, what is the self? So
it gives you a little freedomfrom this, "oh, I'm attached to
this sense of self." So it's a,it's a different spiritual path
in that sense you're replacingwith something else. But then
(10:11):
you realize what you have isn'tthat solid in the first place
anyway. And that's why actorsoften tend to get into spiritual
experiences a lot, becausethey're giving up their sense of
who they are, to go becomesomeone else. I have a long
thing I'm writing called Actorsand Empathy. Because for an
actor to play a character, youcan't judge it. If you're
(10:34):
playing Hitler, if you'replaying, it doesn't matter who
you're playing, you can't judgeyour character. You have to go
into the character, and we'rehaving an empathy shortage in
our world right now. We'rehaving a hard time with people
having empathy with otherpeople. And the craft of acting
is empathy on steroids. It's notjust having empathy with
(10:56):
someone, it's becoming them,okay, internalizing them. And so
I'm writing a thing about whatwe can learn from actors, for
empathy. It's a whole thing I'mwriting now, because I think
it's really important. So mydistinction between mindfulness
is, I'm present in this moment,with acceptance.You feel your
feet, you feel your breath, youfeel your hands, you might have
(11:17):
emotions in your body, that'sokay. That's just what's
happening. It's movement is anactor, I'm deliberately
cultivating to let go ofwhatever I identify as me and
become somebody else. And when Ido that, when I do become that
character, and I move like thatcharacter, and I think like that
character, and I feel like thatcharacter, I am also wanting the
(11:42):
practice of mindfulness of beingin the present moment, I'm in
the present moment as thatcharacter. And that's something
that a lot of beginning actorshave a hard time with, because
they're so busy doing thecharacter they're trying to show
it, they want you to see it,they're not really resting in
it, and resonating at it. That'swhere we want to go as actor.
(12:04):
All actors don't go there but onfilm, sometimes you can get the
one good take where they did.
But in theater, you can't messaround. In theater, you got to
really do it, because you'realone on that stage. So that's,
that's my best description ofthe difference between distinct
mindfulness versus acting andhow mindfulness applies to
(12:26):
acting. Does that make sense?
Tony Angelini (12:29):
Yes, that's very clear. So how would an actor in
the theater who doesn't knowanything about meditation or
mindfulness, but they're acting?
It seems to me it would be toughfor that actor to actually start
becoming self aware, right?
Especially somebody who's beenin the business for a while,
(12:50):
right? So where would theybegin?
Stephanie Nash (12:53):
Well, I will say all my acting training happened
before I had a clue aboutmindfulness or spiritual path or
anything like that. All mytraining was before any of it.
What I found when I moved into,and then I'll answer your
question, but when I moved intothe mindfulness communities, and
I came in in a different way, Ihad an experience at an acting
(13:15):
retreat that shifted everything.
And then I went, "Oh, I got tolook this up" But what happened
to me tends to happen a lot toactors, because the tools that
people use in a mindfulnessmeditation practice are tools
that actors already cultivate.
They just don't think too oftenpoint them in this direction, or
(13:36):
use them this way, or get out ofthem in this way. So I find
actors slide into this quitequickly and easily because
they've already cultivated thetools, they just haven't thought
to kind of turn the light thatway. I started mindfulness for
actors classes 20 years ago, andI couldn't, oh, I can only get a
handful of actors to comebecause they weren't interested
(13:58):
in that they wanted to befamous. They just wanted to know
if a casting director was goingto be in the room. Now I was in
LA. And this was not a theatercrowd. Although I did do some
for some theater groups and theneveryone really did come and got
a lot out of it. So in answer toyour question of where do actors
go to find this? Luckily, we'rein a time now where you can just
(14:20):
open your computer and find aplethora of mindfulness for
anyone to try to get mindfulnessfor actors, I have a mindfulness
for actors group on clubhouse onThursdays at 11am. If anybody
wants to join that, yeah, it's ait's a mindfulness for actors
and I do some exercises, but wediscuss practical applications
(14:42):
of mindfulness for actorsbecause what I do in that room,
it's not just what actors aredoing on stage, I'm in LA now,
there isn't a lot of theaterhere. This is TV film,
commercial land, but a big partof being an actor, if you're a
professional actor, and I'vebeen a professional - that's
been my main income for 35,almost 40 years - is there's
(15:07):
the craft, the skill that wedevelop, where you have to be
open and emotionally availablein the business of it beats that
out of you. The business of itis rejection, not support and
judgment, and oh my god. So Ioffered that class for the
(15:28):
unique stress that professionalactors have to balance this
business side. You've got to beable to cry on cue, but don't
cry if you don't get thataudition. So I want to help
actors as the human being bebalanced, so that they're able
(15:49):
to be open and do the creativepart, and able to handle the
business without becoming apuddle.
Tony Angelini (15:57):
Any advice on how to do that? I actually have a
list of things that creativepeople have told me that they
deal with and financial worryand rejection, the business side
of it is a major, majoraffectation for their for their
work. Any advice on some thingsthey can do to deal with that?
Stephanie Nash (16:20):
Yeah, well, that goes into for me in the starving
artists, like some of us takethat seriously, or take that as
a memo. I've logged in, out ofmy four decades of acting, I've
(16:42):
probably had two of them thatweren't in the starving
category, but definitely weren'tin the wealthy category. Let's
put it that put it that way.
Until I started doingcommercials, TV commercials as
you know, I've been a TV Mom.
I'm more known more than the TVshows, Although some people
watch all those TV shows likeSnowfall and Jane The Virgin,
ones that have like followings.
People see me on those but I'vebeen a mom on TV commercials for
(17:06):
so long, that people come up tome on the street and hand me
their children. Okay. And theydon't know why. They don't know
why they just go, "You'refamiliar when you watch my kid?"
and I'll sit there and say, "Youknow, people take children." And
they'll say, "I'll be rightback." You know, I'm like, now
I'm joking. It's not on thestreet. But if I'm sitting
somewhere people will. They'lljust trust and I swear to God,
(17:28):
and before the pandemic, I can'tsay this now.
Tony Angelini (17:32):
Get out of town! I thought you were joking.
Stephanie Nash (17:34):
No, I literally have had people leave something
and we're sitting somewhere andthey say, "Will you watch my
child?" I've had people do thata lot.
Tony Angelini (17:43):
Wow.
Stephanie Nash (17:44):
Oh, yeah. I mean, I'm shopping in a store,
people come up to me and ask mewhat to buy all the time. And I
think it's because subliminallythe commercials, that's when you
were supposed to go to thebathroom, or they're busy. Now
most people fast forward tothem, but I was on before
everyone was fast forwardingthrough commercials. So I'm in
(18:05):
this unconscious level onpeople's psyche. And I swear I
could have gone up to people andlicked my thumb and wiped their
face the way mother does. Andthey probably would have let me
and as a director, it was veryhelpful because I just had that
mom vibe, you know, now youcan't touch people. And it's you
know, it's a different world.
Tony Angelini (18:22):
I would like to watch you walk down the street
and just tell people "Straightenup! Tuck in your shirt! Pull up
your pants!"
Stephanie Nash (18:33):
Yeah, I wasn't that kind of mom. I was the cool
mom. I'm like "It's okay, comeon, let's do this." I was that
mom. So So I made a living beingthe cool, funny mom. I've logged
in a lot of years, you can justgo to stephanienash.com and
watch a bunch of moms on there.
In the last 10 to 20 years nowI'm aging out of mom and now I'm
(18:55):
the other person I do otherthings. So the issues that
artists have a lot of them and Italked about this mindfulness
for actors for this specificstress of actors, but artists in
general, you know,screenwriters, composers,
directors, and I taught filmdirectors for 15 years, I taught
(19:17):
them how to work with actors.
And, you know, they don't theydon't graduate and get million
dollar jobs, you know what Imean? They're struggling, and
they're struggling to do astraight job and then try to do
their art on the side. And ifthey have kids, sometimes they
give up their art to become acorporate person so that they
(19:40):
raise their kids, and this, whatyou're talking about in terms of
getting making money and allthat kind of stuff. For me, that
that goes in the category ofstress. And, unfortunately,
that's not just limited toactors. And especially now with
the pandemic. A lot of peoplehave lost their jobs and homes
(20:02):
and various things. So the worryabout money in and what's your
next job going to be and thatdifferent with actors as you're
always in a state ofunemployment, you get a job and
then the job is going to be oneday or a week and then you're
unemployed again, So you'reemployed most the time, so that
like, what will my next job bethat there's that anxiety, but
(20:25):
the stress you're talking aboutis the financial stress is one
that I don't think is limited toartists. I think a lot of people
have that especially. And Ithink it's fueled by, also,
expectations. We expect to livein have a different kind of
living than in Thailand, okay.
or someplace else where, there,I could just have a hut, and I
(20:49):
can sit there, you know. Here,we need our cell phone, and we
need our HBO and we have otherexpenses and things that we
want. And in addition to nothaving that, we have self
judgment, as we compareourselves to other people who
have things we don't have. So inanswer to your question, "what
(21:09):
to do about that", that would befor me, like I have various
meditations, I teach that Ihave, "oh, this is a good one to
help you get concentrationquickly. This is a good one to
help unplug the spinning mind"But for stress, meditation in
general, even if it's not amindfulness practice, just
(21:30):
anytime you're just sittingstill with an intention to just
not do something, even if yourmind's going, "Oh, my God, oh,
my God", the deep mind sortsitself, when you just get still.
It's kind of like a snow globeand it goes to the bottom. And
so if you can do some kind ofdaily practice, because
(21:51):
remember, with Anthony Hopkins,relaxation is a skill. So that
relaxation skill is the one thathelps with stress. And remember,
my definition of mindfulness wastuning into your sensory
experience with acceptance. Soif you're feeling anxiety, we
go, "I don't want to acceptthat." Well, what if you did?
What if you went, "I have afeeling here in my chest. It's
(22:14):
like a knot. It's going likethis." And usually we go, let me
have a drink. Let me go for awalk. Let me let me yell at the
waves. Let me do something todistract myself. With
mindfulness, we can say, Okay,I've got that there, and rather
than saying "That's a horriblething, and I should not have
that!", you're in a human body.
(22:37):
God bless you that you havethat. And tune in to where are
you feeling that sensation,detach it from the story that
you're saying over and over andover to yourself in your head
that's putting logs in the fire.
Like, why do you need to thinkof thought five times or 20
times? You got it the firsttime, right? When you repeat the
thought. It just makes this getbigger and bigger and tighter.
(22:58):
And, you know, we're like, we'relike a mess. So when you turn
all of your attention just tothe body - this is just one way
to go, by the way - but when youturn all the attention and say
"this is here", and treat itlike "What if that was a puppy
on the side of the road?" Okay,let me just look at it. Let me
breathe around it. "Is theresomething I can relax? Oh, yeah,
(23:19):
my shoulders are above my ears.
Can I move the shoulder down?
Ah, oh, yeah. Oh, can I drop myjaw? Okay, let me breathe around
it okay begins to dissipate.
It's still there. It's beginningto dissipate, right? Let me
breathe around it. Let me kindof get to know it." Welcome it,
you know, because then what wedo is emotions are there to
(23:41):
motivate and direct ourbehavior. It's part of being a
human being, when we resist themor judge them or say they're
bad, yhat works the way ofsetting holds a jewel. It's the
only analogy I have, and I knowwe think of jewels as good
things. I think of emotions asgood things. But if a setting
holds a jewel, you only needlike five little things there to
(24:01):
hold that friggin expensivediamond people buy. And if only
one or two fall away in thediamond falls out. So that's
what we want to do with ouremotions. The minute we judge
it, the minute we tend to roundit, that holds it in place and
make sure it's going to staythere. And if we can just relax
around it, what happens is itstarts to move on through and I
(24:24):
call that processing emotions.
And I liken it to digestion.
Because when we digest food, weget the nutrients, part of it
becomes us, but we get thenutrients and we get rid of the
waste, right? So emotions arethere to give us information to
go "Ah, I'm alive!" Feel itfully, allow it to flow on
(24:45):
through like weather likeclouds, and it goes on through
and then you get rid of the partyou don't need anymore. And you
have that wisdom from it. Youlearned something from that
experience. You're a richerhuman being, a wiser human being
from having felt that full.,Probably a more compassionate
one, too.
Tony Angelini (25:04):
That's amazing.
Good advice. So basically, don'tresist it. Don't pretend It's
not there. Don't hang on to it.
Don't ruminate with it, right?
Stephanie Nash (25:16):
And then you learn these skills.
Tony Angelini (25:17):
Just accept it.
Stephanie Nash (25:18):
Yeah. And with mindfulness, I'm going to use -
my teacher Shinzen Young talksabout three core skills that
anything that has these threecore skills is meditation. And
some things you wouldn't thinkof. And some meditations don't
have those three core skills.
And he says they're really not,but one is concentration. And I
already mentioned that. theability to put your focus where
you want it when you want it onwhatever you deem relevant for
(25:42):
as long as you want withoutdistraction. Hmm. Would that
helps you do the things you wantin your life better? I think so.
The second one is equanimity,which is where the relaxation is
the acceptance, that's where thepresence comes in. The third
one, and this is just formindfulness, is sensory clarity,
where you start... I've haven'tmentioned that much. But like
(26:04):
the tuning into where theemotion is. That's sensory
clarity, you've been havingemotions a long time, but you
probably weren't tuning in toexactly where it was in the
body. But sensory clarity. Ihelp people taste their food,
it's a specialty of mine,helping people with compulsive
issues with food, you know, youclose your eyes, and you really
taste your food, you'reincredibly satisfied after 10
(26:24):
bites. They say why used to eatthe whole gallon of that now
after.. some people go, "Youhave to turn by time satisfied,
like that's in problem." I go,"That's not a problem." But you
know, you get this richerexperience of everything you see
everything you hear everythingyou feel in the body, it's it's
much richer. And the claritycomes in, in a positive way for
(26:46):
richness in it comes in.. is astrategy for working with
issues, in that you're reallyseeing all the components that
are actually present in themoment. Not what you think
should be, not what was therelast time, not what you're
afraid is there. The equanimityhelps you accept it's there, the
(27:06):
concentration helps you staywith it. With the sensory
clarity, then it's like you cansee what's going on. And I use
the analogy of it's like, we'reall driving around with really
dirty cars, and the windshieldis so dirty, we can't see. And
we wonder why we're running intothings. You know, and sensory
clarity, cleans your windshield,and you go, "oh, there's a
(27:31):
bicyclist. Oh, okay. Don't wantto hit them. Oh, there's traffic
coming on the other side. Okay,I didn't know why I kept running
into things all the time." Andthe sensory clarity helps you
see all the ingredients that arepresent, all the components, it
also helps you in a deeperlevel, as you get deeper in your
practice, see through. See thatwe're more than just the body,
(27:55):
we have a deeper, richerexperience that transcends what
we normally think of is, "thisis me, this is my world." You go
"Oh, wait, there's a wholenother", if I think of it, like
Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz,it's like you open the door,
there's color. Oooh,
Tony Angelini (28:18):
Love it, Love it.
Oh, and all this is verypowerful. You know, another
issue that artists seem to bedealing with - and recently the
general population - isisolation. You know, painter may
spend six hours and sometimessix weeks on a masterpiece, or
writer. In fact, acting isreally one of the only
(28:44):
collaborative arts I can thinkof right?
Stephanie Nash (28:47):
Dancing, acting.
Yeah, those would all becollaborative. And so you're
asking about the isolation?
Tony Angelini (28:57):
Yeah. How do you deal with the isolation? What
are some ways people cancontinue to work effectively and
deal with the pain of isolation?
Stephanie Nash (29:05):
For some people, isolation is a refuge. For other
people isolation, you just usedthe word pain. So there's a kind
of spectrum. Like I go off bymyself for one to three weeks at
a time where I'm alone on amountain with no human beings.
And for me, that's just I callit my people fast because
(29:27):
everything I do with acting andteaching I'm so engaged and so
present with people and I go,"okay, unplug." And some people
become artists because they're -not become artists... But in
fact, it goes both ways. I havea dear, dear friend who is a
(29:47):
professional artist, and Inoticed this too. I lived with
models in New York, beautifulwomen. I mean, you would just
come out the kitchen and go "ohmy god, you're just so
beautiful." And what I learnedand this is in my 20s These
women were so beautiful thatthere were certain skills they
never developed, becauseeveryone was doing things for
them all the time, because theywere so beautiful. And they
(30:08):
never had to learn to do certainthings, you know, because people
would just do things for them.
And they go, "okay, you know,that's just what happens." And I
found that with the artists, Iknew, certain social skills
never got developed, becausethey were spending more time
alone, they weren't spending asmuch time with other people. And
or you could maybe argue thatthe people who don't have social
(30:28):
skills might be the ones who aredrawn to things that are alone,
I knew I was going to be anartist. At one point, I just
didn't want that much timealone, then. So I just wanted to
mention all that. It's just anall artists aren't suffering
because they're alone, but someare and, and with the pandemic,
I addressed this a lot.
(30:51):
Everyone's come out. Now. It'slike everyone's come out. But I
am. And I'm going to show yousomething I use because there's
something called oxytocin, whichis called the hugging hormone.
And it's the hormone that helpsus feel socially connected and
engaged, and it's releasedduring sex, it's released when
(31:14):
mothers have babies, you know,it's a bonding, it's a bonding
hormone. People weren't gettinghugged enough before the
pandemic, okay, no one wasgetting hugged enough before the
pandemic. And during thepandemic, people were literally
going into crisis over it. Andso I learned this now that I
(31:38):
didn't come up, well, I came upwith part of this, and I can't
remember, you know, whenever Ilearned something from someone,
or started giving them credit,and go, Okay, I got this from
this person. You know, after acouple decades, you just can't
remember who you got it fromanymore. So whoever I got it
from, I'm thanking you. Butthere are three ways. And I used
this a lot. In the pandemic, inmy teaching, the two things I
(32:01):
use most were this, and laughingAs much, if not more than even
mindfulness just to kind of helppeople. But one was ways we can
touch our own body to releaseoxytocin to help us feel
connected. And one is you take,the way I do it is you take the
hand you write with, and you putit on the opposite upper arm
(32:24):
below the shoulder above theelbow. And you can do I believe
the study on this had a strokingdown. I have also discovered
that squeezing the way you wouldsqueeze someone going "I
gotcha." You know, someone's gotyou. And just kind of doing a
gentle stroke there can be verysoothing and comforting for
(32:45):
people. I have a lot of peopledo this before going on stage.
Some people do this at varioustimes. And you know, I sometimes
go back and forth between thesqueeze and the stroke. And that
literally releases the oxytocinthat helps us feel more
connected with the world. Thesecond one is one that we is
more socially kind of known andaccepted. And it's touching on
(33:10):
your chest, below your clavicleand above your breast. I believe
that the study that I learnedthis from, there was a gentle
kind of stroke that's like asoothing thing there. I find
that press is similar to this, Iadded the squeeze here, the
presses this, this is a commonthing. We'll do that someone's
(33:32):
talking, we go, oh, oh, I feelthis. And so we think of this as
I feel with my heart kind ofthing. But this is known to be.
And a lot of people it's verycommon. When I'm teaching this,
a lot of women say oh, I do thatall the time. That's my self
soothing, right? And so thatone's No. The third one is my
favorite. And it's not known.
And I've got an older gentlemanin Norway who had pain in his
(33:57):
back and I was working with him.
And we discovered that the painin his back was connected with
fear so that when we just, youknow, when we worked through and
let go of the fear the pain inhis back went away and it was
just really great. And then wehad something else come up and I
taught him this one and Iwatched this man do this. So we
have more nerve endings in ourhands and face and the rest of
(34:20):
the body. Okay, that's why lips,sir, you know, where we have
intimacy. Romeo and Juliet'sfirst touch was a touching a
kiss with the touching of palms.
Okay. And so, and we holdinghands, that's an intimacy here.
So if you take your hand and youplace it on your cheek in a very
light tender way. And I believeagain, the study I got this from
(34:46):
it, it was a gentle soft stroke.
But I have found in teachingthis for years, that some people
just place their hand there andthey just kind of place their
head there. And they do thisgentle stroke. Now this is not
commonly used, we might come upwith someone and do this, we
(35:07):
might do this to ourselves, butnot this is what we do when we
cherish someone. Mothers do thiswith babies. When young lovers
are first falling in love, theyjust look in each other's eyes
and in touch the cheeks, right?
It's this cherished, gentletouch. And whenever I guide
people in these, I'd say, okay,feel what it's like to be the
(35:29):
person extending the care.
you're squeezing someone, you'rethe one saying it's okay, you're
the one cherishing. Now letyourself be the one being
cherished, being held, beingstroked. And these, I worked
with these three in various wayswith people during the
(35:57):
pandemic, I use these a lot withpeople. Now I also teach
presentation skills. And I endedup one time I was teaching
presentation skills in the classand somebody asked me about self
compassion or self judgment. AndI happen to have shown this, and
everyone - and this is at UCLAarts and healing. Anything at
(36:21):
UCLA, everything you do, likeright after they give, there's a
rating, there's like they getthese forms where they judge
you, oh, "what did you think ofthis class scale of one to 10?"
And the feedback on that foreverybody It was like, "oh,
passion, one was so good." And Ididn't even intend that for
presentation skills. But Iincorporate that into the work
(36:43):
because of what people said ofhow that really helped them. So
that's, that's my main answer tothat question of isolation.
Another one is, and we can do itnow without masks. If you're
feeling isolated. And you canfeel isolate if you're in an
office building with a lot ofother people, you don't have to
(37:04):
be alone to feel isolated,right. But even if you go
outside and walk down thestreet. It's great for
isolation, it's especially goodfor depression. Make somebody
else smile, Just and do that andtell me what happened. Their
(37:25):
response literally gives a waveof "Oh", back to you. And your
goal was just to make themsmile. And you get a full out of
you know, oxytocin, serotonin,it's, it's a joy. Is that fun?
Tony Angelini (37:39):
Love it. I love it. I want to go back to when
you were teaching presentationskills, you included some talk
about self judgment and selfdoubt. And actually negative
self talk is one of the thingson the list that I was going to
ask you about. So how do you -how would you deal with - I
mean, that's very prevalent,especially with artists,
Stephanie Nash (38:00):
I could say negative self judgment, I could
say is especially prevalent withwomen. I could say negative self
judgment is especially prevalentwith anyone who's speaking in
front of other people orsomething like that. I have a
course on letting go of negativethinking and judgment, I have a
10 week course on it. Because Ithink it's so prevalent, you
(38:28):
know, you've probably heard thispeople say if somebody else said
to you what you say to yourselfin your head, you can tell them
to go take a flying leap. We'revery unkind. We're very unkind
to ourselves. And, and it's ahabit pattern that goes deep and
it usually goes into when thebrain was forming, you know,
(38:51):
when when were young when theclay was soft. And that how we
internalized. Not necessarily -people think, "Oh, yeah, cuz my
parents told..." your parentscould have said, You were the
best thing since sliced bread.
But you could have had, "Oh, Ididn't do that. Right. So I'm
wrong." You know, you could haveinternalized negative self talk,
it doesn't mean your parentswere talking negative to you.
But I, it's very few people I'vemet in my life who don't have
(39:16):
some negative self talk withartists. The difference with
artists is, it can - well witha lot of people it can get in
the way of you performingfunctioning well in what you do.
The differences with artists,and especially actors. The self
talk needs to be self talk orthe character. And if it's not
(39:38):
the self talk or the character,you left the scene you left
being present, because the selftalk isn't in the present
moment. It's in the past or thefuture. And so if our goal is to
be present, you've got to be asthe character thinking, and so I
have a whole 10 week or 10...,And you do go about your own
(40:00):
pace course on it, that Irealized I could have probably
done twenty.
Tony Angelini (40:07):
Really?
Stephanie Nash (40:08):
Yeah, I broke it down the first five of
unplugging the talk of learningto get the freedom of unplugging
it to get a moment of rest fromit. And that's where we use the
mindfulness a lot. And then thelast five was about "Okay, now,
what are we putting in?" Whatnew seeds are we doing? What new
(40:31):
plants are we planting in there?
Yeah, first we tilled the soil.
And that's the pulling it out.
That's a tilling soil of sorts.
And also, it's very empowering.
I'll give you just an example.
One of the first things I do inthe course - well first I teach
people how to relax. We want tolearn how to chill in the body,
(40:56):
okay, learn to let things go andreally identify where kuantan
is, and go Let it go. And it'snot like tension is bad. You go,
Oh, it's another opportunity tolet go. But the second thing I
have people tune into is noticewhat happens in your body when
you have a negative thought. Sohave a positive thought. And I
used to have this adorable puppyhere. I keep them over my desk.
You can I know if you can seehim.
Tony Angelini (41:17):
I know he has his own Facebook page!
Stephanie Nash (41:21):
He does he does he see he's not living anymore,
but he's still making peoplesmile. He lived to be 16. I
want to go like he goes, youknow, it's like, he made people
smile after he was gone. So I'llsay look at the puppy, and
everyone goes, "Oh,look at thepuppy!" What are you feeling?
Because we don't notice pleasantfeelings in the body. So part of
(41:43):
it is tuning into when you go,"Oh, I love that." And but then
our focus is on what we love.
And the conscious brain isn'tnoticing the positive feelings
in the body. That's how the partof the rewiring happens. The
other thing is when you have anegative thought, what's
happening in the body? Rememberbefore I said the process, it
turned to the body? "Oh, everytime I think that, oh, I get
(42:05):
something here, I get somethinghere." So you start to notice
what happens with negativethinking. And because the first
thing I teach him is to relax, Isay "okay, you have negative
thinking. Is there something youcan let go of? Is there
something you can relax?"Sometimes just releasing your
jaw and your shoulders can helpthe negative thought go. So
that's the second thing I teachthem. The third thing I teach
(42:28):
him is to and I picked thissequence, because I've done it
for 20 years, and I found itreally helpful. But the third
thing I teach people is, "okay,you're walking down the street.
And this negative thought comesup. And it's coming again, and
it's coming again." What can youdo in that moment to unplug it?
Well, the same part of thebrain, one part of the brain
(42:53):
processes auditory thinking. Sothe same part of the brain that
processes that voice in yourhead, that's saying all the
negative things, processes, thesound of the traffic and the
birds and the kids playing inthe dogs. So in that moment,
when you're hearing it, listenout and hear whatever sound is
there. It's like you haven'teaten food, and you're just
(43:16):
going to really like, Listen tothe tick of a clock. Listen to
right now I've got some trafficoutside, say I've closed the
door. So it's a little quiet inhere. But like sometimes I've
listened to I said, this 100before him, I had 120 pound dog,
and you would just listen to himbreathe, you know, just listen
to some sound outside of you.
(43:39):
And that unplugs the thought inyour head and you get a little
moment of awe, there's a momentwithout it. I just needed to be
able to rest on the side of thepool without that thought there.
Because we go have gotten wethink the thoughts like it's
everywhere, you know, it's not,it's in one little part of the
brain. So that's like the thirdthing I do. Then I get into more
(44:02):
mindfulness techniques like see,hear feel and stuff like that.
But that's an example of theunplugging of the negative or of
any thinking but especiallynegative in noticing what
happens. Relaxing around itunplugging and then you can work
with "Where would I like mythought to go and why?"
Tony Angelini (44:22):
Hmm, man, I love that I can relate to that as a
sound designer, you know,listening critical listening all
day long. Before I say this, Iwant to ask you can I find that
course onstrategic-mindfulness.com?
Stephanie Nash (44:36):
Yes.
Tony Angelini (44:37):
Or where would I find that course?
Stephanie Nash (44:39):
My website is strategic-mindfulness.com I just
wnt you to know I've got a dashin there. That its
strategic-mindfulness.com. Andif you go there on the front
page, it'll say link to thatcourse and you can go there and
I've got a stripped down versionof it. On the insight timer app,
(45:02):
I'm all over the insight timerapp. And I've got a stripped
down version of it that's like,each little, it's like 15
minutes here, the one that I'vemade has got videos, it's not
just like little 15 minuteguided meditations, it's got
videos of "okay. Today, welearned relaxation. Now, here's
a video of how to incorporatethat practically into your daily
(45:24):
life." So after each lesson,there's a video about "Okay,
now, realistically...", I reallyI really love practical
application of mindfulness.
People said, No, I just want tobecome enlightened, I say, well,
what's getting in the way of youbeing enlightened is where all
your problems are. So whatever,whatever is, your issue is what
you need to work through. Solet's just bring me your issues.
(45:45):
And let's do practicalapplications of it. And you're
going to see your life gettingeasier and better, because this
isn't about being goodmeditators. This is about your
life being better. And someditation is just the gym to
work out the muscles for yourlife to be better. And you might
get enlightened along the way.
The term my teacher Shinzen usesis purification, where you're
(46:08):
getting the gunk out of the waythat gets in the way of the
natural bliss and joy andclarity. And his greatest
compliment, is, "You have done alot of purification."
He doesn't say you'reenlightened.
Tony Angelini (46:24):
He's an amazing man. I don't know him
personally, I did go through theyou know, I'm a member of
unified mindfulness. I wentthrough that first course, the
see hear feel was very powerful.
But what really clinched it forme, and every day I do this, is
the concept of gone, where youwere talking about listening to
(46:45):
the traffic, you know, and I'llpurposely listen to a bird or a
car and just pay attention tilthat car passes what I call the
threshold of silence. Andsomething about that is just
quite relaxing. And it works forme. Different things work for
different people.
Stephanie Nash (47:02):
In all the interviews I've done, no one's
ever brought up Gone. Gone islike a secret, golden event. And
and let me just describe it sothat people listening know what
we're talking about. My teacherdeveloped - he's developed a lot
(47:22):
of techniques and tools that arenow just part of how I see the
world. But one of them and thisis it kind of a magical thing.
We tend to as human beingsnotice the moment something
arises, "oh, there's a sound. Ohthere's a feeling. Oh, there's
.." you know, and we go and weall it monkey mind a little bit
We go, "oh, there's the light" And we're constantly like a c
(47:47):
ild like a little kid going,"Oh, look at that. Look at that
" And we don't tend to noticwhen something leaves, li
e for example, that anxiety wealked about, "It's here. It'
here. It's terrible." Ande often don't notice when it lea
es, because we just went off ino something else. We're lik
, "Oh, yeah, where was that anxity? Yeah, it was gone a
hile ago." So noticing thethe ending of something is kind
(48:08):
of important. what he's done herwith gone is you don't go," it
as there. It's not there." Its not like it's the absence of
the thing. With gone, somethinyou're looking at something new
are tuning into in that momen, you just, Tony just descr
Yeah, it certainly enriched mypractice. Sometimes I'll sit out
bed a sound. And sounds areusually where we start. I
(48:28):
start people with external sunds and with the breath becaus
we know when the breath is gne. And if you're right th
re for the instant of vanishin, not like it's there. It's not
there, the instant it makes atransition from being there.
ctivity to nothing. Thatinstant of vanishing it's an in
(48:51):
tant. It's you can't like hangout in it. It's just an instant.
By turning in - I'll quote Shizen here, by noticing the
nstant of vanishing you are,ere's the quote, "turning you
attention like a vector towardhe source." Now what does t
at mean? You can think ofhe source is being where everyth
(49:13):
ng comes from and everythng returns to. you can thin
of people abiding in the soures, kind of an enlightened st
te, and we actually kind ofare getting little hit
of enlightenment all day longwe dismiss it. And by tuning
nto those moments that - my fvorite thing for Gone is takin
people out to fountains and hve them watch bubbles, because y
(49:35):
u know, the bubbles gonna pop.
And the minute the bubble pos, it's almost like there's thi
moment where you kind of falln for a second. It's just an
nstant. It's a falling in. It'smicro moment of no self. It's a
micro moment of just lettingo. And so the way you descri
ed it, what did you say, divin? I can't remember what word
ou used for it but deliious or something. It is supp
(49:56):
ies this amazing - and people g, "what do you mean watch the
nstant gone? At first, it's lika video game like that's gone
But when you really do it, istarts to kind of pervade you
being in a certain kind of wayAnd then you start realizing th
porousness of everything. Anthere's Gone everywhere. But
just wanted to explain what Gonwas. And why it's a key mom
(50:19):
nt to notice that instead of vanshing. That was brilliant of hi
to come up with that. It'ssomething for us to tune into.
And I have seen so many peoplethat change their whole
practice. When they startedadding that to it, it added a
richness and they didn't knowwhy. So
(50:45):
See now that's an advanced seethat shows you've been doing it
on the porch here, and I have anevening cigar, and I watched the
leaves move in the wind, thebreeze, you know, wind is often
constant, but a breeze comes andgoes, I notice when the leaves
change from movement tostillness. And it's just
(51:13):
a while. That's harder for a lotof people, but like you've been
doing it a while you startseeing it all over the place.
That's beautiful. That'sbeautiful. Thank you for sharing
that.
Tony Angelini (51:23):
Well, thanks to Sinzen for thinking of it, you
know, but I do want to hit onresistance. So do you have any
advice or input or tips maybefor artists who might be
experiencing some pretty severeresistance towards their
masterpiece, or writing or, oreven acting. Anything,
(51:46):
resistance can be pretty toughto overcome.
Stephanie Nash (51:52):
Resistance is a combination of thoughts that are
often - a lot of them aresubliminal below the threshold
of consciousness. The consciousone might be "Oh, yeah, but look
over there, I can be online."you know, that conscious one,
what might be going to thedistraction, but there's,
there's, it's a combination ofthought. It's a combination of
(52:14):
body sensations. And there mightbe mental images there too. Now,
my teacher Shinzen will say,"well, when you have resistance,
look at the resistance, youknow, where is it in the body?
What are the thoughts? What arethe feelings?And and he has a
whole story about how he didthat one time. However, I find
(52:35):
that's not practical for a lotof people. You need a level of
sensory clarity, to really go"Oh, resistance, why I don't
want to do that, oh, let me turnin and look at that." Because
resistance is often a, "I don'twant to do it" So if you don't
want to do that, you don't wantto look at what the feelings
(52:57):
are, that are keeping you fromdoing that either. Right? So
that's it's kind of a mole cyclethere of like, I'm going to
resist look and get the feelingsto, but I do want to mention
what he would say would belooking at how the resistance is
manifesting. So he would say inin the same way, we talked about
processing emotions earlier,when the resistance comes up,
(53:19):
the first probably tangiblething to do is say, "What are
you feeling in the body? Can yourelax around it and let it
flow?" What I do when I'mworking with artists, and this
is especially for writers andcomposers, or people who are
what I call Genesis artists,where you're creating the thing
(53:44):
in the first place, and, andthere isn't a deadline, there
isn't accountability, you know,you're kind of on your own. And
other people have other thingsthey do. But one of the things I
do is you can look at what thefeelings are, but then have a -
(54:06):
how do I want to say this? Iused to say if you can't get
concentrated, get fascinated.
Like a four year old with aladybug, you know, it's like,
like here, I've got a littleblue ball microphone and go
look, it's got all like I couldgo "Oh, yeah, that's a
microphone" or I could look atit and go, "Oh, look, it's got
all these little things." Andthe kid just kind of comes in
and gets kind of fascinated. Sowhat I do for myself and help
(54:30):
others is say, the minute we go,"it's that thing. It's this huge
thing. I don't want to take iton, it's too much." What part of
it is the coolest, the neatest,the most fun for you? Do that
first. I did it with meditationtoo. When I'm starting people in
a practice. I find a meditationthat I know is going to have
(54:52):
good results for them. But Ifind what people like because if
they've got juice they'll do it.
If I give him a meditation theydon't like that's like the
vitamins don't do any good inthe bottle. You got to take
them, right. And so if I wantsomebody to do something, and
Shinzen says that to me all thetime, he says, "Oh, I see you're
(55:12):
making it fun." I say "I thinkthat helps." He's like, "Oh, I
don't I make it academic. I wantit to be scientifically
precise." And I said, "I know.
And that's kind of why I like toadd fun." So we can have a good
time. So I do I in like, whenI'm guiding meditations, I think
(55:33):
it should be a party, I think itwould be a good time. So and art
should be that way, too. So thatwhole middle section of your
book, you're going, Oh, I got tostart at the beginning. Who
says? Pick the part you like,What's an interesting thing in
there that really engages you?
You go, oh, what's the story youwant to tell? What? If I'm
(55:55):
dealing with a composer, I say,what's the theme? What's the
riff you want to go inthere?Just play with that go to
the thing you like, where yougo, Oh, I love that. Because
when we talk about highconcentration that we're
developing in meditation,everyone has experienced what we
would call heightenedconcentration. And that means
you were working on somethingand you did not realize hours
(56:18):
went by you were really gettingsomething done. And you didn't
know that children and dogs andthings were happening, you were
just so focused, right? That's astate of heightened
concentration. That's what wecultivate in meditation. Well,
that happens when you'refascinated when you're
interested. It happensnaturally. So I say, get
(56:38):
interested, get fascinated, findsomething in there that you're
interested in. And if it's yourcreative art, there's got to be
something in there you'reinterested in? Who says it has
to be at the beginning of thathuge middle section. It could be
just something there. And thenyou can continue from there. Oh,
yeah. Let me go back beforethere. And then once you're
hooked in, in the zone, you'rehooked in in the zone, your
(57:00):
creative artistry comes. Sothat's kind of the end, that's a
strategy. That's not likemindfulness would be look at the
feelings, let them flow, thenfind something fascinating. So
that's kind of a sequence.
That's one sequence. I do a lotfor resistance.
Tony Angelini (57:16):
I love it. Well, thank you very much. You've been
so generous with your time it'sbeen so fun. You you do put the
fun in, is I was gonna ask youif there's anything that you do
that you're not very good at?
Don't answer that. It's arhetorical question.
Stephanie Nash (57:35):
Yeah. I'm not good at taxes. Yeah, I'm good at
creative, fun. And You know,we're not on the planet that
long. So I think enjoying theride is important. James Taylor
(57:57):
has a song, THE SECRET OF LIFE.
And Shinzen at the end of his,at the end of his retreat,
Sometimes he'll read Ts Eliot'sTHE FOUR QUARTETS. And he reads
these poems. And I lead aretreat now. And I'm going to
lead a great poet and I read thelyrics to James Taylor's THE
SECRET OF LIFE. And he says, TheSecret of Life is enjoying the
(58:18):
passage of time. Any fool can doit. There ain't nothing to it.
You know, who knows how we gotto the top of the hill, but we
might as well enjoy the ride,right? And so I think of
mindfulness as a way of gettingthe suffering out of the way so
we can enjoy the ride. And ifwe're gifted and privileged
(58:38):
enough to be creative artists,we have been given a privilege
to be able to offer to otherpeople, ways for them to enjoy
the ride. And so I thank you fordoing this podcast on
creativity, and I hope somethingwe said here today helps people
(58:59):
enjoy their ride.
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History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.