Episode 286: Breathing Exercise for the Actor

Free Month of my Weekly Coaching Group So today I'm gonna talk about that green emotion called jealousy. Oh, we've all had it, we've all experienced it, and we've all been the subject of it. But with actors, it can get so tricky.  I wanted to do a podcast, really putting this emotion into perspective. “A flower never thinks of competing with the flower next to it, it just blooms.”  Buddha said, “Do not envy others. He who envies others does not obtain peace of mind.” “Winners focus on winning, losers focus on winners.” I think my own personal journey with jealousy. If I am having jealousy over someone else, it's because I am not keeping the focus on myself. Keep the focus on yourself. Keep the focus on yourself.  Whatever I put before taking care of myself, I am going to lose.  Also, whatever you put before taking care of yourself, you are going to lose.  Winners focus on winning, losers focus on winners.  And I think it's so important to understand we have one  journey in this life. Just one. And it's the one you're on.  Let's make it the damn best one we possibly can.  Amy Cuddy says, “Focus less on the impression you're making on others and more on the impression you're making on yourself.” The greatest thing about getting older is really starting to understand that the person who I most want to be impressing, the person that I most want to be challenging, the person who I most want to show that I can do it, is me.  That also helps so much with anxiety. It also helps so much with me wanting to be on my team. Because you know what? My team is fucking great.  So many years I abandoned myself looking to be on somebody else's team.  Wanting to be with the quote unquote popular kids in the second grade.  What a waste of time.  I want to be with my people. Meaning me. Meaning me, myself, and I. Someone else's success does not rob you of anything. That's the Truth.  In fact, I have found that when I support people in their success, they're more than happy to help me and support me in achieving my own success.  The other thing is that when  I focus on another person or another person's success and why they have it and I don't have it, the only thing I'm doing is weakening me. And I'm sick and tired of weakening me. I want to be working for myself, not against myself.  And jealousy is an emotion where we work against ourselves.  When you indulge in the emotion of jealousy, you are letting yourself off the hook for taking responsibility for what you need to do to take care of yourself and advance your goals, your acting career. Jealousy is really a completely useless emotion and it is a catabolic energy.  Meaning it is a self defeating energy.  And when you're in catabolic energy, you have a very low chance of success.  I want a high chance for success. I want to live in anabolic energy.  When you find yourself being jealous, you need to reframe it. Change the way you look at things, and the things you look at change.  When you find yourself being jealous, you need to reframe it and pivot the energy from working against you to working for you, from being catabolic to being anabolic, which is healing, growing energy with a high chance for success. Ask yourself these questions: by this person having success, what are they really taking from me? The answer is nothing. They are just living their life.  And instead of focusing and putting energy towards what this person has, ask yourself, “where do I need to put energy and effort so I can create the life and career that I wanna create for my life?” Two very important questions.  The first one being, by this person having the success, what are they taking from me?  Nothing.  And instead of focusing and putting energy towards what this person has, where do I need to put my energy and effort so that I can create the life and career that I want to create? Again, keep the focus on yourself. Keep the focus on yourself.  How can I take care of myself in this moment? Create a plan. Organize yourself. Take an action to put yourself closer to where you want to be in your life. Do a vision board. Do a gratitude list. Get yourself out of the catabolic energy of jealousy and get yourself into the anabolic energy of taking responsibility for your life.  Jealousy is all about putting energy in the wrong place. That's all it is.  Energy that is being put in the wrong place. So how about putting all that energy on taking care of you and your life?

Free Month of The Weekly Adjustment I'm going to be talking about a real coaching tool called getting a buy in.  And that buy in is about really getting a buy in from yourself, something that you need in order to commit to yourself and motivate yourself.  So I'm going to be giving you some strategies to achieve buy-in from yourself and then tell you why I'm teaching this very valuable lesson. The first thing when you're trying to get a buy-in from yourself, you're trying to get yourself motivated, you're trying to get yourself committed to this thing of becoming an actor, is you want to clarify your visions and your goal.  What that means is that you want to define clear objectives. Meaning, and if you've ever done any method acting, you want to find out, what do you want?  What does that character want, but what do you want?  You want to ensure that you have a clear understanding of what you want to achieve, and this is the biggie, and why it matters.  Why it matters.  Jen Sincero talks a lot about doing something because your life depends on it. But this is the thing, as she says, Your life does depend on it.  This is what you want. Let's get clear on it.  I also encourage you, after you have written down what your vision and your goals are, or your goal is that I want you to visualize that success.  Even if you just write it down in a paragraph form, you're already a step closer to what you want to buy into. Picture what success looks like, and this is the biggie, and how it will feel.  How it will feel. How will it feel when you achieve that award? How will it feel when you get what you want?  Visualize what that would look like.  The second thing I want you to do is I want you to assess the benefits, but also the challenges. I want you to list your benefits and all of this you can do by just writing down.  You can listen to this podcast all the way through.  Then you can pause and then listen. Listen to it again, but this time with pen and paper and pause when you want to write stuff down. Assess the benefits and the challenges. So you're going to list the benefits. Write down the positive outcomes that you expect if you buy in, if you say, “Hey, I am 1000 percent into this pursuit of becoming an actor,” what would the positive outcomes be?  And then I want you to identify the potential challenges. And that means you're acknowledging the obstacles and you're going to start considering how you're going to overcome them and where you may need to get help to overcome them. The third thing is I want you to align with your values and your interests.  Now, what does that mean? Your values are what means a lot to you. Is it the arts? Is it self expression? One of my values is always showing myself I can do it. It's not about showing other people, it’s for me. My biggest value is proving to myself that I can do it.  So you want to align your values and your interests. interests. So you want to take a moment to really reflect on your personal values, meaning you want to ensure that the goal that you want to be doing aligns with who you are and the interests you have. So if I'm challenging myself as a coach which I actually did when I started this podcast 180 episodes ago. Actually, I think it might even be 190 by this point. I challenged myself to do something every week that I may or may not feel like I'm doing.  It was in the interest that I obviously have in coaching, but it also was the value of not proving to all of you that I could do it, but proving to myself that I could do it. The other thing that you want to do around aligning your values and interests is finding personal value.  Connecting your goal to something that is personally meaningful to you.  I talk about how my trigger words a lot in my coaching and that weekly coaching group I was just telling you about. And my old trigger words are weak, stupid, incapable.  So when I am aligning with my personal meaning, or I'm trying to find a personal meaning, that personal meaning will always be something that goes against those words. That practices contrary action to the words of weak, stupid, and incapable.  It makes me strong, smart, intelligent, and, as I always like to tell myself, I am the most capable person I know.  Number four, educate yourself. Educate yourself. Gather information, research, and learn more about the goal to build confidence. Now here I can help you. If you are trying to figure out the business of becoming an actor, please let me know. Shoot me an email, [email protected] so that you can get in touch with me.  And we can talk about this because the business does not have to be complicated. Also, and I love this, seek inspiration, look for case studies, success stories or mentors that have achieved similar goals.  Another thing that I think is really important is if you are a movie buff, watch favorite movies, watch movies that inspire you, performances that inspire you. Inspire you to become the best actor that you can be the best business person for your acting career that you can be. And find those inspirational stories that I talk about in the core work to pick you up and help inspire you when you most don't feel like doing what needs to be done.  Number five, set achievable milestones, which means set achievable goals, mini goals. Break it down. I'm a big one on baby stepping. Love the baby stepping and love the phrase anyone can eat an elephant one bite at a time.  So you want to break it down.  You want to divide the project into smaller manageable tasks. Because the fact of the matter is that if you don't know what the next step is, the next right step or the next manageable step or the next bite of the elephant is, you're probably not going to get it done. Also, celebrate progress, recognize and reward yourself for completing the milestones.  Whenever I do a good workout, I really praise myself for the effort that I put into it. That's so much better than beating yourself up.  Again, the core work and everything I talk about is about getting you to work for you instead of against you. So number six is developing a support system. So important. We need people who are trying to recover their selves, what they really were meant to be on this earth and really saying enough is enough of the fear and going for it. You need other people like that in your life who encourage you instead of discourage you, because you want to be seeking encouragement.  You want to share your goals with supportive friends, or supportive family, or supportive colleagues. Find whether someone is supportive for you or not. And that's in good times and in bad.  Also, find accountability. One of the things I do with Acting Business Boot Camp is we have a weekly accountability group. What have you done the week before and what are you going to do the week going forth?  In those three pillars of a successful acting career, which are acting training, business steps, and accountability. And core work. So what did you do to become better at your craft this past week? And what did you, are you going to do this next coming week? Number seven, reflect on past successes.  In episode 102 of this podcast, I talk about what is your strength story, and I share one of my own.  If you want to understand what really finding your strength story is all about, listen to that podcast episode, and we'll put a link in the show notes so you can just click on it. It's one of my favorite episodes, and also you get a real good idea of where I was at how far I've come.  You want to recall achievements, reflect on past successes to build confidence in your ability to succeed again.  You also want to analyze strategies. You want to consider what strategies worked in the past. What has worked for your acting career in the past and how can you apply them now.  Number eight, you want to create a positive mindset.  And that is why at the beginning of this podcast, I offered you that free month of coaching for the weekly adjustment, because that is It's all about creating a positive mindset. We do talk about practicing self affirmations and using affirmations to boost your confidence.  I talk about how you can act your way into right thinking and think your way into right acting.  You also want to be learning, and we talk about this in that weekly class, about managing negative thoughts, address and reframe any self doubt, or negative thinking. Number nine, oh boy, if you're a working actor, you know this one. Plan for flexibility. Be adaptable. Another one I love is to remain teachable.  Be prepared to adjust your plans as needed. Remember when you're about to go out to dinner and maybe a movie or a show with a friend and then that audition comes in? Oh yeah, you gotta learn how to pivot.  Always stay open to learning. View challenges and opportunities to learn and grow.  It's not that bad things happen. It's that lessons come up for us to learn and grow. So that we can truly do what we are capable of doing and have the skills to do that when called upon. Again, remember, remain teachable intellectually and emotionally.  And finally, our last action to get a buy in from ourself is to commit to action. Set a start date. Decide when you will begin and commit to it.  And I always love when I'm able to do it the moment I set the plan or the goal in motion. Take that first step. Start with a small action. To bring about momentum, start with something small, a tiny sampling, a little bonbon of the elephant.  Now, this is the thing, by systematically going through each of these 10 steps in this very special podcast lesson, you really can cultivate a strong internal commitment to your goals and ensure sustained motivation and effort. And if you need help with this, please, I beg of you, I am totally willing to help. Let me see how I can help you.  And I can do that. I can start to do that with you in that free month, an entire free month. That's four hours of coaching, four hours of coaching in the wonderful weekly adjustment class. 

Apply for the Terry Knickerbocker Studio’s Summer Intensive by June 7th and receive a special discount when you mention the podcast. Apply HERE About Terry Knickerbocker: Terry is a graduate of The Experimental Theatre Wing in the Drama Dept. at New York University. After graduating from NYU, Terry trained as an actor and a teacher with William Esper.  He taught at The William Esper Studio for 25 years, and continues as part of the core faculty at the Experimental Theatre Wing at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. He has also taught directing at Playwrights Horizons Theatre School and Yale University.  Other essential teacher/mentors include Maggie Flanigan, Rina Yerushalmi, Steve Wangh, Terry Hayden, Nikos Psacharopoulos, Jackie Brookes, Mary Overlie, Ryszard Cieslak, Jerzy Grotowski, Pierre Lefèvre, Moshe Feldenkrais, Dr. Louis Ormont, and Dr. Harry Fogarty. He has coached actors on over 300 films, television and theater projects, both on and off-Broadway and regionally. He also consulted with playwrights and screenwriters on their scripts.  Some of the actors he has worked with and trained include Sam Rockwell, Chris Messina, Boyd Holbrook, Natasha Lyonne, Leslie Bibb, Emmy Rossum, Yul Vasquez, Jordana Spiro, Gillian Alexy, Gretchen Mol and many others. A past recipient of the Drama League of New York’s directing award/fellowship for emerging directors, Terry is also a former member of Circle Rep’s LAB. His directing credits include many new works as well as contemporary and classical plays such as Measure for Measure, Tartuffe, The Normal Heart, Candida, All My Sons, and David Rabe’s In the Boom Boom Room.

This week what I wanted to do was a breathing exercise for actors because I think in this incredible turbulent world that we live in, and yes, it's always turbulent, but it seems particularly turbulent right now. It is so important that for us as artists, that before we are about to perform, that we get to the center of us.  As a little girl, I called it, go back to the source.  And I believe that is connecting to that part of us that is connected to the Universe.  So what I'm going to do I'm not going to breathe with you, but what I am going to do is guide you through breathing exercises. So what I ask of you is to breathe in through your nose and let out a big sigh, ah, and again, breathe in through your nose, and let out a big sigh,and that can be as loud as you want it to be.  Pause. Stay still. Breathe in through your nose. And again, sigh out. You can even scream if you want. And pause. And just allow your breath to be where it wants to be. Whether that's breathing in through your nose or your mouth. As you do this, I can encourage you to do this for those of you who have subways on the subway, on the tube, or if you're on a bus, or you're riding in the back of a car, or you're at home, sitting on the couch, or maybe you're lying down. And if possible, see if you can wear an eye mask or put a gentle scarf on your eyes, just to block out that little extra light. As you breathe through this next set of breathing exercises, I want you to almost imagine your body expanding and contracting.  Your entire body expanding and contracting. Expanding and contracting. Expanding and contracting. Exhale all of your breath. And take a deep breath in. Hold it. Two, three, four, five. Exhale. Pause, two, three, four, inhale. Hold, two, three, four, five, exhale. Pause, two, three, four, inhale. Hold, two, three, four, five, exhale.  Pause, 2, 3, 4. One more. Inhale. Pause, 2, 3, 4, 5. Exhale. Pause. 2, 3, 4. Good.  Now just allow yourself to breathe. So what you notice there is we did an inhale and I had you hold for five, then an exhale, and then I had you hold for four.  I'm going to do one more set and this time we're going to go a little bit slower. Just allow yourself to breathe.  This will probably be an exercise that you'll listen to several times. Each time if you can, really see if you can match your breath to my voice.  What that does is takes the control out of you and surrender it to something else.  You're not surrendering to me, you're surrendering to the Universe. Exhale all of your breath, and inhale. Hold, three, four, five. Exhale. Pause, two, three, four. Inhale. Hold 2, 3, 4, 5, exhale. Pause 2, 3, 4, inhale. Hold 2, 3, 4, 5, exhale. Pause 2, 3, 4, 5, Inhale. Hold, two, three, four, five. Exhale. Pause, two, three, four, five. Inhale one more time. Hold, two, three, four, five  Let it all out Haaaaaaaaaaaaaa Rest. Just allow yourself to be okay. It's okay. It's safe. You are secure Love yourself in this moment It's okay to do that Be in this moment. Just for this moment. It's okay. It's okay. It's okay. Now at this moment you can pause and just allow yourself to breathe and stay in stillness.  Or you can gently open your eyes, let them flutter, remove your maskyour scarf and feel your body.  Sometimes when I can't sleep, which doesn't happen all the time by any stretch of the imagination, but it does happen, I find this breathing exercise to be very helpful. I hope it is helpful for you too, and I encourage you to practice it numerous times.  It only takes a few minutes.  And again, if you can. To the best of your ability, really see if you can listen to my voice and follow that.  Obviously, I don't want you to strain, but work up to it. You can do it. You can do it.

Join our mailing list Today, I'm going to do something to follow up from what I talked about last week, which was prayer and meditation for the actor.  I got a lot of emails about how many people enjoyed that podcast. So what I wanted to do today was focusing on centering, and centering for the actor. So this is going to be a little different. I don't recommend that you do this while you are driving a car or maybe even walking down the street.  This would be a podcast episode that you want to be at home and in a comfortable place because I'm going to be going through different areas of your body and talk about centering them.  So if you will, I have taken off my shoes. I am standing here in front of my mic and you can do this, I guess actually if you wanted to do this on a subway, you could or just somewhere you don't have to pay attention for a bit.  Put yourself in a comfortable spot. That could be lying on the ground with your legs in the semi supine position, meaning they're bent at the knees and your feet are flat on the ground. Maybe put a book underneath your head or a small blanket and find a comfortable place for your arms, whether that be down by your side or stretched out. And if you're seated, locate where your sit bones are.  And allow your spine to get real tall. Place your hands in your lap. If you're standing as I am right now, feel the ground beneath your feet and just take a deep breath in through your nose. Let it go. I want you to think of a cloud. A light blue cloud just above your head. Imagine how puffy it is. In this cloud, there is clear, light blue liquid. And imagine an angel coming with an arrow and pricking the bottom of that beautiful blue cloud. Slowly, gently, the liquid hits the top of your head and slowly goes down your forehead, the back of your scalp, to your ears, down the back of your head, to your eyebrows, to your eyes, down your nose and your cheekbones. Into your cheeks, top of your lips, down the sides of your face, your lower lip, your chin, slowly down the back of your neck, down the front of your neck, relaxing those throat muscles. As it does, breathe, and allow your face to relax. To be completely submerged by this magical blue liquid as it pauses right at your clavicle, your collarbone. Breathe and allow your face, the back of your head, your scalp, the hair on your head to completely relax and just be. Allow the liquid to continue down your collarbones, into your shoulders, down your arms, your biceps and your triceps, into your elbows, down your forearms, into your wrists. Take a deep breath here. Into your thumbs and that fleshy part of your thumbs. Into your palms down the front of your fingers and starting to drip gently off your fingertips. While the blue liquid goes from your wrists and down the front of your hands into those front knuckles of your hands, into your fingers, down the front of your fingertips, and meeting The back of your fingertips and dripping off. Now your head, your shoulders, your arms, and your hands, and your fingers are completely relaxed. Place your attention now back to the clavicle, and allow the blue liquid to rush down into your chest, your breasts, your shoulder blades, down your spine, down and around your torso, off your breasts, into your abdomen through your solar plexus, down into your buttocks and into your groin. It is now as if you are wearing a full bathing suit, and you are completely relaxed and centered in this moment. Just being here with your breath, and my voice, again, and again. Imagine that blue liquid being in your head, in your shoulders, down your arms, in your hands, in your fingertips, down your chest, in your breasts, in your solar plexus, in your abdomen, down your back, through the shoulder blades, down your back of your torso, the sides of your torso, and don't forget to let go of any tension. In your armpits, allow that blue bathing suit to just rest gently on your skin and allow that blue liquid to purify you and center you. With your breath, I want you to concentrate on your groin area and I want you to think of your right leg. Take a breath and allow that blue liquid to go from the right of your groin down your hamstring and your quadricep into your knee, relaxing it, nurturing it, loving it. We hold so much tension in our legs. And for right now, for our purposes, we don't need to. It is safe for us to let go and to center. From our right knee, we allow the blue liquid to go down into our shins and our calves and rest in our ankles, again, letting go and centering, feeling very grounded on our right side. Down into our heel, into our foot, into our toes, and out the tops of them. That can be the point of your toes, that can be the back of your toes, that can be where the little hairy part is of your toes. And yes, if you want to giggle, you can giggle. Our right side is completely relaxed. And we are centered. As we direct our attention into our left hip. Into our left groin. Where again we allow that blue liquid to rush into our hamstrings and our quadriceps, and rest in our knee. Allow it to be in that other knee. Take a breath. It is safe to let go. From our knee we go into our calves and our shins, into our ankle. We pause there for yet another cleansing, centering breath. We release that liquid from that ankle into our heel, into our foot, down our toes. And let it drip out of the point of our toes, or the back of our toes, or that sweet little hairy part of our toes. Wherever we wish. We are completely relaxed. We are centered. We are ready. We are paused, and we are poised. I am with myself in this moment. I will not abandon myself in this moment. I am here for myself in this moment. Universe, let me be a beacon of your light.  And one more. And so it is. I hope you enjoyed that. I hope you are more centered and if you feel yourself warm like I do, it's because energy has released.  You are truly centered. You are truly with yourself.  And you can always be this very special way.

So today I actually, I've been just so intensely busy with so many different things and I was in New York City today and one of the things I used to do when I was in New York more than I am now is I would go into churches and I just happened to pass by an old church that I usually would go into and I just walked in. And it was quiet, quiet.  And I have been noticing this past, I don't know, week, that my mind has been racing a lot.  Just tons and tons of talk and nothing negative. Just very busy.  And it's disrupted my sleep and it's been so unpleasant.  And then I went into that church and I noticed that in this church when I closed the doors and I sat in one of the pews and I've done this, you know, with other spiritual places of worship.  So I sat in the pew and I just closed my eyes. and it was so wonderful. Because it was so quiet and almost instantaneously it was like my soul was soothed.  My soul was soothed with silence.  And so today, I wanted to do a podcast about prayer and meditation. Now I need to stress that I am not a religious person. My relationship is with the universe. And sometimes I do call the universe God, but for me, it is really a spiritual entity.  I think of it as my higher self. Because I so strongly believe that the universe is a part of me and I am a part of the universe.  So as usual, as per the usual, I am going to be doing a reading out of The Language of Letting Go. I'm gonna alter it slightly for our purposes.  So the first thing that she says is she gives a quote by Emmett Fox The Sermon on the Mount. And it says, “as a matter of fact, prayer is the only real action in the full sense of the word, because prayer is the only thing that changes one's character. A change in character or a change in soul is a real change.” And although I felt that today while I was sitting in silence, because I felt a change in me. And it's a change that I've kept with me for the rest of the day.  And I said to myself, well, why don't you do this more often? But I don't even have to go into a church to do it. I just need to be quiet, which is something that I do. Not for as long as I was in that church. I probably was only there, I don't know, ten minutes. But again, it was very soothing to my soul.  Melody Beattie goes on to say, “Erika Young has said that we are spiritual beings who are human. Prayer or praying and meditating are ways that we can take care of our spirit. Prayer and meditation are disciples suggested by the 11th step of 12 step recovery programs.” And a prayer that I love, that I believe I, I shared with you recently, is I pray for the knowledge of your will for me and the power to carry that out.  I pray for the knowledge of your will for me and the power to carry that out.  And I can say that for my acting career, I can say it for anything, but you can also say it for your acting career, because sometimes we feel so lost and I want that word, I've told you before, it's my favorite word, wisdom to guide us. Prayer and meditation are not necessarily connected to organized religion, prayer and meditation are ways to improve our personal relationship with higher power or the universe to benefit ourselves, our life, our growth.  And again, the, the, the phrases that come up for me are take care of yourself first and the rest will follow.  Take care of yourself first and the rest will follow.  And that means mentally, physically and spiritually. Praying is how we connect with our higher power, our universe.  We don't pray because we have to. We pray because we want to.  It is how we link our soul to our source.  I remember when I was a very young girl, I wrote down on a piece of paper: go back to the source. And at the time, I did not know what that meant. But yet I felt it. I understood it. And it's one of those pieces of paper in your life that you cherish. Because at some young age, I knew there was something bigger than me.  There was something out there that was bigger than me. I don't think I understood that I was a part of it and it was a part of me. But I understood that it existed.  “We're learning to take care of our emotions, our mind, and our physical needs” Again, take care of ourselves first and the rest will follow.  “We're learning to change our behaviors, but we're also learning to take care of our spirit. We're learning to take care of our soul because that is truly where all change begins. Each time we talk to the universe, we are transformed. Each time we connect with our higher power, we are heard, touched, and changed for the best.” It's funny, I can't prove to you that I was changed for the best by just walking into that church today and sitting for ten minutes in silence. But yet, somehow, somehow I was.

Private Coaching Today, I'm going to talk about the subject of Wisdom.  Wisdom is my favorite word in the American language.  God, do I love Wisdom. The reason why I love Wisdom is because Wisdom gives me power. And sometimes it isn't even the power of knowledge, but the power of knowing what to do.  And I don't have any script for this podcast or guidance for this podcast. I'm just talking to you about this subject because it is truly just the thing that I crave more of.  This past week I turned another year older. I help people to adjust their thoughts and their lives to work for them instead of against them. And, that's a really crucial thing because it's certainly something that I did a lot when I was younger.  I constantly worked against myself because I also was like, “Yeah I'm, I have so much energy and I'm so tough, I don't always have to be working for me.” Oh, would I like to go back and talk to that 20 year old. Becoming emotionally intelligent.  And how do I teach them to do that?  By teaching them to be emotionally self-sufficient. In order to be emotionally self-sufficient, I need to be very wise. So I'm going to talk a bit today about a couple of prayers that I like that help me to become more wise.  And the first one is very obvious. It is the serenity prayer.  So if you're listening to this, I'm going to ask you to write the serenity prayer down.  I'm going to give it to you as I'm writing. If you need to push pause, that's fine. So here's the serenity prayer.  “Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.” Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change. So write that down and then skip a couple of lines. Then I want you to write down the next line, which is “courage to change the things I can.” And then skip a couple of lines.  And wisdom to know the difference.  And wisdom to know the difference. And I always, when I'm writing down the serenity prayer, I always circle the word wisdom. Again, because it's something I want more of.  So let's go back to that first line, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.  Underneath that, I want you to write this: I cannot change or control other people, places, things, or situations.  So grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change.  I cannot change other people, places, things, or situations.  I cannot change or control other people, places, things, or situations.  Let's go to the second part.  Courage to change the things I can.  I can only handle or manage, handle/ manage myself, my attitudes, my thoughts, and my actions. I can only handle/ manage myself, my thoughts, my attitudes, my actions. That's the second part.  And the third part is, wisdom to know the difference.  Wisdom underneath that, right?  Wisdom to know the difference between what I cannot control, which is other people, places, things, and situations, and what I can handle, which is myself, my attitudes, my thoughts, and my actions.  So I am looking for the wisdom to be able to determine what I can do something about and what I cannot, because all anxiety, all unrest in me. It comes from my wanting to control something.  But here's the thing, that may not be my job. That may not be my job. My job is to handle or manage myself, my attitudes, my thoughts, and my actions.  And here's the thing, when you really focus on that, your life is busy.  You don't have time to control other things. You are not, you don't have time to control outcomes and other things like that. You gotta focus on your own life. You gotta focus on your own life.  The Universe is the pilot. I am the co pilot.  And every morning I wake up and I say, good morning universe, Peter Pamela Rose reporting for duty.  And I invite the Universe into my day. And I ask the Universe.  This, and this is what comes from the 12 step programs. I pray for the knowledge of your will for me today and the power to carry that out. I pray for the knowledge or the wisdom of your will for me today, and the power to carry that out.  But understand, I am not asking for the power to control. No. I am asking for the power to manage and handle myself, my attitudes, my thoughts, and my actions.  See, my job isn't to control. My job is to handle. My job is to manage.  That's what my job is. That's what my job is as co-pilot. So every morning I differentiate, using my wisdom that I have acquired.  I use my wisdom to differentiate. Pilot, co pilot. Peter Pamela Rose, you're a co pilot. Reporting for duty. I pray for the knowledge of your will for me and the power to carry that out. Now the thing about wisdom is also there is a little bit of humility involved here because I need to acknowledge another little phrase I'm going to throw to you, which is, I can't.  The Universe can. Let the Universe.  I can't deal with this situation, but the Universe can. I'm going to let the Universe, but sometimes it's very difficult to admit to ourselves that there is nothing we can do. All of these things, especially that ability to differentiate between what is my job, manage and handle, and what the Universe's job is to control or do whatever the Universe does.  

Private Coaching Now I wouldn't say that I would sometimes call myself Peter Pamela Perfectionism Rose, but sometimes I've called myself Peter Pamela Perfectionism Rose. The biggest thing about perfectionism that I want to talk about today is that perfectionism leads to procrastination, leads to paralysis.  The other thing that I think is so important about the lesson of perfectionism is to make your ears grow bigger, cunning, baffling, and powerful. I look at all the ways, in fact even this too, recording today's podcast, I was looking for the right time to do it.  But do you know what the right time to do it was? Right now. Right now was the right time to do it.  See, my wanting to, and this is just me but maybe you can relate, my waiting to just feel like it is perfectionism in a very cunning, baffling, and powerful way, trying to get me to not do what I most need to do to move my career forward, which is because for the past, I think over two years now, I have put out a podcast every week, even when my house flooded, even when my house flooded and that If you can start to override that perfectionism and let it go for just a moment so that you do that action now, bingo, we got some serious success about to happen. Now, I'm also going to lean into the fabulous Melody Beattie. The Language of Letting Go She talks about how perfectionism is an individual process that necessitates making mistakes. So recovering from perfectionism necessitates making mistakes, struggling through problems and facing tough issues.  And it's especially when I have to do things I most don't want to do that my perfectionism kicks up.  Again, waiting for the right time, waiting till I feel like it, waiting until somebody else tells me I should do it. Again, cunning, baffling, and powerful, how I get in there, how perfectionism gets in there or my perfectionism gets in there to prevent me from doing the things that I most need to do in order to achieve what I most want to do.  “Expecting ourselves to be perfect slows down the process to our getting to the level of success that we want to get to in whatever area of our life. It puts us in a guilty or anxious state. Expecting others to be perfect is equally destructive. It makes others feel ashamed and may interfere with their growth. Keep the focus on yourself.” It was one of the craziest things I've learned in core work. Is that once I finally got the focus on me and off of everybody else, I was like, how the heck did I even have time to focus on other people and try and control them and try and manipulate them? How did I even have the time?  I'm so damn busy with me. I'm a freaking full time job. That's when the good stuff begins, when you start to really focus on you, that's when the good stuff starts.  “People are human and vulnerable. We can accept and cherish that idea. Expecting others to be perfect puts us in a codependent state of moral superiority.”  And sometimes I find I do that with myself. I put myself in “Peter, you're just gonna have to do it better than everybody else.”  What the fuck is that? Oh, that's so much arrogance. That's so much moral superiority that I think I know what perfect is. IIt's really all about process and life being a process.  “Expecting ourselves to be perfect makes us feel rigid and inferior.” And also as an actor, I find it makes us rigid. We have to do the scene the way we planned it. No, you don't. In fact, mistakes are the best things that can happen. Mess ups are the best things that can happen.  I was talking with my producing partner who told me about these mistakes that happened on the set and the actor was like no, I have to redo it. And the director, he was like, ah, no, you don't. Because that was comedic genius. Remember, there is that in imperfection, some of the greatest creativity can happen as an actor.  “We do not need to go to the other extreme, tolerating anything that people throw our way. We can still expect appropriate, reasonable, and responsible behavior from ourselves and from others. But most of us can afford to loosen up a bit.”  Oh my gosh. I used to be so freaking tightly wound until I really gave myself permission to be me. And I am so much more fun now. I am so much more fun in my fifties than I ever was in my twenties and my thirties. “And we can stop expecting others to be perfect. We may discover they're doing much better than we thought.” And that's, that's also where that arrogance comes in. Where my thinking, what you should, what my thinking, I know what you should do for your life. Hell, I barely know what the hell I should be doing for my life. Why am I putting that on others? Another cunning, baffling, stinky way that perfectionism comes into our lives.  “When we stop expecting ourselves to be perfect, we'll discover that incredible beauty in ourselves, and also the beauty in others.” Perfectionism. leads to procrastination, leads to paralysis.  My assignment for you is to use your mind to govern your brain and notice the cunning, baffling, and powerful ways perfectionism comes into your acting career, and also into your life. And if I can help you with your journey to let go of your perfectionism, please let me know.  

Today I'm going to be talking about something that I have been doing recently, which I've been really taking risks. It's been real. It's been an adventure. And I've said to myself, I remember earlier this year, I was in a foreign country. I was driving in a foreign country, on the opposite side of the road. And I went in my car. It was late at night and I'd been traveling for a while and I just said to myself, You are so brave. You are so brave.  And I think one of the things that I've learned in taking risks is really to encourage, be your own cheerleader while you're doing it.  Because taking risks is scary. It gets us out of our comfort zone, and of course there's that, saying life begins at the end of our comfort zone, but it really is true. And I don't think you are ever too old to take risks. I did a podcast, oh gosh, I guess it was over a year ago, with my mom where, she shared with you all that she finished writing her 10th cookbook on her 80th birthday.  And it's funny because now she's 85 years old and she said, I have this great idea for a cookbook. I'm going to do this. And I'm just like, man, you go, mom, you just go.  So today is where I'm going to be encouraging you to take risks, not only in your acting, but also in your life.  And to encourage you and to help me along in the format of this podcast, I'm going to be reading from the fabulous Melody Beattie. The Language of Letting Go And the subject, like I said, for today is taking risks.  “Take risks. Take a chance. We do not have to indulge in obviously foolhardy or self defeating risks, but we can allow ourselves to take positive risks in our life. We cannot afford to keep ourselves paralyzed.” I really started to Up my game in terms of taking risks. About three years ago was right after I turned 50 and I don't know what it is about turning 50, but it's when you really realize, wow, I have less of my life in front of me, potentially, than I do in back of me. And I decided I wanted to have the best freaking second half of my life that I possibly could. And I was no longer going to let fear or judgment or other people's opinions, no matter how close they are to me, stagnate my life.  I want to live. And the thing is that if you want to live, you've got to take risks. Or else, you'll be paralyzed.  “We do not have to keep ourselves stymied and trapped out of fear of making a mistake or falling.” And here's the thing. One of the things about asking. Somebody says it says I don't know. Do you think they'll do it? And I go let's just ask. Because no is survivable. Hearing no is survivable.  “Naturally, we will make mistakes and fail from time to time.” Again, that is survivable.  “That's part of being fully alive. There are no guarantees. If we are waiting for guaranteed courses of action, we may spend much of our life waiting.” I don't want to be at the effect of my life anymore. I don't want to wait for life to happen to me. I want to happen to life. I want to be at the cause of my life. “We do not have to shame ourselves or accept shame from anyone. Anyone else, even those who are close to us for making mistakes, the goal of life is not to live it perfectly. The goal of life is to live, learn our lessons, and make our own decisions. And make  overall progress.”  There's a wonderful phrase that I love called progress not perfection. Progress not perfection. Remaining teachable, which I think is also just a wonderful phrase like progress, not perfection. Take a risk. Do not always wait for a guarantee.  There again one of the things I've been thinking about recently is leap and the net will appear.  Leap and the net will appear.  Dust yourself off after a mistake and then move on to the success. Dust yourself off and move on to the success.  One of the things my mom used to always say to me when I was a little girl and I would be disappointed because, I don't know, I didn't get a role in the play or something would happen, she would say to me, you dust yourself off, you pick yourself up, you dust yourself off, and you start all over again.

PITCH PERFECT MASTERCLASS Today, I'm going to talk about something that I've been feeling recently—vulnerability. Yeah. Vulnerability. Just feeling a little tender.  Now, the thing I always think about with vulnerability is vulnerability and emotional availability is two of the greatest assets that actors can have.  All I have to say about that is that can also be like your cross to bear, as it were when dealing with the industry.  Because as an actor, as an artist, we wear our hearts on our sleeves.  But how I like to approach the business is the business. When I go in there, I do my work, my good work. What I want to do is focus on that and not focus on the business.  So that's what Acting Business Boot Camp is all about. It's about getting you to focus on the right things at the right time.  But today, we're going to talk a little bit more about vulnerability. I'm going to use my dear friend Melody Beattie. The Language of Letting Go  She says, “I've learned that the more vulnerable I allow myself to be, the more in control of myself I really am.” Now, I don't really like to think about it as in control. In a lot of my work and in my more chiropractor for the mind work, and think about that, chiropractor for the mind, really adjusting yourself so that you understand how you tick. I talk about emotional self-sufficiency, and it's not that I want to control myself. It's that I want to know that I can manage and handle myself emotionally no matter what situation comes up, including losing my voice and feeling sick and feeling unwell.  Tender.  Melody goes on to say, “Many of us feel that we can only show our strong, confident side. We believe the face we have to show to the world should always be one of politeness, perfection, calm, strength, and control.” But let's take a moment and let's take a step back and think about how incredibly unrealistic that is.  I received some disappointing news the other day. And I just said to myself, Okay, it's disappointing. It's all right for you to feel sad. It's all right for you not to feel a hundred percent on, especially when I am someone who is on so much. It's okay for me to show a little weakness. It's okay for me to be vulnerable.  And it's okay, or I should say, it's more than okay, for me to take care of myself when I'm feeling that tenderness.  One of my favorite phrases is go as slowly as you need to in order to take care of yourself. And when you're feeling vulnerable, or you're feeling tender.  Go as slowly as you need to in order to take care of that vulnerability and that tenderness in that day.  This too shall pass. You won't always feel so vulnerable. You won't always feel so tender. My voice will not always sound like this. In fact, in a few podcasts, I hope it'll sound better. She goes on to say, “While it is certainly good and often appropriate to be in calm controlling and strong moods, there is also another side of all of us, that part of us that feels needy, that becomes frightened, that has doubts and gets angry.” Because, hello, guess what? You're human. That part of us needs care. That part of us needs love. That part of us needs reassurance that things will be okay.  And again reminding ourselves, go as slowly as you need to in order to take care of yourself.  Expressing these needs makes us vulnerable, yes, and less than perfect, yes. But this side needs acceptance too.  There's a wonderful phrase that says, don't go to the hardware store for lemons. When I am feeling vulnerable, needy, or frightened, there may be people who are more appropriate for me to go to than not. And the number one thing I want to do for self-care—make your ears grow bigger as I say this—is not to go to that person who is the hardware store for lemons. Because they are not going to be able to give me that comfort, that love, that reassurance that I crave right now.  It may be better for me to leave it out. When in doubt with people like this, just leave it out. Get off the phone, get off the text message, nurture yourself, and reach out to someone else who will be a little more caring. Allowing ourselves to be vulnerable will help us build lasting relationships. Sharing our vulnerabilities helps us feel close to people and helps others to feel close to us. It helps us grow in self-love and self-acceptance. It helps us become healing agents. And it allows us to become whole and accessible to others.  Just today I finished one of my weekly adjustment classes. And a few people were just vulnerable enough to share. What the response was from everyone else was, Thank you for sharing. You made me feel like I was not alone.  The Weekly Adjustment Group