The Acting Business Boot Camp Podcast
Episode 198: Making Peace with Your Acting Past
The Language of Letting Go
"The more I cling to my past, the more I'm wasting my energy."
When you have a computer, and you have a program minimized, understand that that program is still using battery life on your computer.
"Not even God can change the past."
"Holding on to the past, either through guilt, longing, denial, or resentment, is a waste of valuable energy. Energy that can be used to transform today and tomorrow."
I want to transcend my past so that I have more energy to fulfill my day.
"I used to live in my past. I was either trying to change it or letting it control me. Usually both."
An audition where I didn't feel I did my best with the casting director, and then that casting director called me in again. What I used to do is then go, Oh, that casting director doesn't like me. So yeah, I will probably mess this one up as well.
Instead of going, Wow, that casting director called me back even after an audition where I didn't feel I...
Episode 196: The Victim Trap
The victim trap.
Being a victim is just a way for me not to take responsibility for my life and when I am, quite frankly, scared.
The Language of Letting Go
"The victim trap. The belief that life has to be hard and difficult is the belief that makes us a martyr. We can change our negative beliefs about life and whether we have the power to stop our pain and take care of ourselves."
Assignment: Ask yourself
- Do I believe that life has to be hard and difficult?
- And then, if I believe life has to be hard and difficult, how do I operate out of that?
- What are the things, what are the thoughts that I think, what are the actions that I do that indicate that?
Because what we're trying to do here is to spot where we are a victim. So I'm immediately in this podcast episode just slamming you right into homework, giving you assignments on how to change so you can get out of this harmful thinking and belief pattern.
"We aren't helpless....
Episode 195: Letting Go of Chaos
Letting go of chaos.
Language of Letting Go, Melodie Beatty
What causes chaos? Well, what causes chaos is control.
"No good work comes from unrest."
And what I have learned about that is how true that is. Because if I don't rest, if I don't fuel up, I cannot be of service to other people around me.
Wake up in the morning and say "Good morning, universe. This is Peter, Pamela Rose, and I am showing up for duty." And I know that kind of sounds crazy, but it takes a lot of pressure off the day.
When I get overwhelmed, all I need to do is simply ask for help, ask for strength, ask for wisdom.
And what does that look like? I'll do it right now. "Give me strength. Please guide me. Show me, show me what it is you want me to do. Show me the things that you need me to do today so I can be of maximum service to other people on this planet."
"Unrest, fear, anger, or sadness may motivate us. These feelings are sometimes intended to compel action. But our best work...
Episode 194: Interview with ABBC Life Coach Molly Noerenberg
About Molly:
Molly Noerenberg is a life and embodiment coach for performing artists. As a coach, Molly helps people make transformational changes in the way they connect to themselves, their bodies, and their unique nervous systems so that they can bring their most authentic selves into the world. Working with Molly means you will have someone on your team with unwavering belief in what is possible for you. As a coach, Molly has an incredible passion for helping performers connect to their truest essence and finding ways to express themselves that make them feel truly alive.
A fellow performer and singer, Molly has spent her entire career supporting the hearts, minds, and lives of performers. Molly is a certified Life Coach from the Health Coach Institute(formerly Holistic MBA), received her Bachelor of the Arts in Vocal Performance from Carnegie Mellon University, her Masters of the Arts in Vocal Performance from New...
Episode 193: Surviving Slumps as an Actor
Making The Most Of Casting Director Workshops
Three-Week Commercial Workshop
Surviving Slumps
I'm talking about not only slumps in your career but also emotional slumps.
"A slump can go on for days. We feel sluggish, unfocused and sometimes overwhelmed with feelings we can't sort out. We may not understand what is going on with us. Even our attempts to practice recovery or core work behaviors may not appear to work. We still don't feel emotionally, mentally, and spiritually good as we would like."
"Don't play yesterday's rehearsal."
When you're feeling shitty, you're trying to understandably recreate the feelings you felt so great about yesterday.
But it's kind of like eating. You can't eat for yesterday, and you can't eat for tomorrow. You can't breathe for yesterday, and you can't breathe for tomorrow. The only day you can eat and breathe and drink for is today.
When I am in a slump or negative space, the best thing I...
Episode 191: Give Up the Past, Live In the Present, Don't Project Into the Future
Make The Most Of Casting Director Workshops
Two Week Monologue Slam With Andrew Dolan
Three-Week Commercial Workshop
"If there is anything I've learned with the astounding amount of core work I've done, it's these three things: Give up living in the past. Be in the present. And don't allow yourself to project into the future."
It's so freaking simple, right?
And yet I find it so hard.
"Not even God can change the past."
The mistakes I've made and my regrets, in some ways, informed the person I am today.
I don't want to beat myself up for that anymore.
Try to find the compassion and to really look at it and "go, wow, you are really scared. You know you are really brave."
Compassion, but also understanding how much strength it took to get through those difficult moments and then using that strength to help you in your present moments when you get scared.
So if you're someone who likes to live in the past:
- Look at those times
- Go back and listen to Episode 102; What is...
Episode 190: People Pleasing and the Actor
Upcoming Classes:
The Language of Letting Go:
"Have you ever been around people pleasers? They tend to be displeasing. Being around someone who is turning themselves inside out to please another is often irritating and anxiety producing."
"If you spot it, you got it."
So notice that if someone's irritating you, ask yourself, "what is it about that person that is irritating me? And is that also something that I do?"
"People pleasing is a behavior we may have adapted to survive in our family. We may not have been able to get the love and attention we deserved. We may not have been given permission to please ourselves, to trust ourselves, or to choose a course of action that demonstrated self-trust. People pleasing can be overt or covert. We may run around fussing over others, chattering a mile a minute, and when what we are really saying is, I hope I'm pleasing you. Or we may be covert, quietly going through life, making...
Episode 189: The Art of Humility as an Actor
Humility and being humble
Where is that balance between showing off, which is what some of the best Actors do, but then in the promotion or acknowledging success, finding humbleness?
That emotion of humiliation:
- I've been at this so long, and how come I'm not making a living?
- Or How come things aren't working for me?
- I feel so humiliated.
"Humility was a tough concept for me to comprehend. Taught from childhood to place the wants and needs of others always above my own. I equated humility with taking care of others. And ignoring my own feelings and needs."
Being taught, you always think of the other person first.
And although that is a lovely concept, if you're always thinking of other people, you are drying up your own well.
The problem is you cannot give from a dry well.
You cannot give money from an empty pocketbook.
Because when you truly take care of yourself, you can truly take care of other people.
And it is only when you have a full well that...
Episode 188: Negotiating Conflict as an Actor
Negotiating conflict in your career and in your life.
Get the free PDF Guide- Owning Your Power as an Actor
Melodie Betty's Beyond Codependency
“Core work is about more than walking away. Sometimes it means learning to stay and deal. It's about building and maintaining relationships that work.”
Core work is about more than walking away.
And there's a great quote from Richard Bok that says, “The best way out is always through.”
We're not responsible for our first thought, but we are responsible for our second.
My first thought in this conflict situation was, “I'm out of here.” But my second thought, which is the one I was responsible for, was a very healthy thought. And it was, “the best way out is always through.”
It's about building and maintaining relationships that work.
Not everybody's going to like you, and not every work relationship is going to be perfect and brilliant.
It is important to cultivate relationships...
Episode 187: Anger at the Business
What is holding you back?
Anger towards the Industry.
When you have felt like:
- Well, maybe this isn't for me
- It seems to be a club that I can't get into.
- Or it feels like everybody who has any power hates me.
- And how can I want something so badly but not be accepted into that club?
- What is wrong with me?
- Am I defective?
- Am I not good enough?
And all of that can sometimes lead to a tremendous amount of anger. And there's nothing wrong with anger. Anger is just an emotion.
I'll let you in on a secret: It doesn't kill you. It's survivable. Anger, confrontation, all of it is survivable.
From the book Courage to Change.
"It seems to me that many of us deal with our anger in inappropriate ways, denying it, we stuff it, or we go off in a fury directing the feelings outward. I, for one, opt for avoidance of any conflict, and then I turn into a doormat."
Learning how to deal with anger.
- Learning how to set a boundary.
- Write down your feelings.
- It's taking the heat out of the...
