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A Life of Honest Connection

Monday, April 8, 2013

The Vulnerability of Crowd Funding.

Recently I came across a TED talk by Brene Brown on Facebook that one of my friends had posted. I often turn on TED talks while I am doing something else, but Brene's resonated so deeply with me that I quickly found myself just listening to her talk, The Power of Vulnerability.  I've never heard of anyone like Brene Brown. She actually studies human connection for a living. She investigates vulnerability, courage, authenticity and shame and how they affect human connection. Human connection is something that I think about often and its a driving force behind why I want to make films, act and tell stories. Connection, human connection, is important and the future of humanity is going to rely on it.

I quickly found Brene's second TED Talk, Listening to Shame, which led me to buying her book, "Daring Greatly: How the Courage to Be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent and Lead." I'm only 3 chapters into her book and I've already been blown away multiple times. As I sat and composed another email asking for people to support my Crowd Funding campaign I had an AHA moment. Putting myself out there and asking people to support art that I have yet to create may be the most vulnerable thing I've ever done.

Vulnerability has got to be one of the most terrifying human emotions. Vulnerability is often perceived as weakness. Brene defines vulnerability as " uncertainty, risk and emotional exposure." In Brene's book, she says, "To put our art, our writing, our photography, our ideas out into the world with no assurance of acceptance or appreciation -- that's also vulnerability." I'm an actor, I write and now I produce projects. I'm used to putting vulnerability out in the world. If you've read my blog at all, you know that I often share things that most people wouldn't tell their best friends. I know that in order to connect you have to be vulnerable. That doesn't make it any easier. I've struggled with it in acting class and had Dee Wallace screaming at me, "If you want to act, you have to bare your soul. The reason people love actors is because they allow real vulnerability to be seen in every moment." (She doesn't scream very loudly and she's actually quite nice.)

To ask for help is one of the greatest ways to make yourself vulnerable. With my crowd funding campaign for my short film, "Tactics", I've hit the vulnerability jackpot. Not only am I asking for help, I'm asking you to support my art before its become a full fledged vision. Its one thing to make it, put it out in the world, and let people judge it. Its quite another to ask for help before there's anything to show for it. I have the script written, I have a very talented director, J.T. Mollner on board to helm the film and I know that its going to be great.

That doesn't make it any easier to reach out consistently, daily, numerous times a day to ask for help, to ask people to support your dreams.

The outpouring of support that I have received has been amazing. I have received donations from people that I would have never guessed would donate to my film. I've gotten amazing letters, notes of support and FB posts from old friends reaching out, telling me they are proud of me, and admire that I'm actually living my dreams, pursuing my passion and honoring my creativity. Its inspiring, comforting and just plain nice to hear.

Within the support there have also been numerous questions asked by friends, acquaintances, strangers. "Why do you need so much money?" "You can make a short film for less than that." "Why would you pay yourself to make a film that you're asking people to donate money to?" (If I do this as a SAG project, I would technically pay myself as the actress in the film). With every question I have been forced to look at myself and re-evaluate whether I have the right to ask for this amount of money, any money, the ability to make movies at all. I know that some of these questions come from my own hesitations and doubt, from being raised in a family that taught me not to ask for money from friends ever, from the vulnerability of putting myself out to the world and asking for help. I don't like asking for help. I don't like being in a state of weakness, which is how I would have perceived vulnerability before I came across Brene Brown. I know now that asking for help, standing in my power and knowing that my art, my creativity is worth the effort is actually strength and power.

I made a short film last year that won awards on the festival circuit and actually have that experience under my belt. J.T. has multiple films under his belt that have won mulitple awards and received distribution. I know that I have knowledge and the ability to see this film through to fruition!

I know that the amount of people that seem to be crowd funding these days can sometimes be overwhelming but the next time you come across some one's crowd funding campaign remember how much vulnerability and risk went into them being able to ask you for help. We live in an incredible world where you can actually contribute to films, albums and art projects that you want to see, that resonate with you or that open your hearts. We are in the midst of watching the world of creativity change! "Veronica Mars", a TV show that has a cult following recently blew everyone away when they set a goal of raising $2 million in order to make the movie version of the TV show and in less than 5 hours they had raised $1 million dollars and in 11 hours hit their goal of $2 million dollars! They currently have over $4.5 million dollars raised and a few days left to go! Incredible!

Today there are 12 days left in my campaign on PasserBy. I'm almost half way to my goal. I want to hit my goal. I know I'm worth trusting and knowing that I can hit my goal.

From the bottom of my heart, in gratitude and love, thank you for allowing me to show you my vulnerability and for trusting that I know what to do with it.

If you want to help "Tactics" and me hit my goal, please donate here! Passer.by/films/tactics

Here's to DARING GREATLY!!

My IMDB page http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2235318/
J.T. Mollner's IMDB Page http://www.imdb.com/name/nm2356768/?ref_=fn_al_nm_1
"Just Like the Movies" on YouTube  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e9iATP1xMuM


Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Shattering Self- Sabotage

Self Sabotage is a bitch. We would never put up with someone else knocking us down right before we crossed a finish line, yet we do it to ourselves all the time. We get so close to a goal we can taste it and then we launch into destructive behavior that enables us to remain in our "safe, comfortable world" that we have been living just fine in. We're not necessarily super happy or thrilled with the safe, comfy place, but we're okay, we're fine, we doing alright.

Let's look at a journey I'm on right now. About 5 weeks ago I launched a HUGE goal for myself. My acting coach, Michael McCarthy, helped me to understand what a LEVERAGE goal is and its forever changed how I will look at goals. A LEVERAGE goal is one that if you succeed at accomplishing it, you will also knock down other existing goals you have. For instance, if I get down to the size 6 that I have always wanted to be, I will feel great, but I will also be in a clear category as an actress. I have always felt that I confuse casting directors, producers, directors, the people who give me the jobs, because I am too pretty to be the quirky best friend and too big to be the leading lady. I don't think this has to be the truth of me, but it sure seems to be, and I'm at this point in my life where I am READY to book commercials, acting gigs on TV and great roles in incredible little indie films, so why not do everything in MY power to make it easier? Plus, I obviously believe this as a truth, and as someone who creates her own world with her thoughts, it surely has manifested in my life. Achieving my health and fitness goal will then help me achieve career goals, financial goal and fun, travel goals, therefore making it a LEVERAGE goal.

Being able to see this goal as a LEVERAGE goal has helped me stick to the regime I set up for myself. My goal is to lose 40 lbs in 4 months. This is a completely attainable goal as I only have to lose 2.5 lbs per week. I've been making a menu every week, shopping with a grocery list, and working out 4-5 times a week. The first week I lost 5 lbs. The second week I lost 5 lbs. The 3rd week I lost 2 and the 4th week I lost 1 lb. I lost 13 lbs in ONE MONTH. I'm ahead of the game.

Week 5 I got a little fatigued from making the menus, the shopping lists, etc (which help in a HUGE way) and I had a lot of leftover food in my fridge, residual behavior from when I used to do monthly shopping for our family of 6 with my Mom, I always buy too much for 1 person. I took a break, I stuck to the diet, but I didn't have a menu or a shopping list, just ate what I had left and didn't worry about it. Then I went out with some friends and had some drinks, some great food and some wine. Too much. BUT we had a lot of fun and I realize that if I'm successful at life I'm going to have to be able to be a human and go out, treat myself and get right back on plan.

I'm starting to suspect that Self Sabotage is at play here. We're in Week 6 and yesterday I stuck to my plan until I had a little cheese at lunch and then some potatoes at dinner and THEN ice cream. NONE of those things are on the plan.

Googling Self Sabotage I found this definition:
"Behavior is said to be self-sabotaging when it creates problems and interferes with long-standing goals. The most common selsabotaging behaviors are procrasination, self medication with drugs or alcohol, comfort eating in the face of weight concerns, and self injury such as cutting. These acts may seem helpful in the moment, but ultimately undermine us, especially when we engage in them repeatedly." --- Psychologytoday.com

Behavior that cuts us off at the knees and stops us from completing our goals. There is also a scientific reason that we self sabotage. our bodies do it for us as an act of protection from the fear of the unknown that we are facing. In the 60's Dr. Maxwell Maltz wrote a book called Psycho Cybernetics exploring why his plastic surgery patients who he had repaired cleft palates or deformities had such extreme reactions to the after result. There were some patients who after he fixed them saw only the ugly deformity that had been there before, while another would have the complete opposite reaction and be thrilled. He quickly discovered that the patients were reacting to their "labels" and the "identities" that they knew of themselves. Your nervous system behaves according to your labels and sets your internal thermostat expecting them to stay at the same level. When we set goals, and begin to push ourselves outside of the comfort zone, your nervous system will activate in order to keep you in the safe and comfortable zone.  This explains why when you begin pursuing a goal, seemingly external and internal forces will align to distract you from accomplishing your goal, keeping you right in that safe, cozy, comfortable place you’ve come to know and love.

I see this type of behavior in my actor friends all of the time. One of them recently went to SXSW film festival because he was the lead in a movie that premiered there. I asked him about his experience and he said that it was overwhelming and exciting and he had very little time to do anything but be interviewed and talk about the movie. He was treated like a true movie star who is the lead in a movie, something he has wanted for a long time. He told me he was relieved to be back at his job, waiting tables, that he was happy there and it felt nice to be back. Luckily, he knew he was in the process of Self Sabotaging himself and recognized that though he was comfortable waiting tables that he wouldn't allow himself to push away all the success from this movie!

Fear can make us freeze, fear can cause us to play it safe, fear is a bitch, therefore it must be part of self sabotage.

I do not want to be a waitress forever, I'm tired of having to live paycheck to paycheck and I am SO over getting THIS close to booking a job and having them give it to the other girl. Enough universe, its time to allow me success, abundance, freedom, bliss, humor, love, money and everything this little size 6 heart desires. I will be comfortable being the pretty girl, I will be okay with turning heads and attention that I am not used to.

The number one thing I've learned to love on this journey already is exercise. I've done made myself addicted to exercising. When I don't go workout for a few days in a row now I feel antsy and bad. I have been active for a lot of my life, but I don't think I ever expected to be addicted to exercising. Its now not something I have to decide if I want to do it or not, its not a choice, its just something that I do as a part of my regular day.

I'm recommitting to my goal. 40 lbs in 4 months. I know I can do this. I will succeed at it and my cybernetic system can relax, because its gonna go through a change as well!