Actors and Uncertainty
Most Actors maintain a Love/Hate relationship with Time...
When we have a show booked, we can organize our life around a schedule someone else sets.
We embrace the 'free time' allotted us. We fill it with workouts, time with our friends and loved ones, squeezing in errands, or lessons, or sleep around the production schedule.
And that seems to work for many of us.
But let's think about the 'rest of the time'.
Actors are Experts on Uncertainty.
We live our professional lives knowing the show may close early, may recast, may not sell. We may love the role, but can't accept the offer because... we have a conflicting job, or we need a more lucrative job because we have to pay off student loans, or put a deposit down for an apartment or house, or our child's college tuition.
Or we promised we'd officiate a friend's wedding.
Or. You know.
The best jobs can be offered and whisked away with no warning.
They 'went another way'. They recast a family member and need to take another look at you - they are bringing someone in who has 'done it before'.
We Have Heard It All!
And when we don't hear it, we make a reason up... Decide something for ourselves that allows us relief. Or punishes us. Or underlines the inequity we see in the world that is focused on ourselves.
While we're underlining it, let's bold it. Italicize.
OK, let's add ALL CAPS!!!!!!!
That feels good.
For a minute.
Most of the time, we just roll with it.
We know that a 'door closed is a window opened'.
Didn't some relative, teacher, nun in a movie musical teach us that?
Almost every one of us has gotten a great opportunity after losing out on something we hungered for.
If you haven't had that experience, you will.
For some, it all seems to come so easily. For others, everything is scrappy, effortful, filled with false starts and leaps of faith. Uncertainty. We Get It.
So. Let's take a hard look at Certainty.
You know what is certain?
Uncertainty. (not joking... think about it...)
We can let our fear of 'what may or may not happen', our feelings of helplessness in the face of ... the pilot getting picked up...aging in the industry...voice cracking during the callback...is anyone really watching this self tape...
We can let our fears lead us.
Which, truly, is no fun at all.
Or, we can allow the fear- the certainty of uncertainty to be there. Not resisting, but there. Hey, fear, we're doing this.
We have all felt that surge of fear with some roles. Some entrances. First preview with critics out there. Going on in a role that is a bit under rehearsed. Or a lot under rehearsed. Going on when your voice was not feeling good all day. Walking to set with everyone needing you to cry on demand. Feeling like an imposter.
What do actors do? ACT like we can do it.
And we do it.
If we allow a growing cascade of anxiety to fill us up, we are missing out on becoming the best version of ourselves.
Don't you want to know who that is?
Getting coached, and learning to coach yourself, is the way to reduce anxiety, embrace the Certainty of Uncertainty with laser focus, and gain the tools to have the life you truly want.
This does not always mean 'a happily ever after life'. But it does mean a crazy full of living life!
Haven't you booked a show, thinking you would be so very happy to be a part of it, that so many things would be 'solved'? Only to realize somewhere along the way that your same problems, or anxieties, or relationship difficulties followed you to this great new show.
With the exception of long running shows or series, most of our work is a set and limited time. We leap into a new family, a new cast and crew, a new character, and feel the jolt of getting to start all over. Get it right, get it better, achieve excellence.
So often, that happens.
For a while. For a few weeks or months.
And then, like clockwork, many of us start.... looking for the uncertainty again.
Looking for the next best thing, role, show, pay, accolade. We can tire of the sure thing, the same cast, the same 'reliable' joke.
We get it. We want it all. Spontaneity and improv. Stability and a paycheck. Draining rehearsals with sweat drenched allies, and that sacred Monday or other day off.
We desperately want want want the job.
Then we complain complain complain about the 5 show weekend.
We book a recurring role. Money is very very very good.
We start drinking too too too much.
Some of us, when things seem like they couldn't get any better, couldn't be more 'certain' ... implode.
Overdrink, turn to substances, sleep with people we don't want to remember.
Or worry about it all going away.
Such a useful choice.
Says no one.
Because the uncertainty that choice gives us, the charge of adrenaline when we don't take care of ourselves, can feel like fuel sometimes. Even if it's toxic. Even when we know better.
Most of us, given the choice, would still choose uncertainty. Not always knowing what the next role is... not always knowing how the chemistry with our co star will be... not always knowing how the audience will react. Game On. Give us the challenge of uncertainty.
So often, when we don't have as much uncertainty in our lives, we create it.
Even after living through this modern pandemic. The uncertainty of safety, of job security, of insurance, of theatre coming back, of staying healthy without pushing too far, of shapeless days waiting for... something to come back to ground us in what is certain.
Here's the solution.
Focus on the certain while being open to the uncertain.
The uncertain will always be there.
All the people who decry the uncertainty of contemporary times believe they had certainty before.
Because we had the habit of thinking that way. But, truly, nothing much was certain.
Especially for us.
You could still lose the job, the love, the gamble.
Focus on what is certain.
Where is that?
Inside you. Magnificent. Powerful.
The most incredible instrument for change and evolution on the planet. Your beautiful mind, with its thoughts, positive and negative and evolving.
I invite you to spend some time thinking about your thoughts.
In fact, you are invited to spend specific time on this.
If you run for an hour on a given day, how about 15 minutes for your brain and mental health?
A one and a half hour yoga class, how about 20 minutes for your future by getting to know what is in your head?
Is your body really getting more love than your mind? Is that fair to your future self?
This is propulsive work.
Not easy.
Not for the faint of heart.
Because you have to examine your thoughts.
You have to go there.
Most humans walk, eat, drink, feel through their days with unexamined thoughts.
Even though this is the only ability specific to human brains.
The ability to think about our thoughts.
And choose what to do with them.
You will discover thoughts you have hidden away for so long, they are masquerading as beliefs.
You will learn what you want to work on, what is holding you back, and where you are stuck.
If you always look outside yourself for certainty, the world will fail you.
Circumstances (global pandemic, elections, justice, money, roles, relatives, reviews, aging, things other people say and do) will surely change your world view.
You can only control your own actions.
You do this by understanding your thoughts, and how they drive your actions.
It's truly that simple.
This is certain.
You can start with your Time.
Understanding your thoughts about this currency we all have.
Think about the exact number you have in your checking account right now.
I'm waiting. Really look it up.
We all have a different number. That number is factual.
You may think of that as your currency. Your value. Your worth. Your certainty.
It is in no way true.
Your worth is perfectly whole and full and you were born with this gift.
That number is just a number. Just math. It has no bearing on your worth.
And is not certain. There could be a run on the bank. An unexpected medical expense. A hacker.
But there is another currency. Powerful and real and under-considered.
And we ALL have the same amount.
Actors and Time.
You know what is Certain? We all have the same 168 hours a week...
Let's Go.
