Thursday, September 26, 2013

How do you stop yourself from receiving?

Right now in my life, I am starting to get everything I have wished and hoped and worked for. Do I feel amazing? Yes. Do I also feel that creeping sense of overwhelm starting to bubble up, making me want to sabotage it all by crawling into bed or ruining it? Also yes.

Here's the thing. We beg the universe to give us success, love and money, but we often don't acknowledge that all of those things are ENERGY. If we can't allow intense energy to flow through us, we will stop it as soon as it starts to feel too intense.

I learned this very acutely a couple years ago when I booked my first national Prius commercial. We had a 2-week shoot on the Universal Studios lot. I knew the budget was in the multi-millions. People from wardrobe, makeup, hair, production, ad agency and many other departments knew who I was because they had my picture and name up on a board in their offices. The work I was doing was challenging physical work since the spot involved elements of acrobatics. I'm a former dancer and I had taken some trapeze classes, but there were other performers who had starred in Cirque du Soleil for years and one of them was even a gold-medal Olympic gymnast. It was the first audition I had gone on with my new manager, so I didn't want to disappoint him. I felt totally out of my league, even though the audition process had been rigorous and the director had specifically chosen me.

Basically, I was terrified that I would get fired, and I started to get into my head and worry that they'd made a mistake, that I had somehow fooled them and they didn't really want me on this huge project.

That first night when I got home, I got into a hot bath to ease the muscles that had started to ache after a hard day of being strapped into a harness 30 feet off the ground... and I cried. I realized I was overwhelmed, but I had a choice. Did I want to let this thing THAT I HAD ASKED FOR AND BEGGED FOR from the Universe to melt me down? Did I want to go back to square one and have my fears of not being enough confirmed?

No. I needed to allow. Allow the Universe to give to me.

So I knew I had to go to my grounding practices - my Radical Aliveness/Core Energetics techniques and my tantric meditation. I needed to allow my body to vibrate with this intense energy with my feet firmly planted on the ground. These are daily practices and they are as essential to prepare for the world stage I crave as vocal coaching or band rehearsal.

(If you're feeling like maybe you need some of this personal spiritual nourishment, I highly encourage you! I particularly love Angela Ai's artist workshops, Ann Bradney, Steve Maher, Kamana Hunter and Anna Timmermans.)
So, you've been in LA for a year or more - you found a place to live, you bought a car and you even signed with an agent.

Now what?

This blog is about taking your career to the next level - thinking big, thinking outside the box and working collaboratively to achieve success. Success in LA.