How to stay positive between gigs

Everyone knows that being out of work can bring up a lot of feelings, fear and depression being the toughest to deal with. Not only don't you know where your rent is coming from, it can be lonely and hard to maintain a positive attitude. As a freelancer, these times can be frequent. What to do?

The first thing that has helped me in these times is to get super clear about my expenses - every dollar I spend, and develop an awareness of the difference between *needs* and things that are nice to have but can be on hold in dry spells.

If you're committed to self-employment, it's recommended to have anywhere from 6 months to a year's worth of expenses in a prudent reserve. You may want to put it in an account that is difficult to access so you won't be tempted to splurge on a fancy handbag during rich times, only to find you don't have enough during your next break between gigs. Either way, this account should include all the expenses you'll need to live on regardless of whether you have money coming in that month - not just rent, food and bills, but gifts, vacation money, taxes, clothing and charitable donations. If you feel too restricted for too long, you're bound to swing in the other direction and overspend to compensate for that feeling.

Once you've taken care of that, the best thing you can do during lean times is have your own projects. If you're a photographer, schedule free shoots with friends of friends. Challenge yourself to enter a group show.  Shoot subjects you've never explored before. I have a tv writer friend who writes childrens' books in between tv staffing gigs - and she gets paid good money to do it! If you're an actor, write yourself a part. You may end up filming it, or it may just help you understand writing structure and introduce you to new collaborators. You can host a reading for free in your living room. If you're a wardrobe designer between gigs, create costumes from your imagination and post them on a free website.

Lastly, open yourself up to the possibility of doing work you hadn't considered. Share with people who like you that you have free time and would like to earn. It's amazing what people will come up with! Some of the things people suggested to me sounded awful, others I hadn't even thought of and were really fun. The more I explored, the clearer I got about what I *did* want to spend my time doing and how to actually get there!

If you have other suggestions for the woefully unemployed, please comment!

Spotlight, Marc Gafni, Bill Cosby and the legacy of sexual abuse

Starting at age 5, I was molested. Last year, at age 36, was the first time I spoke about it. 31 years of suffering in silence. And not just suffering on my own, but sometimes causing pain to others as a result of my wounds. Now granted, I didn't abuse anyone, and I probably didn't do lasting harm to others, but I definitely developed some self-destructive addictions. And when I hit bottom with those, I landed in a 12-step program.

In "Program" as it is called, I've learned how to stop the cycle by focusing on myself, my healing and the things I have control over. And sometimes I've sat in meetings with sex offenders and people who did real harm in their addictions. It has opened my eyes and given me a perspective I wasn't expecting when I entered the rooms, and I've come to believe that the kind of punishments we dole out as a society, from "correctional" facilities to public shaming, really aren't solving anything. I believe we need to recognize these things for what they are - a disease - and encourage real change. Otherwise we are just perpetuating a cycle of abuse and congratulating ourselves for punishing a few extreme cases.

One of the things I love about the movie Spotlight is the character of the grandmother. She shows us why some good people look the other way - they're just trying to cling to some guidance and grounding they have experienced in life. Another thing I thought was excellent about the film was the portrayal of the various victims who are interviewed by the journalists. The eating issues, drug addiction, depression, difficulty with healthy relationships, the terror. The effects of abuse are devastating, lifelong, and those survivors who are shown are the "lucky ones" because those who couldn't stand it had already taken their own lives.

In Sara Kabakov's article on Marc Gafni, she talks about the various times she tried to tell trusted authority figures about her horrifying experience. Each time, they didn't want to hear it. Sexual abuse is so hard to talk about, there's already so much shame associated with it, and when people hear about it, many don't want to believe it. How many people have swept Bill Cosby's abuses under the rug or brushed them off because they can't reconcile someone so wonderful doing such horrible things? Most abusers are charismatic. They create a persona that makes abuse by them seem unbelievable. They surround themselves with enablers, and when that doesn't work, they use threats, or they move. There are hundreds of examples of this. Two of my favorite quotes from Spotlight: "If it takes a village to raise a child, it takes a village to abuse a child" and "this is how it happens, huh? A guy leans on a guy and the whole town looks the other way."

Let's not look the other way.