Time Panic

I live in a constant state of panic of being behind.
 
Behind in being 'discovered' as an artist.
Behind in being established in my creative career.
Behind in the traditional female pressures of marriage, kids, the house with the white picket fence.

I wake up with this incredible pressure to catch up, as though everyone else started life ahead of me, and I'm still trying to get to the beginning of things.

It's another flavor of my anxiety, I'm sure, and it manifests in my starting - and abandoning - creative projects. I'm always convinced the other project, the one I'm not doing, is the one I should be doing RIGHT NOW.

So I stop, and switch.
And immediately become convinced that no, actually, that was the one I should be working on.

All of which leads to paralysis. And total shut down.
And no projects brought to completion. 

And, in the grand paradox of things, my panic leading to the exact thing I fear most.
That I'm letting time slip away without creating. 

This week I share about that pressure, how I'm working with it, and what I'm actively choosing to start practicing believing instead. 

Come check out the Hot Mess series on TikTok, and watch as I lose my mind - and find it again - writing, producing, and acting in a show!

#CreatingIsHealing🦋

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

I am cracking up as I start this because if you knew how precariously perched everything is right now, the amount of empty Amazon boxes , uh, that could tip over at any moment , um, that are holding up my laptop, my mic, and the amount of set dressing that goes into this. I, I remember thinking about this when I was auditioning , um, during the pandemic. It was a lot of self-tapes at home, which, if you're following the strike, you're probably hearing a lot about this. That in-person auditions got shifted a lot to at-home auditions. And there were some really great benefits to that and some real drawbacks. And as we have come out of the pandemic casting offices haven't really returned to , um, to in person . And the reason that one of many reasons that the Actor's Union is striking is because the casting directors can request 200 auditions for one role. And so actors are spending a lot of time at home memorizing lines, putting themselves on camera, sending it in. And you used to compete against maybe 20 people for a role because that's all a casting director could see in a day. You had to show up and, you know, it was a whole thing too 'cause you had to show up and wait and go in. But, but there was more time and, and they , um, there was a smaller pool. And so now they're requesting so many auditions that actors are spending a lot of time filming themselves at home for things that they aren't really up for because there's just so much competition. And there's this real question of being compensated for that time. That actor spent a lot of time memorizing lines, creating a character, putting themselves on camera, figuring out how to make it look good, figuring out how to tell the story the best they can on camera in their little corner of an apartment, asking friends to be their readers , um, or hiring someone to be their reader. And it's a lot of time spent working on something creative and they're not being compensated for it. So it's , uh, not at all what I was gonna talk about. But I remember in the beginning of the pandemic, when I was auditioning at home and , uh, the amount of like boxes I had all around me, just behind the camera, which was a laptop, right? Like my whole place. I would essentially take whatever junk was in my closet, which is where I'd hidden like this , you know, I'm pretty organized, but there's definitely a junk closet section and move it to behind the camera. And I was just surrounded by stuff and like, turn off the ac so the sound was good, turn on the light. So I looked good. But then you were gonna melt under the, under the heat of the lamp 'cause you can't have the AC on for the sound. Like, I always love it when people think that being an actor is so glamorous. 'cause it's pretty much the opposite. You're always in some weird cramped corner with four people staring at you. One's holding a boom mic over your head, one's up in your face with something else. You gotta kill the sound, which means you gotta turn off their fridge. And anything that buzzes the ac so everyone's melting, especially in the summertime. And , uh, and it's the most bizarro thing. I love it. But anyway, I had this podcasting set up as a nomad , uh, lifestyle. I don't always, I kind of make it up on the fly every time I get into a new Airbnb. And this time I played a lot with boxes that hopefully will stay upright and not break all my things. Okay, tangent aside , um, I actually really want to talk to you guys this week about something I experienced really, really deeply. And I'm starting to really take concrete steps to work on. And that for me is time scarcity. This idea that there's never enough time that I'm, I'm late, I'm late. I'm like that, what is it in Alison Wonderland? I think it's the Mad Hatter, or it's the little rabbit who's like, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late. I feel like that I'm just, I'm late all the time. No matter how much I get done. I wake up late. I feel like I'm late for my life. I feel like I'm missed getting discovered, quote unquote as an actor. I feel like I missed getting married. I feel like there are all these markers, you know, especially as actors, especially as female actors, we get told when you're 35, it's over. There's no more rules for you. That's changing a lot. But that's been this idea for actors for a long time. Um, I feel like a lot of women feel pressure to get married by 30 to start having kids. Um, I don't know the men's pressures as well, but I'm sure there's like to make a million dollars , uh, to make the 30 under 30 list. That's also for women too. There's, you know, work ambitions. But I imagine for men, again, traditional things that were being taught that don't necessarily apply, but that are in the ether. I think for men it would probably be, you know, have , uh, ability to provide for a family, right? And , uh, maybe that's a home or that's a really steady job and a 4 0 1 k and stuff like that. None of these are bad things to have. It's just the sense that there is a timeline that you are not sticking to. And I think especially as artists, it can feel like there is a ticking clock to being discovered. Um, and to having your moment. I know , um, I'm sure it is for like, I'm thinking painting or novelists. I feel like novelists you could probably come later at life and there's so many great novelists who , uh, spend their whole lives having a career as a psychologist or, you know, something else and then write a phenomenal book , um, in their sixties. So maybe that's a little bit different. But I, yeah, there's definitely this time pressure. And even if it's not external, this idea of being quote unquote discovered, I have an internal pressure and I find that I do this to myself a lot when I get an idea for a project and I get really excited about it. And when I start taking steps toward it, almost immediately my brain goes, but that'll take too long and you should be doing this other thing. And I end up jumping from project to project, always being afraid that the one that I want to do will take too long. And it means missing out on other things that I quote unquote should be doing in order to advance myself into wherever I wanna go next in my career. And so the net sum of that is I don't do the things. Um, and I think that's true of anything. You know, developing a film takes a really long time. Finishing a script takes a long time. Finishing a novel takes a really long time. And choosing a project means saying no to other opportunities. And it's not a bad thing. But when you live with a sense that you are already behind on having made the amount of films you wanted to make, or had the Oscar, you know, nominated a performance that you're dreaming of or gotten into XY gallery, that is your goal. Um, and I think again, you know , I, I have, I've been sick for a long time. I don't love the word chronic illness, but that's probably the best term for it. And so I do think I also have this idea of like, I kind of , not that I missed out on my twenties, but I spent a lot of time going to doctors and figuring out how to pay my bills and get a steady job with health insurance, which a lot of people in their twenties do. Um, but I , in my head, there's always this idea that like, had I been able to live off of ramen noodles and a hundred bucks a week and done community theater out in the boondocks, then I would be a real actor. You know, the the idea of having time to sacrifice yourself for the career that you want, and there's truth to that. There is a real doggedness that any kind of career , um, I think of an artist career like a , a startup company, it just requires kind of blind passion and devotion in the beginning because you are the only one who sees that it's possible. And it's your job to go out and convince a whole ton of other people that it's possible. And your faith alone is pretty much what gets people believing in the vision that you have for your career. It took me a long time to really realize that and that I had this responsibility to see for myself where I wanna go. And in that seeing it and knowing it and deepen my bones, it would help me really. Um , you just speak to people differently. You approach 'em differently when you trust in yourself, who it is that you want to be as an artist, something I'm still working on. But I'm starting to understand better how that works. And so there is something about, you know, people who, again, actors quote unquote becoming overnight sensations have often put in 10 years of their lives of auditioning, of not getting the role of doing small parts of uh , you know, even big moments that feel like the big moment and then nothing happens after. It's so you have to be able to keep coming back and, you know, deciding that there is something that you believe in strongly enough. JK Rowlings talks about this with Harry Potter. She got, was it a hundred rejection letters? I don't remember the name, the number 'cause it's been a long time since I read that. But she kept submitting it and everyone told her Harry Potter as a novel was, I don't think they use the word terrible. I honestly don't remember what they said, but everyone was like, this will never go. And it's probably the biggest novel of all time again, I dunno , the stats, but given how global of a phenomenon it became, she was the one who kept believing. And at the time she was a waitress. She was a single mom working a not great paying job, writing this book and submitting it over and over and over again and being told over and over again. No, and I think this feeds into that time scarcity thing, this panic that I have about, I haven't done the right thing yet. I still have to do the right thing that will lead to the, you know, I've gotta do the audition that will lead to the film. Or I've gotta premiere this festival so I can meet this filmmaker and a , I don't even know which filmmaker I'm, I mean, there's a list of people I want to meet and collaborate with, but you can't predict who's gonna be at that film festival or that gallery opening or which editor is gonna read your book, right? So it's not like I can, I like to think I can control all the things and my brain is always trying to control seven steps ahead of me. But the reality is, it comes from this faith in whatever project you do, you're gonna learn a ton from, you're gonna be able to express yourself. You're gonna be able to show and sharpen your talents and your craft and your skills. And from that, you will then meet the next collaborator that will be ready for the next project. And you're gonna keep evolving and clarifying what it is that you have to say in the world and how you manage to say it and communicate it and clarifying the kind of people that you wanna work with and the kind of projects you wanna make together. So I know all of this in my brain intellectually, but I still wake up constantly with this idea of I'm late, I'm late, I'm late. And I think part of it is this idea that in acting in any big creative project, there's no, there's a long to-do list and I'm very good at to-do lists and I get my tasks checked off every day. But the actual overall finishing the film or going to a film festival, like those actual moments, you don't get to have them every day. You have them every six months or five years if you're developing a film project or I don't know, five years if you're writing a novel, those times when you really feel like the work that you did made the thing that you wanted in the world. And now it has been received. And I think that's where that idea that the, the ego brain that wants to protect you, that's gonna say, I'm late, I'm late, I'm late. Don't try anything 'cause you're already late. So just give up is really , um, trying to protect you. Again, the brain will always yell at you to keep you safe because anything new feels like death to your brain. It only knows how to do what it's done yesterday 'cause you stayed alive yesterday. So it doesn't wanna try anything new today. And our brains haven't evolved to know that emotional vulnerability is not physical vulnerability. So it's gonna feel like you're being chased by a was it a saber tooth tiger? You know, from prehistoric times, even though really the the fears, like I've, I quote unquote misspent my time making a film that nobody ever saw, right? And on the other side of that is the kind of divine inner wisdom of faith, of believing. And and maybe it's a calling, that's how I think of it often. Like, just feeling like this thing needs to be done. And I can't explain it. I don't have language for it. I don't have the words for why it just feels really important. And I get up every day wanting to do it. And I think what's actually hard about that is my brain that likes a task list that lives in Excel spreadsheet and to check mark things doesn't entirely know how to translate that feeling of there's something I want to express and there's something I want to put on into the world, into the task list and I have to get better. And this is where I'm still struggling, but I just wanna shine a light on it because I think, I imagine a lot of people struggle with this. I'm still struggling with how do I, how do I live in that middle? How do I trust the faith and trust that whatever work I'm doing today is getting me closer to that expression, to those relationships, to that receiving of what I wanna express in the world? And there's a lot of ways that a lot of these things can be chipped away at. Um, I think about this feeling, this pressure I live with, that I'm late and honestly not just my acting career. I feel it everywhere. Like I feel it about being married, I feel it about owning a home. I feel it about, I just feel, I just feel like I started behind whatever the line is where they , um, shoot the gun in the air. The starting line. <laugh> words have disappeared lately. I feel like I started behind the starting line and everyone already has figured out and like met all of these milestones and I'm still doing this other thing. And the truth is, I'm probably vagabonding my way through this really exciting, juicy, creative life. But from the outside, from my brain that likes to check mark stuff, I always feel like I'm late. So I live with this pressure all the time and I tend to think of, you know , um, habits are thoughts that you've thought a long time, thoughts that feel incredibly true are thoughts that you've just practiced. So it's really easy for my brain to go back to I'm late, I'm late, I'm late, especially when I'm feeling vulnerable, especially when I'm feeling stressed or tired, which is often when you're doing something really creative, right? Your brain will go back to what it knows best. And I've been saying to myself or believing for myself that I'm late for so long that it feels incredibly true and it's hard for me to argue with it. And so I've just been practicing a new phrase. And the thing about practicing new thoughts is you don't want it to be so different from the thought you have now that your brain's like, yeah, no , right? It needs to be something that's believable to you. And for me, it's been, I have all the time that I need and it just like relaxes me. My shoulders go down. I have a sense of I'm gonna get done whatever needs to get done today. I know that I have this really great organized brain and it tends to have a list of things and I just go through the stuff and by the end of the day, I've done a ton of stuff. I can't always explain it because it just has its own , uh, inner wisdom. But , um, that's been really helping me. And I think as I'm talking here, I'm realizing what I would like more of. 'cause that sort of like helps the logistic fear of like, I'm late, there's X, y , z that was supposed to get done today. I didn't get it done. But I haven't quite figured out how to link this idea of a faith in the thing that you are called to express and the thing that you are called to find the right audience to receive it for. To that idea of there's, there's things to do every day , right? You can't just like manifest it by sitting and meditating all day. You still have to take actions and you have to believe that even those actions don't lead you to the right place. Uh, they will eventually lead you to the right place, right ? That like writing a novel or writing a film script that no one ever sees. I've read a lot of script writers who their first 10 scripts never get made, but good God, their 11th script is really sharp and really tight and knows how to sell. And they had to go through all that heartbreak and all of that time again, that word, all of that time writing things that no one was ever gonna see so that they can make the thing that was really gonna reach people. And I have a hard time with the stuff that to me feels like scratch pad , right? The stuff that you make that no one is gonna see. 'cause if the whole goal is to express and connect and translate your point of view for others, it can be really daunting to make stuff and not know if it'll be received and not know if it'll ever be seen. And in fact, trust that some of it is never meant to be seen. Whew , right there. That's what upsets me about time. So again, I don't have an answer, but I do have , um, this light that I wanna shine on. If you're ever feeling or watching yourself jump from project to project to project, I would just offer to get curious what are the stories you're telling yourself when you sit down to do one project about that project? Often it's again, our brain trying to protect us, telling us over there is the better project over there is the thing you should be doing. This is the wrong thing. And the minute you start that project, your brain goes, no, no, no , no. Over there is the right place back over there, right? It's gonna just hopscotch the entire time because again, keeping you out of taking risk is how you stay safe. And it's very sneaky. And so it can be hard to hear it sometimes and it might just manifest as like pressure in your chest or buzzing in your head, or a sense of, you know, uncomfortableness. Um, uncomfortableness is often a sign that you're on the right path. And because you're doing something new that your body and your energetic system doesn't trust yet, it's gonna like throw up all this uncomfortableness to try to get you to stop because it knows, it believes that you are not safe . And if you do find yourself, like me being someone who constantly feels late to creating, to producing quote unquote right, to putting things out in the world to, to being seen, to connecting, to being recognized for the work you do do and create and, and want to share with people what is one easier thought? What is one step away from what you're thinking now? Not, not a thought that tomorrow I will be discovered, right ? That doesn't sound real or true or useful, or next year they'll publish my novel. But maybe it's, you know, also simple steps. Like I will find a writing group and I will send them my first two chapters, or I will share my script with this producer or submit it to this festival of writing. And that's one small step towards being seen and connected. And I think there's a lot of , um, A lot of fertile ground for exploring what your specific ideas about scarcity are. Like, why do you feel the pressure? What is the thing that you want most? If your project was seen, if your project did connect, if you did have a huge audience, how would you feel? What would that give you? What is it that you're seeking? And that'll help you scale back and see where you already have it now so you can keep taking steps toward that bigger goal while also getting the validation, the feedback, and the confirmation that your work is being received already as you are. I just gave myself a lot to think about, which sounds so weird, but this was actually incredibly productive for me. So I'm gonna have to start showing up with things I haven't solved for myself, because I do think it's really fascinating to live in the middle place of faith. I am . I don't have a religion that I adhere to, but I'm always jealous of people who believe in God, who, whatever God looks like, whether you're Christian or Muslim or Hindu or Jewish , uh, the idea that, that there's something bigger than you looking out for you and guiding you and I I I'm jealous of that, right? That is what faith is. It is believing in the unseen and believing in the unknown and believing in where you're headed. And I think art , I think living requires that. And I think faith is a muscle you practice, you decide every day I'm gonna have faith, and this is what faith looks like to me today. Thank you for joining me. You guys have a wonderful week.