Episode 301: Abandonment and the Actor

Try out The Weekly Accountability Group Book a Free Consultation with Peter Today I'm going to talk about the abandoned actor and this is something that I have been really delving into on a deeper level in my private work, the private work I do with clients, but also in my weekly classes. And it's the idea of when we audition, or when we go to a set, or anything, maybe it could even be in your personal life when some kind of pressurized situation happens. We abandon ourselves.  And I'm gonna start talking about I, just to make this easier to explain.  I would abandon myself. Meaning, I would abdicate my feelings, my point of view, my talent to everybody else but myself, and that's what I mean by abandonment.  One of my weekly classes is in my sister coaching company called Chiropractor for the Mind. And what I teach is emotional self sufficiency.  And it's emotional self sufficiency, by teaching you emotional intelligence and teaching you to raise your intelligence emotionally. And this idea of emotional self sufficiency, let me just talk about that for one moment, is that when I'm just talking about me, when I am emotionally self sufficient, that means whatever comes my way in life, I am able to coach myself, I am able to help myself out of that emotional confusion. And emotional confusion is a problem for an actor because when you go in to do a scene, you want to be in the moment, emotionally on point.  You want to be emotionally understood.  You want to be able to access every single emotion in you in the moment.  But if you are emotionally confused as a human being, oh boy, do we have a problem. So here's the thing, through core work, which is all that I talk about, that's how we become emotionally unconfused.  And it is also where this ability to coach yourself is so important, and that is especially important when it comes to this idea of how do you abandon yourself. Now, a lot about abandonment has to do with feeling that you are a victim, thinking that you can't handle it, that you can't manage the situation you are in.  But as all of my teachings have taught me and others, it is that we will never be given more than we can handle, but we will be given more than we can control. I'm just going to use the audition situation to keep this easy.  Why when we walk into a meeting or an audition, why do we feel the need to abandon us?  Why all of a sudden does it matter what the writer, director, producer, casting director thinks, but not what we think?  And one of the things I talk about with my private clients and in the weekly classes are, this idea that if I go in and pretend I am the character of Sally.  If I believe I'm Sally, if the only person that I am focusing on that needs to believe that she is Sally is Peter Pamela Rose, guess what automatically will happen? Automatically, everybody else in the room will. And I've only had to put the focus on making myself believe. And when I do that, I am not abandoning myself.  I am not abandoning myself.  Now let's just talk about anxiety and abandoning ourselves.  I want to talk about a few points of When I start to feel that I am, like, abdicating my responsibility for myself to someone else, the number one thing I need to do when that happens is, I need to become aware. And I need to acknowledge my feelings. I talk about awareness, acceptance and action. the first step in core work is becoming aware because you don't know what you don't know, right?  So becoming aware.  And as I am aware and I accept that, “oh, look, I am doing this,” then I can, then that awareness happens, the acceptance that I am doing it happens, and then I want to move very quickly into action. The subject of awareness and acknowledging is really about recognizing and validating my emotions and also allowing myself to say, “okay, it's okay to feel it,” but this is the thing, if I try to say it's not happening, or just go away please, which is what I always like to say to my anxiety, it's not going to work. I need to be in the room, with my feelings and go, this is happening, okay, how am I going to help myself with this?  How am I going to walk through it?  And this is the thing. I don't want to judge it. I just want to acknowledge it.  Because as soon as I start to judge it as being something bad that is happening, that's me trying to get rid of it. Not gonna work. It's not gonna work.  I need to figure out how me and my, let's say, anxiety can function together so that I can say, Oh, look, there you are. Oh, okay. You don't want to eat. Okay. What do I know? I need to do need to make sure when was the last time I ate. Okay. It was an hour ago. Okay. Set my alarm for three hours from now. That's when I'm going to eat.  In other words, I need to practice tough love with myself and support myself and love myself through the feeling of abandonment.  I also recommend that when this happens, you immediately go to either talk to someone, Journal, talk to the universe, or listen to one of these podcasts, one of my core work podcasts. Why do I say that?  Because we need to get out of ourselves.  We can't cure a sick mind with a sick mind. And when we're in that, we're a little sick. Our thinking is stinking. Stinky thinking.  Journaling helps because our, the smarter part of ourselves, our higher coach gets in there and can help us. Praying helps, okay, or reaching out to the universe, talking to a friend to get us back on point.  Or, listening to a podcast like this to get yourself back, to get yourself back.  The other thing that's very important is that I take care of myself. That's why I go to the food. I know when I get anxious, the number one thing I don't want to do is eat. Therefore, I need to put myself on an eating schedule and then decide how much I'm going to eat and then I don't allow myself to get up from the table until I finish it.  And if you think that I don't like doing this, you are correct. Not my favorite thing. But, it does work. Why? Because I'm going through. The best way out is always through.  The other thing is, I really need to challenge my negative emotions and my negative thoughts.  What is my stinking thinking telling me? And how is it making me want to abdicate responsibility for whatever is going on in this moment? Because I am capable.  I am the most capable person I know. How am I going to take care of myself at this moment? What do I need to tell myself? What good things do I need to tell myself?  And then, after I've done these things, then I need to put it all into action.  Put it all into action. And not forget to Baby step it. Baby step it.  It doesn't matter how small it is, because when we accomplish small tasks, we build what? We need that thing that we really need when it comes to abandonment. Knowing that we have the ability to get ourselves out of it.  Knowing that we have the ability to get ourselves out of it. To regain, to take back our power in that audition room. And focus on the job. Which is to act.  There's no need to abandon yourself. Stay with yourself, love yourself.