It starts with me…or you, if you want to apply this to yourself ;)

May 21, 2013 By 1 Comment

To steal a line from my own show, I’m about to get “philosophical up in here” (my muse is the sassy drag queen. so sue me).

Since my return from urbanly idyllic Manhattan, life has felt restless in a “something needs to change and it needs to change now” kind of way.

So, logically, in true Lesley fashion, I began scouring Craigslist for apartments in phases, obsessing about different locations in Massachusetts for weeks. One day I’d be looking in Cambridge. Another in Salem. Another in the South End of Boston until I realized I’d have to like, sign away my first newborn to afford 400 square feet of pre-war no-parking-included living space. ::cough::

I’ve waffled about what I think I want in a place to live. I’ve sunken into feelings if despair and climbed up into feelings of hope and back again. I’ve gotten very frustrated with myself, and I’ve gotten frustrated with numerous other things it feels good to blame things on. Rarrg if only I could have artists near me! Boo no ocean! Oh woe and despair everything closes at 9, shoot me! I thought surely if we could just find a “better” place than here, even if it wasn’t yet NYC or Portland, Maine (both places which feel super yummy for different reasons), that that would be a big step in the right direction and we could at least enjoy some of our youth while we still had it in the interim.

So we went to look at a few apartments in Salem over the past couple of weeks.

I didn’t like any of them even though they were awesome.

And while Salem checks the box of nearly everything that should make me happy on paper for a place to live in the interim, I realized yesterday that I’m not into it.

I tried for what had to be at least 15 minutes of the car ride home to articulate why it was that I didn’t want to live there and had a really hard time finding words to explain it, because it made no sense and I couldn’t even figure it out. It’s on the ocean, packed with delightful restaurants and small independent businesses, tons of gift shops, walkable, lots of stuff to do, live music and nightlife, bustling artist community I could establish myself in, a gorgeous museum residents get admission to for free, parks, affordable rent, the whole shebang.

And yet there was just something way in the back of my gut that was like “nope. Don’t do it, Les.”

If there’s anything I’m learning over time it’s to trust that feeling, even when it doesn’t make sense and is inconvenient. I think perhaps I felt I could like it just enough to let it convince me I didn’t need to push any further and end up staying there instead of going after the big dreams, that it could be ‘good enough’ quicksand, the stuff that gives people permission to cave on their big goals and convince themselves they’re happy, only to let those little dreams slowly suffocate but never quite go away and eat away at them forever. ::shudder::

I came home and looked around my apartment, and the town we live in, and thought of all of the things I complain about, then also thought of all of the things that I take for granted and that I’m comforted by, and thought to myself, “No. Unless something feels really right, I don’t want to uproot my life for a temporary move with the outlook of ‘at least it’s better than where we are now. We’ll just stay here until we’re ready to go somewhere even better’.” That wouldn’t be good because a) it still puts the focus on ‘what’s next’ after that, setting up the ‘interim’ place to be less than ideal and to become a place I find fault with because I’m still focusing on what I actually want and using that place as a substitute, and b) we’d be going through the stress and expenditure involved in moving with goal of moving again not too long afterward, otherwise facing potential complacency in the new place if we let ‘too much’ time go by being ‘stuck’ there.

It’s not good to do things for those reasons. It’s good to do things because they feel right to you and you can get excited about them. Not because they’re okay you guess, and you shrug your shoulders and say “meh, may as well”.

A friend of mine posted a quote on Facebook today that said “The space for what you really want is filled with what you settle for instead”.

My brain kind of melted upon reading that, and it made so much sense.

Unless you keep what you truly want at the forefront and push for it, the space you allow yourself to have for it in your life is filled with the things that fall short that you settle for. Right now, the space for NYC is filled with our current home. But that doesn’t mean it will stay that way. It could be ‘upgraded’ with Salem, but right now that jump doesn’t feel worth it to me. And until it’s filled with NYC, it’ll just keep being filled with other things I’m settling for. That doesn’t necessarily mean those things are terrible, but it does require that I remember the space is there and it needs to be honored with its designated dream unless that dream truly changes. Perpetually swapping out other things to be settling for instead of facing the difficult and scary prospect of actually pushing for the dream isn’t going to be helpful.

So I took a deep breath of the beautiful flowery air blowing in my window, and laughed instead of getting angry when the huge-ass truck came as it does every other day at an ungodly hour of the morning to empty the dumpster and slam it down so loudly that my half-awake brain always thinks we’re being bombed and Clover bolts off the bed. I looked at my messy home office/art studio and envisioned ways I could tidy it, and watched TV late at night grateful that I don’t have upstairs or downstairs neighbors that complain or get mad if they hear it. And I realized the road to being content truly does start with me.

Do I want to stay here forever? Hell no. But do I NEED to get out right now or else? ….no. It felt like that, but it’s not true. It’s my issue within me, not the fault of my place of residence. I think the sooner I can be more at peace with this and myself, the better my chances will be of feeling the most relaxed, fulfilled, and successful regardless of where I live, and especially NYC if life takes me there. I don’t want to carry this baggage of perfectionism with me to a place like that and let it eat me alive. I want to go when I feel ready to take it on from all angles and enjoy it for what it is, no expectations, just aspirations and open-mindedness and the enjoyment of all that it has to offer. That will make me feel free and allow me to peacefully live anywhere.

I talked this out a bit with Todd as we sat eating Snickers ice cream bars in the park after dinner (best frozen treat ever omg). Attitude is so much of everything that happens to us in life. It is the difference between misery and joy, between contentment and frustration. I know it’s a little out there to follow the manifestation mindset but there really is some weight to that. All the times that I roll my eyes at the isolation here I could be savoring how safe I feel taking a walk at 11pm and that I don’t have to fight to find a parking space where I live. If I am forever focused on what I don’t have and what I wish I had, I will never be content because wishing and regretting are living in the future and the past, but life only exists in the present. I want to exist and I want to live, and whether I’m in the Upper East Side or right here where I’m sitting, finding a feeling of contentment and enough-ness can only come from inside of me.

But! This is not a permission slip to just abandon dreams altogether, of course. Tomorrow I’m meeting with my agent to talk about my goals and ask about NYC and if there might be potential for me to balance some time there with modeling. It can’t hurt to ask, and in the meantime, I’m going to go sleep in my cozy bed and attempt to count my blessings instead of my frustrations. Wherever I end up, I need to build my true home in my center of my being, my higher Self. Then, as my wonderful therapist says, I will always have a place to return to where I can feel grounded and at peace, no matter what’s happening around me. Kind of gives new meaning to “there’s no place like home”.

Filed Under: life, perfectionism, Positive thinking, reality check Tagged With: , , , ,

Guilt, Shame and The ‘Enough’ Complex

April 30, 2013 By 1 Comment

Today’s post is brought to you by the letter E – for “enough”, a word that is so painful for me to try to wrap my head around it feels like poisonous briars are surrounding it and preventing me from access.

Always wanted a glimpse into the life of a model? Well, consider this your VIP pass.

When I first met with who would become my agent, my palms sweating and my posture straighter than normal and my brain repeating “don’t say anything embarrassing. Show him you’re committed! Don’t sound desperate! Omg stop sweating, seriously” he said something that stuck with me: “Everybody has the pretty friend or the pretty neighbor or the pretty cousin but that doesn’t mean they’re fit to be models. Models have to be a little more ‘perfect’ than the pretty girl next door. This might mean that her hair is a little shinier, her skin is a little clearer, she’s a little taller, or yes, maybe she’s a little thinner. But everybody has things about their appearance that they like and don’t like. It’s our job to pick the photos that accentuate the good things and minimize the less good things. God made you how he made you, and you just do what you can and make the best of what you were given.”

I found this very comforting because I went in there convinced that my complexion would disqualify me. He very tactfully said he noticed my skin was ‘sensitive’ and asked if I broke out easily and I said yes, and then said what I just quoted (and probably butchered) above.

“We work with what we have and accentuate the good things as best we can.”

I was not told to GTFO.

I was not told to get on Accutane or else.

I was not told to drop 5 pounds or else.

I was not weighed and measured, as you’d imagine they do in NYC.

Yet my brain was reeling beforehand imagining all of these worst-case scenarios, coming up with wild fantasies of conversations that would ensue that would embarrass me or hurt my feelings. Surely if it wasn’t my skin it’d be my age (nope). And if it wasn’t my age then definitely it’d be the shape of my ankles (ridiculous). Or if it wasn’t that, it’d probably be my tendency to have puffy/circly eyes (not even mentioned), or the fact that I get a rash when I’m nervous. Maybe I’d have my rash right then and they’d think ‘well we can’t trust this girl to wear a tank top on set if she’s nervous, she’ll get a chest rash and ruin all the shots’. Insert other completely ridiculous worries here that sound even more ridiculous to me reading out what I’m typing.

This imaginary back-and-forth is what kept my sweaty palms out of that office for the better part of two years. I was my own worst critic and none, NONE of the things I was worrying about were a problem that day, and haven’t been a problem at any point at any shoot or casting ever.

Ever.

None.

Ever….I’m repetitively typing this and staring at my screen wrestling with my brain trying to digest this concept. None of this stuff has ever mattered to anyone else in a negative way but me. And instead of being able to take the compliments of the shape of my eyebrows or the uniqueness of my nose or my ability to take direction and pose well, I leave shoots feeling like I’ve somehow luckily dodged a bullet. Like somehow they didn’t find me out and see all of the bad stuff.

And my brain returns to these dark places despite complete lack of supporting evidence. If I have a moment where I feel excited or proud of myself, it’s as though I’m looking over my shoulder to make sure nobody’s feeling jealous or picking me apart for being proud of myself. God forbid someone would think I’m gloating, or full of myself,…best not get TOO successful now… at least not until I’m [x] enough to feel worthy of it, right?

That E word again. Enough.

I’m tucking into a couple of books right now by Brene Brown – one called The Gifts of Imperfection, and the other called I Thought It Was Just Me (but it isn’t): Making the Journey from “What Will People Think?” to “I Am Enough”. Both books focus on a similar topic – studying shame and guilt, how they’re related, how they’re so embedded in us (particularly women), and ways to free ourselves of the burdens that these feelings press on us while we try to go about our lives so that we can be more free, fulfilled and happy. I’ve realized that these negative thoughts, these worrisome meddling thoughts, are rooted in a feeling of shame. Shame about my body, or shame about my person, a feeling of not being “enough” to deserve this or that.

My “enough” complex reaches from the biggest ticket items like feeling unworthy of moving to NYC until I have X amount of money that I’m earning all-by-myself-because-it’s-weak-to-rely-on-anybody-else-and-how-dare-I-not-be-completely-self-sufficient-and-prove-to-everyone-I-can-do-everything-alone-just-me-me-me-completely-alone, to feeling unworthy of eating a second cupcake because once I’m eating better and exercising more regularly I’ll be a better person and abiding by my doctors orders more diligently and then, maybe then once I’ve done a veggie smoothie cleanse (gag…my doctor told me to do this months ago and I still haven’t mustered the courage) and been religiously going to yoga I’ll ‘deserve’ to have more sugary foods.

This whole ‘deserve’ word is just horrible.

I tell myself I deserve it when bad things happen to me.

I tell myself that I don’t deserve it when good things happen to me.

I convince myself out of allowing myself to have fun because I place conditions on whether I deserve it or not. Did I do enough work today to deserve watching TV without guilt? No? Well I’ll still watch it but beat myself up the whole time because THAT sounds like fun.

And I know I’m not alone in this. I hear my friends talk like this about themselves. Women everywhere talk like this, and it’s not okay. All of this “oh I shouldn’t eat that cookie because I didn’t go to the gym today” = I am unworthy of pleasure. Women who put their children and/or husband so far ahead of themselves that they lose themselves and burn out = I am unworthy of self-care, love and attention. Women who stay in horrible jobs = I am unworthy of a fulfilling career. This all translates to “I am unworthy of happiness”, and the root of happiness is love, so what we’re really saying to ourselves every time we beat ourselves up about something, or deprive ourselves of something that would make us happy, or force ourselves to do things that make us unhappy, is “I don’t deserve love and kindness”.

NOT OKAY.

And I want to fix it and I don’t know how. I don’t just want to fix it for myself but for other people too, but the journey to enoughness is one we must each make on our own terms. This isn’t to say we should go this alone! Doing something for ourselves in our own way and doing something completely alone are two very different things. But we need to do this. For ourselves, for our children… if we continue this cycle of practicing unworthiness, we set up generations of continued unworthiness. For the sake of my own life, and the lives of others who identify with my gender I need to put a stop to this. I need to learn to feel like I am enough. To eat that second cupcake and enjoy it. To show up to a photo shoot ready to kick some ass (granted, I do that…but I need to feel it 100% without conditions). If I choose to have children someday, there is no way in hell I am bringing a girl (or boy!) into this world before I have come to terms with this. Although that very thought right there is one of enoughness – “I will not have kids until I have worked on myself enough to be a strong enough role model”. GAH it’s everywharrr!

I don’t have any big earth shattering conclusions with this, but I’m just putting it out there. We as women need to sit down and have a good hard look at ourselves and put a priority on helping dig ourselves out of this pit of not-enoughness. For ourselves. It needs to be okay to do something for yourself. It does not have to be the negative interpretation of selfishness. You can’t help someone else without putting your oxygen mask on first. Do this for your heart and soul. Help yourself so that you can help others.

I can’t wait to see how these books unfold and even in the 50 pages I’ve read so far I already know they are going to be incredible. I’d highly recommend picking them up/snagging them on your kindle/getting them from the library at the first chance that you can. Even if you totally love yourself already and feel enough in every way, it would be important to read this in order to help other women in your life who aren’t there yet.

xoxo

 

Filed Under: Confidence

On needing to cope with encountering a big D–….

April 14, 2013 By 12 Comments

Guys, it’s time to talk about this. Some people are just born with it, and it’s nothing to be ashamed of. I mean to some people it can feel like a blessing! Sometimes it can make you feel like you, erm, stick out for the wrong reasons, and sometimes it can make you (or someone you’re with) feel like you’re going to explode. And sometimes, let’s be honest, it can get really hard. ::ahem::

No shame here, ladies. Let’s just let it all hang out.

Sometimes, as an artist, a creatively energized person, an empath, a highly sensitive soul, and an entrepreneur, we suffer from the big D: Depression.

…what? That’s what you were thinking, right?! ;)

I raise this topic because I think it’s important to talk about. I am no psychotherapist, but I go to therapy on a regular basis. I can’t tell you the chemicals and the reasons and the rights and wrongs of treatments and I am not one to point a finger and blame nor am I one to say “oh suck it up it’s all in your head”. All I know is that, from time to time, and that time can vary from feeling nearly constant for weeks on end or can flit in and out of my life here and there every few months for a brief slump of bleakness, I get depressed.

I’m not talking “oh my cat died and that makes me really sad so I’m going to cry and reminisce and go through a hard time for a few days and then occasionally well up if I think about him long enough for the rest of my life”. That’s called grief, and that’s fine. Sad, but fine and important and love-infused and the sign of a heartache that comes from the very unique joy that is no longer accessible with a particular loved one. We all feel this.

I’m talking about “hey the sun is out and it’s a beautiful day but I feel immobilized in my pajamas on the couch compulsively reading business articles full of information I already know and looking at pictures of younger clear-skinned women in ad campaigns, somehow convincing myself that everything I am attempting to do won’t work and any semblance of the life I’m daydreaming about building is going to crumble  like trying to uproot and carry a sandcastle away from the encroaching smothering tide with my hands and surely nobody else feels this way and surely I am a horrible person and surely it’s a good idea to eat a lot of dairy products and sugary things and oh hey I’d love to chat but now’s about the time I usually go dissolve into self-misery in the shower so nobody will know I’m crying into my pruny fingers about how painful it is to be multi-talented and how self-centered and narcissistic I feel for feeling that way and using the word ‘talented’ in self-reference kthanksbye”.

Whew.

Yeah it’s kinda like that.

I do not have an official ‘diagnosis’. This runs in my family, as does its BFF anxiety, which I have been diagnosed with, if that even really matters because honestly diagnoses are only tools with which to help us seek our treatment and not sentences to prison or labels upon our person. And I am attempting to own my thoughts and my body and not use “it runs in my family” as a straitjacket. I have made leaps and bounds of progress with anxiety over the past few years but still succumb to from time to time and feel generally at peace with it, though of course I’d love to find out what it feels like to be more calm and relaxed 24/7 (who wouldn’t?). Yoga, meditation, exercising, eating better, vitamin D, these are all things I need to do and will feel much better if I do.

But depression is this sort of ‘elusive beast’ that I feel unfamiliar with. It’s like “am I sad, or am I depressed? Am I being rational for feeling this way or is this some cocktail that’s been stirred a little too hard up there today?”

All I know is it is this same elusive beast that seems to torture so many of the creative and bright people of the world. The ol’ cliche of the ‘tortured artist’ exists for a reason, though I will be the last to say that great art requires suffering in order to be meaningful (have ya seen the Yoguineas?)

And I think sometimes I lose my wits because I am somewhat a prisoner of my own home, in that I work from home, and I live in a suburb with zero creative community to go be a part of. I get lazy and don’t make the effort to drive 40 minutes in Bostonian traffic, pay $30 to park and go somehow figure out where I fit amongst artistic strangers who don’t live anywhere near me.

And I think sometimes I lose my wits because I want to do everything yesterday. There is so much frenetic energy coursing through my veins every moment of the day pleading with me to go make my mark on the world in every way I can possibly think of all at once. I feel almost on a minute-to-minute basis yanked in each direction, as if I’m juggling various irreplaceable dishes that, if dropped, will shatter and lose my chance to ever make meaning with that one.

And I think sometimes I lose my wits because I feel my humanness more each day, the awareness of the ticking clock of my heart and the gentle metronome of my lungs raising and lowering tides of oxygen to my body and my ears ringing with finiteness.

And I think sometimes I lose my wits because sometimes we all lose our wits and it’s okay to lose our wits and it’s necessary to lose our wits in order to come back from them more clear-headed. We have to dangle precariously close to the edge to see what’s down and up and everywhere off that cliff. We have to touch our toe in and see how cold that water is. We have to poke our chicken tikka masala with our finger to see if 1:48 on high was a long enough time to reheat it. We might fall. We might get startled. We might burn ourselves. We need to be reminded we can feel things.

This post is written with the intention of just providing a little pat on the back to anyone else reading this who feels this way, and a pat on my own back for putting it out there I suppose. We need to be vulnerable with each other so we can comfort and support each other. The past few weeks have been hard for me.

Since my last update here, my life got flipped upside-down as I spent 9 days in the Upper East Side of Manhattan to play a musical I wrote with a friend, completely untethered from any current at-home responsibilities and thrown into a glorious pit of theatre, college students, diner food, 2AM strolls singing at the top of our lungs to the underscore of garbage trucks and taxis and the wind boxing our ears, exploring the city alone and feeling tiny and yet significant at the same time. I had erratic sleeping schedules. I was surrounded by people near my age at all times. I felt gloriously anonymous walking the streets, life feeling like a movie. I felt loved, needed, appreciated, entertained, comforted, independent, determined, free. I conquered a life-long fear of heights and slept 32 stories in the sky. I ate the best ice cream sundae I’ve ever had at a diner surrounded by cheerful friends, many with still painted faces in partial costume. Everything felt perfect and I got a glimpse into a feeling I had craved for my twenty-something self forever. I carried a life-size stuffed zebra 10 blocks from FAO Schwarz and made a crying girl smile.

And then I came home.

And it was like anything that had previously been bothering or eating away at me was amplified to eleven. I suddenly couldn’t stand the complacency of suburbia and felt suffocated like I needed to get out. I suddenly felt tear-my-hair-out restless in my home office. I suddenly felt heart-wrenchingly isolated and angry at myself for creating this life for myself. I suddenly felt more frustrated with Boston traffic, more disheartened by indifferent and cold Boston attitudes at places like shops and restaurants, more anguished missing my friends, more angry at myself for feeling dissatisfied when I have a roof over my head and food in my stomach which is more than many people can say. More frantic about finding a way to ‘make it work’ in my life so I could magically go drop a zillion dollars on a make-believe Manhattan condo and somehow all my problems would magically go away.

It messed me up, basically.

I am finally recovering. It’s been nearly a month, but these past few weeks have felt heavy and sticky and confusing. I feel ready to dust myself off and pull back a little of the frantic craziness and take things as they come, but also feel very riled up and dreading complacency. I still don’t really know what I want, but I believe a change of scenery is long overdue, so we’re going to start looking around for somewhere a bit more engaging before we can hopefully make the leap to NYC sometime. I know we ‘have our whole lives’, but seriously, we have our whole lives, and ‘whole lives’ could mean another 70 years, or another 7 seconds. I just want to make the most of mine and leave as big of an impact as I can while I’m here.

If I can do that with a little more faith, and a lot less of the big D, that would be ideal. If you’re going through this too, just know you’re not alone. I am going to attempt to incorporate more positive lifestyle and eating habits and make a point to get outside more. I don’t want to spend my life always focusing on the ‘what’s next’. I’d like to be able to enjoy the now, and I know that that doesn’t necessarily start with a high rise apartment and omelettes at 1AM. It starts with me.

Filed Under: life changing experiences, Mental health Tagged With: , , ,

It’s okay to start right now. Or now. Or now.

March 8, 2013 By 2 Comments

This quote inspired this post today:

“Your present circumstances don’t determine where you can go; they merely determine where you start.” – Nido Qubein

And I thought about it, and my journey into how my life is unfolding now laid out in my mind like beautifully fragmented, flawed, painful and wonderful pieces of winding roads, broken paths, dead ends and treacherous planks stacked precariously over misty abysses.

At 13 I thought I couldn’t model because I lived in a tiny town and got teased about how I looked and dressed.

At 17 I thought I couldn’t model because I was going to college and wasn’t yet independent.

At 20 I thought I couldn’t model because I was getting sick a lot and gained 35 pounds from medicine that was making me sicker rather than better.

At 24 I thought I couldn’t model because I was working several jobs and going to the doctor constantly. I was working nonstop, barely surviving financially and burning out physically, and even though my weight gradually went back to its normal pre-medicine state, I told myself I was too old.

At 25 I took a leap of faith and started modeling on my own because the desire to do it was eating away at me so constantly I couldn’t take it anymore, afraid, “too old”, sick or not. I suppose you could say this was my start, small and humble as it was.

At 26 I won the contest at the mall and thought the opportunity to “really start” had come in the way of the one year modeling contract prize, except we now know how that really went down (thank God. Hindsight is 20/20!). Cue enormous fire under ass and laser-focused determination to prove that person, and every other person whose discouragement rang in my ears, very, very wrong.

At 27 I stopped for months when I finally got a diagnosis but had to get worse before I could get better and heal for the better part of a year. Fear and dwindling hope crept back in. I convinced myself perhaps I was too old and had started too late and missed my chance.

At 28 I finally felt better (halle-frickin’-lujah!), woke up one morning in December and said as calmly and confidently as I’ve said anything, which fell out of my mouth to my own surprise – “I’m changing my life today”, grabbed the best photographic evidence of two years’ worth of my efforts and went with high heels and laser-focused tunnel vision to Boston to see once and for all which voice would win – the one finding excuses to tell me to give up, or the one that had been there since elementary school, gradually getting louder, chiming in at moments of fear pushing me to try and telling me not to give up.

I could have started at 13. I could have started at 20. I could have started today. None of those circumstances determine where I’m going, just where I would have started, and it’s clear now looking back that things happened exactly as they needed to. If I had started at 13 I would have been a nervous wreck and missed my parents too much. If I had started anywhere between between 18 and when I actually started I would have been sick as a dog and unreliable (and was that way for much of the beginning as it was).  It is so important to not get caught up in “too lates” and to just start.

What is going on in your life right this moment – your living situation, your financial situation, your health, your faith in yourself, your journey to your sexual identity, your career, your family dynamics, your vices and your dependencies do NOT dictate what is possible for you. They only determine what you will be looking at in the future to mark where you started.

I have more determination for this than I ever have, and if you are feeling discouraged or like perhaps something is ‘too late’ for you, I’d like to challenge you on that. If you haven’t started yet, there truly is no time like the present. Literally! Every moment is new!

What a relief and beautiful gift to know that with each new moment comes a fresh opportunity to start your journey, unmapped and waiting for you. : )

Filed Under: life, reality check Tagged With: , ,

Trying is a thing. (Sorry, Yoda)

February 19, 2013 By 3 Comments

Let’s get the important stuff out of the way first…

Guys. My hairstylist. The one I finally found after years of botched bang trims and “it’s this new technique we invented called freestyle cutting” and  the long process of attempting to finally grow out the epic mystery chunk constantly poking my right eyebrow… the hairstylist I’ve only gotten to see twice and witnessed the wonders of her amazingness, she’s….

she’s…

she’s moving to California.

::moment of silence::

Hearing the words “Tammy is no longer with us” on the appointment reminder voicemail the other day kind of induced the same reaction in me that I’d have if “Tammy is no longer with us” meant what one would normally think it would out of context. Panic ensued.

But today I swallowed hard and went in to take a chance on yet another stylist I had never had before, anxiety mounting thinking about the photo shoot I have tomorrow and hearing echoes of various previous conversations with photographers/my agent about how my hair “is my look” (what superficial creatures we humans are. I feel like a tropical bird preparing for mating season at photo shoots – ‘don’t touch her bangs! LEAVE THE BANGS I LOVE THE BANGS’ ::fans enormous rainbow-colored tail feathers::) Anyway… the new stylist did a great job. Crisis averted!

What does this have to do with trying?

Well for one thing it’s an example of not hiding away in my house letting my hair grow to my ankles and never trusting anyone again until I spiral into an overall trend of distrust and gradual reclusiveness/cat collecting. But that wasn’t really my original intended example for this post.

During the five minutes I spent with my new hairstylist today, she asked about what I do and I did my giddy/sheepish combo squeaking out “Yeah! So…um, I’m an artist. ::ahem:: And a model.” and she enthusiastically asked me how it all came about and if it’d been a longtime dream of mine, etc. etc. to which I replied “yeah, actually! Um… well, I always wanted to do it. And so… um…” and I paused for a moment, realizing every time that I talk about this with people that it seems more and more ridiculous that I waited so long. I told my usual “but I talked myself out of it for years and kept finding excuses why I didn’t think it’d work and didn’t let myself try.”

And she was like, “aww, yeah it can be hard to face something you really want! The fear of the “no” is hard to face.” Then I heard myself utter the words “yeah, I mean… I’m my own worst critic and all, and if someone says no that’s the worst that can happen, which really isn’t a big deal. And obviously if I didn’t go into an agency and try then I definitely wasn’t going to get signed!”

And she said, intrigued, “Oh wow so this was like, the first time you went there and talked to them?” which caught me off-guard. I always think of my journey to this point feeling long and full of a lot of effort and hurdle-jumping with self-esteem and tons of pillow-pining, lying awake staring at the ceiling aching for a presumed-impossible dream of catwalks and tear sheets, and I was like “Oh! Um, yeah, I guess it was…I did this independently for two years but I finally went in before Christmas and dropped my pictures off and [blah blah blah insert abridged details of how things went down here]” and as my little story spilled out, it surged right into me, right in the spot near your eyes where that phantom jolt you get when you’re falling asleep and then you tweak out for no reason lives, and my gaze went a little vacant and I said, half laughing about it, “…yeah, so…I guess basically I just had to try.”

Yoda says, “Do or do not. There is no try.” He means well. But seriously…. there is a try. One could argue that there is doing in trying, but I find the idea of trying much gentler and more open to possibility, and forgiveness. It takes the aggressive shove from behind of “you must succeed and do this! Ready or not, you’re on your own, kid!” and brings it in front of you, extending an open palm to you saying “you don’t have all the answers and I know it’s scary, but let’s take one little step forward. Let’s see what happens.”

I hate it when people have this type of attitude with other people, especially. I’ve heard people say things like “either you’ll do it [where 'it' is a work project, or being somewhere at a set time, etc.] or you won’t. You’re not going to ‘try’.” Where do we have the right to treat our fellow humans in this cruel way?

Honestly, the most that any of us can ever do is try. We can’t predict the future and guarantee that something will or won’t get done. All we can do is try. 

It’s a lesson I’m continuously learning, yet seem to so often forget and find myself pushing myself and being hard on myself, pressuring myself to do things right the first time, to have all the answers, to search for complete reassurance that something will go the way I want it to. It’s in the trying that the lessons are learned, the knowledge is gained, the experience is (hopefully) enjoyed. So that’s something for me to continue to work on – being content with small steps and uncertainty and having faith that things fall into place over time. I’d say that I’m going to conquer this, but I think instead I’ll just say that I’ll try my best. ;)

Filed Under: Confidence, life Tagged With: , ,

“The Best Years of Your Life” can shove it: On Being an “Adult”.

January 30, 2013 By 2 Comments

Every time I drive by a school my heart winces, imagining all of the children trapped inside, like prison.

When I was younger, I worried that perhaps all the time spent at various desks daydreaming about ‘once I’m out of here’ would be a lie, that adulthood would be awful and I’d mourn the loss of ‘the best years of my life’ as so many adults had called them (wtf?!). In high school I would joke, “man if these are the best years of my life, I might as well just end it right now” (PLEASE note: I was not suicidal).

But seriously, even though I joked about it, it worried me when adults would say that. This sort of “well enjoy your freedom while you have it, kid, ’cause work’s called ‘work’ for a reason. It’s not supposed to be fun.” “Once you’re out in the real world…” (any sentence starting with that – instant rage inducer) “Ahh, to be 16 again.” “You’ll look back on this someday and laugh/realize how unimportant it is/it’s your hormones/it’s that awkward stage/[other ineffective sympathies inducing rage here]”

That thought was often tugging at my ear in the night, with concentric circles of “what if when you grow up you look back on this and think to yourself that you wished you could go back to ‘these wonderful times’ instead of the crappy times you’re having as an adult? What if it’s true?! What if this really is as good as it’s going to get? Oh god. ::squeezes Pooh to the point of cutting off his stuffulation::”

This thought kinda plagued me. So I bumbled through college, switching schools once and majors about three times living in fear of the crappy adult I could possibly become who looks back on adolescence with big ol’ “awww… I miss those days!”

I got so afraid of becoming ‘that adult’ that that’s kind of exactly what I did.

I took jobs I knew I didn’t want but that paid well or looked practical and linear, setting me up for those exact feelings of burden and unhappiness I dreaded. When I tried to break away from them, I’d work myself sick trying to stake out some independence but be too poor to continue and go crawling back. Having to choose between groceries or health insurance makes a girl do crazy things. I applied to college two years after graduating, I auditioned for grad school, I sent out hundreds of resumes. I was grasping at straws for anything that would make the drowning feeling stop.

So yes, being an adult can be really, really hard. But I will never tell a teenager that they are having the best years of their life and don’t know how great they have it. It’s cruel, and it just might squelch their self-confidence enough to make them chicken out on studying or pursuing what they really want.

The truth is, none of us can really know how ‘good’ anyone really has it. It’s such a personal thing.

There is no real way to know when the ‘best years of your life’ are, aside from the moment you take your last breath and think back on it all, so when you look at it that way, doesn’t it seem a little crazy to assume your ‘best years are behind you’?! If you assume they’ve already happened, and SO early as to happen in high school or college, you’re setting yourself up for an awful lot of disappointment and totally limiting the things your future self will get to experience and accomplish and feel.

Look at all the great things you get to do/have/be as an adult:

You do not have to do homework, or have a curfew. You do not have to do anything at a set time if you don’t want to. You do not have to shove your human mammal self’s natural cycle into an uncomfortable mold it doesn’t fit in for decades. You can sleep late if your body wants to sleep late, and stay up late if your body wants to stay up late. You can totally eat pie and cake for breakfast and nobody will care, but you will learn on your own that this doesn’t make you feel well and the novelty will wear off and you’ll say “well that was fun” (because it was!). If you need your mom, it’s totally okay to call her and cry. If you need time alone, you can take that, too. If you want to start your own company, you can. If you want to work with other people in an office and get on your feet financially, you can. If you want to teach, preach, write, sing, dance, compute, design, critique, curate, direct, sweep, parent, travel, eat, analyze, debate, wash, help, give, explore, discover, unite, make right, you can.

Basically you can do whatever the hell you want. And whatever you do, there will be good or bad consequences, but it’s your life and you can make choices about not only how you live it, but how you feel about how you live it.

I imagine that perhaps those who view high school as the best years of their lives have given up a feeling of possibility for themselves and settled into lives that aren’t aligned with their insides. I have nostalgically looked back at my childhood bedroom with its green apple gingham Winnie-the-Pooh curtains and felt the magnetic pull of “wouldn’t it be nice if…” but it’s a mirage. We evolve into levels of independence we’re unaware of until we’re placed in a dependent environment again. And that’s a sad moment because it means we have to let go of some things that perhaps feel comforting, but it’s also an exciting moment because it means growth is happening and we don’t even realize it. Capability is happening. Self-sufficiency is happening. Being an adult is happening.

If a lifestyle isn’t serving you and your daydream about what you want life to be is turning into more of a nostalgia about what life used-to-maybe-feel-like in your warped memory of present-day-discontentment, you have the power to change it. Because honestly, does anybody truly want to relive high school? Really?

I don’t know about you, but I think the “best years of your life” phrase kinda needs to shove it. Let every year be open to stepping into the role of “best year of your life”. It’s only fair. :)

Filed Under: life

The Build a Better Creative Business Giveaway

January 22, 2013 By Leave a Comment

So if you’re a creative entrepreneur like moi, you might be interested in this contest being offered by Marketing Creativity. The prizes are kind of insane and yes, making a post about the contest was a way to enter it and I wouldn’t complain if $2500 worth of entrepreneurial goodies landed in my lap… so, voila! ;)

You can read more about the contest and enter it here if you’d like!

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Contentedness

January 21, 2013 By Leave a Comment

As the book of my life has turned over a beautiful page revealing the beginning of 2013, a lot of things have been happening and changing and making me think a lot, but not in the usual “I am way too alone with my thoughts and feel overwhelmed” way, but in the “oh my God so that’s why that happened” mindfreak realization excited freaking out in a good way kinda way.

In the past three weeks alone I feel like I have made mountains of progress in my life in every single area. It’s almost scaring me, but that’s another thing I am trying to work on – experiencing contentedness and being okay with it.

I’m not used to feeling content. Relaxed. Settled. Clearheaded. Confident. Reassured-from-the-inside.

These are new feelings.

They are not constant, as they aren’t for anyone. But more often my inner world has contained different adjectives. Anxious. Unsettled. Confused and overwhelmed. Ashamed. Doubtful-and-dreading-from-the-inside.

And now it doesn’t so much.

I am not used to having things feel like they are going in a clear direction, or that they are “easy” in the sense that I’m not toiling, but working hard and feeling fulfilled instead. This is a very new feeling – to feel like I am putting in effort with things I’m enjoying so much that it hardly feels like effort even though I am technically working very hard and feel surprised when I’m suddenly exhausted and need a 3 hour nap or recovery day. To be making progress joyfully and not just making someone else’s progress resentfully or not making progress at all, or worse, going backward.

I suppose sometimes things are better left to the gods and not questioned, but my brain is still going a mile a minute and trying to figure out what’s changed, fearing jinxes. But then I see evidence in the present day of how perfectly aligned every seeming setback or struggle has been, this like, Tetris wall of all of my combined experiences that are playing out in ways I could never have known or expected back when I was in the trenches of these hardships, and I continue to get the gentle whispers in my subconscious saying “it’s okay, Lesley. Let your guard down, let it go and just accept that goodness is happening and it’s okay!”

It’s okay.

This sense of surrender and relaxing into my humanness is completely new for me. It’s like a relief washed over me one day and some angel out there massaged my shoulders and was like “hey you know all that shit you worry about 24/7? Let me take that for you and deal with it. It’s okay. The Universe seriously wants you to be happy, you don’t need to resist this anymore. In exchange, I’d like you to revel in the goodness that’s all around you and carry that with you as you go about your day. Deal? Sweet. ::hoists burdens into angelic backpack and flies away::”

I can’t think of one particular moment this changed. And I don’t go around worry-free every day or anything, nor do I expect everything to be great all the time. I’ve still had little breakdown moments in the past few weeks about things in life that are hard to deal with, I’ve had moments of doubt and high anxiety. I just feel like things that worry me generally feel less sharp and searing. Concerns about the future are muted by the beauty of now. Past pain is less burdensome and beautiful surprises are growing that would never have been possible without the crap from my past becoming fertilizer. Sorry, cheesy analogy, going too far. BUT IT’S TRUE OK?!

So yeah… I guess I’m learning to let go a little bit this year and to let goodness happen to me, to open a door even a crack in the guarded areas of my Self that tell me for some reason that I’m unworthy of happiness, goodness, unconditional love or success.

I feel content. I have feared that it’s temporary. I’ve experienced stints of contentedness before and they have left like a rug being pulled out from under me, replaced by worry, frantic energy of uncertainty and frustration. But this feels different. I can only hope that it is, but I can decide that it is as well.

Ironically it’s by releasing more control of situations and circumstances and owning my attitude about those things that I become more in control of my life.

 

Filed Under: life changing experiences

The (not so) Epic Highlight Reel

January 8, 2013 By Leave a Comment

I heard (or read, more likely) someone describe social media, and Facebook in particular, and its detrimental effects it can have on our self esteem thusly: You’re comparing your outtakes to everyone else’s highlight reel.

I generally find my experience on that familiar blue website a pleasant and uplifting one. But I often find myself crawling through the caverns of self-comparison on the Internet as a result of links I’ve clicked on in Facebook, and it’s not long before I find my chest starting to tighten, my eyes starting to ache and my mind racing with thoughts that start at “oh wow that painting is beautiful!” and end with “Look at how much better and more cohesive other people’s stuff is! I’m not a real artist and I’m never going to figure out who I am. ::reaches for nearest sugary snack and opens Facebook back up to avoid facing life::”

LOOK WHAT HAPPENED I went from feeling good and loling at pictures of quokkas to feeling shit-tastic about myself!

It is so hard to not compare yourself to other people. Nay, I propose that it is impossible. And should be. You know it, I know it, everyone knows it…this “don’t compare yourself to anyone and trust in the awesome uniqueness of you!” stuff is kind of BS.

::ducks oncoming tomatoes::

I understand the sentiment behind it, but I think it’s harmful and sets you up to fail.

The reason I’m talking about this is because I have had a bit of an onslaught of pretty awesome things happen to me lately.

I just got signed by my dream modeling agency, and one of the musicals I’ve co-written just had auditions with professional NYC actors and is going up in Connecticut in three weeks. Holy crap!

To me, this is exciting stuff that feels full of possibility yet is still in complete infancy and is not yet at a place of financial gain so I’m looking forward to see how things unfold and taking it one day at a time.

To my Facebook world, I am now Gisele Bundchen and Stephen Sondheim, carving my way swiftly to a life of opulence and fame tucking benjamins in my wallet from the arts. LUCKY.

I have received more than one comment along the lines of “remember us when you’re famous!!!” which I absolutely hope comes true (and yes, I absolutely will remember everyone I love if I am fortunate enough to ever ‘get famous’), but which also makes me wince. To steal a line from one of my favorite musicals: “zoom in on my empty wallet.”

Amidst the comments and likes (Facebook crack! Hit me with another!) it’s occurred to me that there are people out there that might have seen these things or anything else that’s positive or uplifting and felt happy for a moment and then immediately turned to their own lives and felt bad.

But that’s the thing. This is the highlight reel.

It’s your best friend’s highlight reel.

It’s your frenemy from high school’s highlight reel.

Those pictures of people always out having a great time at bars with their friends while you sit home and watch House Hunters with your bag of Christmas candy in your lap ::ahem-hem::… those are highlights.

You don’t see the reason behind posting positive quotes or photos being because that person who posted them needs to read them the most because they don’t accept and love themselves unconditionally. (guilty.)

You don’t see the days spent in PJs wondering what it’s all for while you rage about other people’s highlight reels and how successful they are and why not you, damnit?? (guilty.)

While our highlight reels are certainly valid and exciting, they are not our whole self, so looking at them and filling in blanks or comparing ourselves to things we don’t see all the sides of is about as effective as looking at a picture of a Martha Stewart wedding cake and then looking at the pack of grocery store cupcakes on our counter and being like “ugh…why don’t MY cakes look like THAT?!”

So if you’ve been feeling down, or getting caught in self-comparisons, what-ifs, ‘why not me’s and other frustrating feelings, just know you’re not alone. I wager that even the most ‘successful’ people out there, the most positive, upbeat, gratitude-journaling 5AM yoga-attending wrinkle-free peaceful rich organic fair trade free range beautiful perfect people whose beaming smiles greet you on self-improvement websites, book covers and television programs are only showing you their highlight reel too.

The people who roll their eyes at positive people and say “seriously. Nobody could be that happy all the time” are wrong in some ways (the cynicism and bitterness isn’t serving them and it is entirely possible to adopt a mindset of gratitude and positivity as a habit), they are right in others. With someone’s photoshopped white-toothed beaming face glowing from a book cover on a best-seller list, no. Nobody is that happy (or that poreless and airbrushed) all the time. And that’s okay. If they are that happy all the time on the outside, they are not dealing with the essential parts of what being a human is, the beautiful spectrum of emotions we’re able to feel, good and bad.

While I continue to struggle with comparisons, I figured it might be helpful to just put it out there that I think this is something we all do. As my therapist said to me today with tears in her eyes as we talked about life and death and connection and purpose, “What an interesting ball of wax this life thing is, isn’t it? We just never really know how everything is all connected, and all we can do is just live it and learn as we go.” Amen, sister.

Filed Under: Positive thinking, reality check

My fellow Apocalystas…

December 21, 2012 By 8 Comments

Are you owning this ‘end of the world’ stuff?

‘Cause I’m not stocking my pantry with canned goods or anything but I am totally on board with this whole new era of human consciousness thing. And I think people who are taking this shift as an opportunity to really start going for things in their lives and being more open in the coming year need a title. So I’m gonna call us apocalystas. It sounds bold and glamorous,…blamorous? Okay I’m done making up words for right now.

In case you haven’t heard, there are many theories out there that there is a very unique situation happening with energy in the universe, and frequencies and planets and who knows what else going on right now. I am not up on my coverage of the Mayan calendar, but there is a buzz about the metaphorical “end of our world”, the world as we know it, and the opportunity to enter into a new, open, loving, potential-filled era of higher human consciousness that will bring much-needed peace and goodness to all in the years ahead. Some of you may be rolling your eyes at this, but that’s okay.

Whether this is true or not honestly doesn’t matter because it’s so freakin’ awesome that merely believing in it will make it true, knowwhatimean? We have the power to usher in this shift and use our powers for good, whether we’re assisted by the cosmos or totally on our own.

Attempting to prepare for the future without freaking out. 

With the start of a new year in just over a week, I’m working out the things I want to take with me and the things I want to leave behind. I know it’s a bit woo-woo with so much hype about the law of attraction and manifesting what you want and all of that other new age stuff, but I gotta say I think there’s something to it. Attitude is seriously everything. And attitude is just a less hippie-ish way of saying energy, and I am ready to leave a lot of negative energy behind and take the good stuff with me, because that is a surefire way to have a happier and more successful life all around.

Example: Instead of wallowing and griping over less-than-ideal situations that are beyond your control, you bring happy energy to the table when you have to…oh, idunno… put everything you own in plastic bags and cart your guinea pigs to your parents’ house 45 minutes away at midnight, returning at 2AM because your apartment has a bug problem and the exterminators are coming and omg you thought you were breaking out but it turns out you were just getting siphoned in your sleep and how creepy is that, but amidst some lapses into tears and “why me”s you start laughing about it and feel glad because look how much crap you had in your closet/kitchen you didn’t really care about that you can get rid of, and and as a result of your shrug-your-shoulders optimism you manage to have enough energy to get up the next day after like 4 hours of sleep, white-knuckle your way to Boston at rush hour and throw yourself at the doorstep of one of Boston’s most respected modeling agencies because it’s now or never, kid, and you’re finally ready to fully own that you really, really want this, and even though your hair has exploded in frizz from a 43 degree drizzle and you slept like 7 hours total in two days, and you may have had some serious trouble figuring out how to get out of the freight elevator and Kramered your way directly into the agency’s waiting room, they like you and want to meet with you in January, and you did this all yourself, 100%! ::deep breath:: Good on you, scared-but-doing-it-anyway dream chaser.  Go home and eat some leftover Indian food amidst your plastic bags and be grateful that you have so many because they’re all full of your stuff, and how lucky are you to have a place to live and material possessions ::ahem:: huge stuffed animal collection ::ahem-hem:: that make you smile? That is straight-up apocalysta living right there, and it feels good. Thank you, more please.

So how to keep this momentum going and optimism at the forefront consistently? That’s a good question that probably has myriad answers. The past few years have been very difficult in many ways. I’ve felt pushed to my limits, physically and emotionally, many times. But if the past can show me anything about how to approach my future it’s that I can survive. Only now am I finally starting to stand back and feeling like the projects I’m working on and directions I’m headed in are closely aligned with my values and what I want, and that has only come after years of feeling complete confusion, frustration, and often, hopelessness and total despair.

As for what’s next and what this apocalysta wants to bring into the new era?

I want to help more people in this coming year, and I’m going to try to not dwell on the how, but just let things unfold as they will. I’m taking that trust with me into 2013.

It’s really weird to know that I’m typing these words, but…I feel increasingly confident that I am ready to be a leader. I want to lead by example. I’m taking that intention with me into 2013.

I lived my life very much in a following/hiding from being noticed/apologizing for everything about myself place growing up, and assumed that was ‘how I was’, and now I’m realizing it isn’t. At all. And I think a lot of other people settle into these predisposed ideas of themselves that aren’t true, too. It’s a liberating realization when you look at aspects of yourself and realize that individual pieces don’t dictate the identity of the whole. I’m taking that wisdom with me into 2013.

Yes, I get nervous. I have more anxiety than the average person. But it is not my identity. I’m not letting it be that anymore. I’m taking that proclamation with me into 2013.

We all have unique inner worlds and it makes no sense to be so hard on ourselves and make things difficult for ourselves. Just because I’m afraid of air travel does not mean that if I got cast in an international ad campaign that I wouldn’t get on the next flight to Paris. It also doesn’t mean I’d make myself do that unmedicated just for the sake of ‘trying to be strong’. You do what you have to do when your dreams or your wellbeing are involved, but with a focus on self-respect and self-care. I’m taking that confidence and compassion with me into 2013.

When you’re in the flow of facing the scary stuff big dreams are made of, you find out you’re stronger and more capable than you think, and that these predisposed ‘limitations’ you have don’t belong to you. They might belong to your brain or your body, or your thoughts, but not the true essence of you. I’m taking that revelation with me into 2013.

That moment when you’re facing what you’re afraid of head-on, when you hear your heart in your ears and have that last-second moment of wanting to run out screaming but then almost slip out of your own body to watch yourself do something you’ve worked up the courage to do and come out the other side okay (or better than okay) is as close to magic as it gets, and I want more magic in 2013.

My brain just tried to make me type scary and crazy at the same time and I wrote ‘scrazy’…I like that. 2013 is the year of running head first toward the ‘scrazy’.

How about you? What are you shedding, freeing yourself from, or respectfully laying to rest as you step into this new era, and what are you taking with you into the blamourousness? Do you need anything to help you get there?

Filed Under: life changing experiences, Positive thinking
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