As most of you may know, I’ve had a long history of the arts. I’ve danced and sang my whole life and just finished a long stint performing on a cruise ship. Yes, I haven’t been on Broadway, but I feel like I have a good grasp of the Musical Theater industry and how it affects our individual view of the world and of ourselves. When you’re involved in theater, it becomes your whole world. You forget that the rest of the world is living an average life that doesn’t involve any of the things you deem valuable. I felt like when I moved down to Orlando, I awakened to this reality.
Presently, I coach women to overcome perfectionist tendencies and adding more self-love to their life, because this is precisely what I have battled with my whole life. I can’t help but think that the theater industry has fueled this destructive view inside of me, and by becoming a Health Coach I have overcome this. For so many years, I enjoyed becoming someone else on stage. I loved the fact that I could put on a wig, different makeup, and costumes and become an entirely different character. After years of this and developing my Health Coaching niche, I yearned for some authenticity in my life. I was struggling with accepting me and who I was and because in theater, you never play yourself, I felt that it was making it worse.
I say this because there are MANY women, and also men in the theater scene, that are incredibly judgmental of themselves and try to conform to what’s expected of them. In their cry of desperation for ANY performing job, they lose sight of who they really are and their authentic selves. I’m not saying that everyone in the theater industry is like this, but the issues I have seen behind closed doors has made me question what is expected of us in this world and how we just accept this.
My self-love journey has been long, very difficult, and full of tears, but I never would’ve gotten where I am today if I didn’t change the mindset I have about myself. Theater is supposed to be fun, but if it means sacrificing your morals, happiness, and authenticity, it starts to lose its excitement. Don’t try to be anyone else, but yourself. Auditioning and putting yourself out there is scary, but if you love yourself first this can be a much less self-sabotaging moment when you don’t get the job.
Everyone looks different with makeup, it doesn’t mean they look better or that this is the standard for how human beings look. It’s just a mask you put on when you showcase another person’s life for display. Your body is just the way it’s supposed to be right now, you shouldn’t apologize for this. If you are focusing your energy on loving yourself through movement, mindfulness, and nutrition, the way your body looks will reflect this. Comparing ourselves to others in the industry is probably the worst habit we have revolved around self-love. There is a place for you in this world, don’t be someone else or try to conform to what a company/theater wants you to be. Do you always want to be pleasing everyone else and pretending to be someone your not? For a long time I kept telling myself that all I could play were children onstage. This was not great for my self-worth. I thought that by not getting cast as other roles or god-forbid a princess that I wasn’t worthy or pretty enough for these roles. However, I know that I can be so much more than that: I was letting someone else’s opinion of me control the way I felt about myself.
Our mindset of how we view ourselves is everything. If you’re in the theater industry and need some guidance and encouragement around this exact topic, feel free to reach out to me. We all have some form of perfectionist in us because our society consistently tells us that we are not enough, we don’t have enough, we don’t look good enough, etc… When we can put our x-ray goggles on and see through all of this crap and the manipulation behind it, we can feel much more confident in who we are now.
Fully Loving You is a program I have been working on for a year now, which is based around the stories we tell ourselves and bringing more self-love and realistic expectations into our lives. This subject is dearly important to me because of all the negativity I’ve seen around me regarding this subject. I hope you’ll join me in the fight to battle perfectionism and the unhealthy mind it creates.
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