I stopped acting for decades to be a business woman. It was a decision I’ll never regret. I obtained a confidence, an understanding of people and the world I could never have come by without that career change. I handled enormous pressures. I met people in high places. I was challenged, won awards, and created bounty and prosperity from my own hands.
But in 2014, I chose to give my energies back to acting. Deep down, I knew I ran from the truth. The weight of my superwoman persona was crushing me.
I had a lot to hide. I had a text-book troubled and turbulent childhood. Abandonment by my father at 1 ½ , put into foster care at three. And there, experienced all the abuses you hear about on made-for-TV-movies. Physical. Verbal. Sexual. Until one day I finally took things into my own hands and, at 9 years old, escaped a frighteningly wicked home with my little sister. We showed up on my mother’s doorstep to ask, “Can we come home?” It worked. So I learned early on that I had power.
My modus operandi through life became “I don’t need anyone. I feel no pain. I am a warrior.” But, people like me, who have a life of abuse, abandonment and neglect end up machining their emotions to survive. I had my protective shield on, and if you tried to hurt me, a cobra uncoiled. I could sting, attack, and pummel with huge rage. And I’d win. I had the ‘warrior’ on display on a grandiose level, and hurt and pain exploding below.
During week three of Black Box Academy training, my carefully constructed persona erupted. In a nanosecond, the most intense series of images from my life flared in my eyes, and I could clearly see my partner. See his pain. See his hurt. I felt compassion for him. It was a connection that transcended me as an individual.
And I realized how selfish I was in my life with my feelings. How I’d worn my pain as a shield to protect myself, and keep others away. I was so blocked, so dreadfully blocked from my inner truth. I wasn’t able to let anyone in. Both in life, and onstage.
Acting now feels alive. I’m throwing a healthier me into imaginary circumstances. I can handle a whole collection of honest feelings. It’s a personal transcendence. The impact of the work wasn’t pain. It was freedom.
I’m now grateful to the universe that I’ve had a life of rich and dramatic events. It shaped me. Now I see that being a survivor doesn’t mean you deny the tough stuff; it means you accept the situation, embrace it, and learn.
Strength lies in being vulnerable, not impenetrable.
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