Latest / The Aligned Actor / How To Let Go Of The Thoughts That Drain Our Actor Energy

Transcript

How To Let Go Of The Thoughts That Drain Our Actor Energy · The Aligned Actor

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Hello and welcome to The Aligned Actor Podcast.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm Amy Schloerb, your friendly fellow actor and mindset coach.
• 0:07
  SPEAKER_01: And this is the podcast where I offer practical mindfulness tools
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_01: and mindset shifts designed to help us all thrive in our full actor lives.
• 0:16
  SPEAKER_01: Because we deserve to thrive in our full actor lives.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: We deserve and we frankly need to stay aligned with who we are,
• 0:24
  SPEAKER_01: what we want,
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_01: and why we choose to be actors
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: because those ideas are really what will keep us nourished and fed
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_01: and sustained throughout our long, long journey in the entertainment industry.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: Because the entertainment industry likes to wreak havoc on actor nervous systems
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_01: and actor life is full of stressful,
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: relentless,
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: Ups and downs, twists, turns,
• 0:51
  SPEAKER_01: full-on loop-de-loops,
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_01: everything that can be thrown at actors tends to get thrown at actors.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: And there's uncertainty,
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_01: there's rejection,
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_01: there's unpredictable urgency,
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_01: all of which will constantly test us and make us question, why are we doing this?
• 1:08
  SPEAKER_01: But we keep doing it because we love it.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_01: And the only way that we will survive in this profession long term is
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_01: if we are taking care of ourselves and finding effective ways to handle all of
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: the stress that just comes as a side serving with an actor life.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: We just can't help it.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's like, you know, you go to a diner and they're like, do you want French fries or fruit?
• 1:29
  SPEAKER_01: And you're like, I mean, you pick one of those.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: These things just come with the meal.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_01: You order it and you have to take the side of stress of being an actor.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_01: It's just how it goes.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_01: So today we have yet another clip from my interview that I did with Brian Zane.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_01: Some more Brian Zane awesomeness coming at you this week.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: And in this clip we talk about the energy of the thoughts that we think as actors.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_01: So some thoughts drain our energy.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_01: While others make us feel more energized.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: And this is actually something that I talked about on a previous episode of
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: The Aligned Actor podcast.
• 2:07
  SPEAKER_01: I believe it was in a walk and talk episode.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: And I was kind of just gathering my thoughts.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: It was kind of a rough draft of the whole thing.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: And so this is a continuation of that idea and that conversation
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_01: because Brian listened to that episode on my podcast and was like,
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: I want to talk about that.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: I want to hear more about that.
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: So we ended up talking about it more.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: And toward the end of the clip,
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: what's really fun is I actually guide Brian through
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: a neuro-linguistic programming exercise to help him release one
• 2:35
  SPEAKER_01: of his most exhausting actor thoughts.
• 2:38
  SPEAKER_01: And that was pretty fun.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: And I think he got a lot of benefit out of it,
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: and I hope that you get benefit out of it as well.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: So it's the kind of thing that you can play along at home
• 2:48
  SPEAKER_01: if you have your own actor, exhausting actor thought.
• 2:53
  SPEAKER_01: You'll be able to understand how to use that technique to help you gently release
• 2:57
  SPEAKER_01: that so that it doesn't drain your energy as much anymore.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_01: And if you want to experience our full conversation, and of course why wouldn't you?
• 3:06
  SPEAKER_01: You can find it linked up below,
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_01: either on Substack or in the show notes of the podcast.
• 3:13
  SPEAKER_01: You'll be able to find it.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's not too hard.
• 3:15
  SPEAKER_01: Also, Brian's podcast is called The Actor's Nervous System,
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: so you can always search up that on Apple Podcasts,
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_01: on Substack, on YouTube, anywhere that you like to get your podcasts.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_01: So, please enjoy our conversation today.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_01: I taught a class at the Los Angeles SAG-AFTRA Conservatory at their intensive weekend.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: I taught a class on actor energy.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: It was called Energy for Your Actor Life.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: And the idea was like, okay, so where is your energy going now as an actor?
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_01: And are there any things about that, where that energy is going that you want to change?
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_01: Like, do you want to delete anything?
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want to delegate anything?
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: Do you want to do it differently?
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_01: Whatever that thing is.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: Um, so looking at, like,
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_01: where the energy is going as an actor,
• 4:06
  SPEAKER_01: but then also as a whole human,
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: because you're not,
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: we sometimes think, like, oh,
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: I'm an actor,
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_01: and we get so hyper-focused,
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_01: and we forget that, like, yeah,
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: but we also have a sick dog,
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: and, you know, groceries that we need to buy, and all the other stuff of life.
• 4:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and that that also takes energy.
• 4:24
  SPEAKER_01: So looking at, like, everything and acknowledging all of it.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_01: And then, um, Looking at like, how do we get energy back?
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_01: And all of that is basically through good old fashioned self-care,
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_01: not the sort of commodified capitalistic kind of, you know, sell me self-care.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_01: Industry.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_01: It's not from the industry.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_01: It's like literally like, how do you, how can you, you know, get your, get better sleep?
• 4:52
  SPEAKER_01: How can you drink more water?
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: How can you eat Food that your body wants to eat, not,
• 4:59
  SPEAKER_01: you know, oh, follow this diet or do this specific thing or, you know, whatever.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_01: But like, pay attention, be a little mindful, like, oh, I do get energy from that food.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: That one, maybe not so much.
• 5:11
  SPEAKER_01: And one of the big things that I noticed in that,
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: in teaching that was that for,
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_01: at least for the participants that I had,
• 5:20
  SPEAKER_01: and I think I had about 12,
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_01: they didn't really talk a lot about The physical exhaustion of being an actor.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: They weren't like, oh,
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_01: I got to get up really early to go to set or I got to,
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_01: you know, you do acting class late at night.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_01: And so like it's, you know, it's four hours and I got to have energy to be able to do that.
• 5:41
  SPEAKER_01: It was thoughts.
• 5:43
  SPEAKER_01: It was how exhausting the thoughts of like,
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_01: oh, I think casting only watches the first 15 seconds of my self-tape.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_01: And that's exhausting to think about.
• 5:53
  SPEAKER_01: And I was like, yeah, that's exhausting to think about.
• 5:56
  SPEAKER_01: And I literally asked the person, I was like, do you want to keep giving that thought energy?
• 6:04
  SPEAKER_01: If that thought is draining your energy,
• 6:06
  SPEAKER_01: is that one you want to keep around kind of swirling in there?
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Or are you ready to maybe gently,
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: because I do understand and I have so much empathy for the fact that it is not easy
• 6:17
  SPEAKER_01: to just like, Get rid of that thought.
• 6:20
  SPEAKER_01: Don't think about that anymore.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: As soon as somebody says, don't think about that anymore, it's like all you can think about.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm always very gentle with people around like, yeah, that's a hard one.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_01: And you can begin the process of gently letting that go.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_01: Once you know that that thought is exhausting and I don't want to keep it around in
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_01: the system, I'd rather put my energy towards more energizing thoughts.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_01: Then, you know, you start sort of the gentle, that gentle process of letting it go.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_01: So in keeping with the theme around,
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_01: exhausting thoughts and,
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_01: how do we gently start the process of like,
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: okay, that one, that one is tiring and I don't need to keep it around.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_01: So do you have a thought that is tiring for you that you are ready to let go of?
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 7:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, my thought is I'm not far enough along in my acting career.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Oh, okay.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, that's a big one.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_01: That's probably pretty relatable to a lot of people.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so the way the auditory swish goes,
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_01: and this is a process that comes from neuro-linguistic programming,
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: which is not a mindfulness process.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_01: Thing necessarily, but they go hand in hand so nicely.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_01: So neurolinguistic programming basically is about how does the brain, how does the mind think?
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_01: How does it represent things to itself when we're in the process of thinking?
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_01: So as an example, if you, you know, you have a brain, right?
• 7:59
  SPEAKER_01: And if you cut open a brain,
• 8:01
  SPEAKER_01: you can see things in it,
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: but you can't Find in the brain,
• 8:07
  SPEAKER_01: in the lab, you can't find the taste of chocolate ice cream.
• 8:11
  SPEAKER_01: But if I say the taste of chocolate ice cream,
• 8:14
  SPEAKER_01: something happens in your brain that is sensory, right?
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_01: Like you can kind of, you maybe can taste chocolate ice cream, right?
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_01: So anyway, that's sort of a little bit of backstory on neuro-linguistic programming.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_01: But so this process called the auditory swish is basically you have a thought
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: that is the thought that you're wanting to work with,
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_01: that you're wanting to get rid of.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_01: So I don't feel like I'm far enough along in my career or something like that.
• 8:47
  SPEAKER_01: I forget exactly how you phrased it.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_01: But as long as you know, that's what's important.
• 8:51
  SPEAKER_01: So how this is going to work is you're going to start thinking that thought.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: And then step two, so step one is just recognizing, oh, I'm having that thought.
• 9:02
  SPEAKER_01: There's that thought again, right?
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_01: So you just notice it.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: Step two is you're going to create a swishing sound in your brain.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: So literally fill your mind with white noise.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_01: So you're just thinking.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: So that,
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: and you can do it,
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_01: for the first few times,
• 9:22
  SPEAKER_01: if you want to, you can actually vocalize that if that helps.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: But if you can just have that sound in your mind,
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_01: if you can produce that for yourself, that's fine too.
• 9:33
  SPEAKER_01: So you recognize the thought, then you shh to cut the thought off.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_01: And then we need a third thought, no,
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: not a third thought, a second thought.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: That is gonna be the replacement for it.
• 9:48
  SPEAKER_01: If this thought is very,
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_01: very sticky,
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: meaning it's been around for a long time and it's really hard,
• 9:55
  SPEAKER_01: feels like it's gonna be hard to let go of,
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: I wouldn't necessarily recommend,
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: a 180 on the thought of like,
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: I have the greatest acting career in the world or I'm
• 10:07
  SPEAKER_01: the most accomplished actor ever or whatever.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: But instead something Either more neutral or just something that you can get behind
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: as a belief.
• 10:22
  SPEAKER_01: So do you have an idea of what that might be?
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it could be like I'm growing each day as an actor.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 10:34
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: Okay, so it would go from I'm feeling behind in my career
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: I'm growing each day as an actor.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Does that thought give you more energy?
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yes.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: Great.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_01: So to practice this live,
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: normally what I do is I sort of just Get people figuring out what this is and
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: then I turn them loose.
• 11:04
  SPEAKER_01: But I feel like we could actually, because you kind of have to catch it in the moment, right?
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_01: You're probably not necessarily thinking that right now.
• 11:12
  SPEAKER_01: You're thinking like, oh, we're on this podcast.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_01: We're doing this work together, whatever.
• 11:17
  SPEAKER_01: But we can obviously manipulate the situation where you can practice letting
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: that thought come up You know, start,
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: you know,
• 11:26
  SPEAKER_01: you can even the first couple of times let it come all the way out and then go,
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_01: oh, there's that thought.
• 11:34
  SPEAKER_01: I'm growing every day as an actor.
• 11:36
  SPEAKER_01: Does that make sense?
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_01: Do you understand the parts, how they kind of work?
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_01: So I'm going to turn it over to you to let you,
• 11:47
  SPEAKER_01: you can vocalize whatever you want to vocalize or you could do it all internally,
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_01: whatever feels best for you.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_01: But go ahead and give it a try and then we'll discuss.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_01: So what happened for you?
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: I really did feel like an energy shift in the positive direction.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: I had the thought,
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: I did the shh,
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: and then when I thought the replacement thought,
• 12:46
  SPEAKER_00: I did feel it give me a physical lift.
• 12:49
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_01: And do you feel so right now you're controlling
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_01: the situation like you're you're intentionally bringing the thought up.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_01: Do you feel like you're going to be able to.
• 13:05
  SPEAKER_01: Probably the practice helped,
• 13:07
  SPEAKER_01: but do you feel like you're going to be able to now recognize that,
• 13:10
  SPEAKER_01: like, oh, there's that thought when you're out in the wild.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I think so.
• 13:15
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, just naming it and now when I see it, I'll, yeah,
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: I think it gives me a concrete strategy to be like,
• 13:23
  SPEAKER_00: okay, shh, and then go to the next thought.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: Cool.
• 13:27
  SPEAKER_01: I love that.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: I love that.
• 13:29
  SPEAKER_01: So, and this is,
• 13:30
  SPEAKER_01: as you might have guessed,
• 13:33
  SPEAKER_01: this is something, you know, you don't just use it for this thought.
• 13:36
  SPEAKER_01: You can rinse and repeat and use this on anything.
• 13:42
  SPEAKER_01: So you can have whatever the other thoughts are.
• 13:46
  SPEAKER_01: If you find yourself focused,
• 13:49
  SPEAKER_01: it's basically a refocusing technique that is similar to mindfulness in the sense
• 13:57
  SPEAKER_01: that in a formal mindfulness setting,
• 14:00
  SPEAKER_01: You know, we might notice that, oh, I'm not focusing on my breath.
• 14:03
  SPEAKER_01: I'm off in the future.
• 14:04
  SPEAKER_01: I'm thinking about, oh, what's the traffic going to be like when I drive to that audition?
• 14:08
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, we're not necessarily going, shh.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_01: But we're going, oh, oh, I'm in the future.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_01: Let me come back to my breath.
• 14:19
  SPEAKER_01: And we come back to our breath.
• 14:20
  SPEAKER_01: So it's the same sort of like, oh, I noticed.
• 14:24
  SPEAKER_01: And now I'm refocusing where I want to be focused.
• 14:27
  SPEAKER_01: That's how I find the parallels between the process and mindfulness.
• 14:34
  SPEAKER_01: But yeah, so it's a, I like it.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_01: It's a good, it's a good thought process, I think.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, no, I like,
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_00: I really like the white noise thing
• 14:42
  SPEAKER_00: because like sometimes up here it could feel like a radio
• 14:45
  SPEAKER_00: and they're switching stations or looping certain stations and you want to change
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_00: the channel
• 14:50
  SPEAKER_01: sometimes.
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: So yeah, that could really help.
• 14:54
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_01: And you'll notice you can't think You can't think other thoughts
• 15:00
  SPEAKER_01: when you filled your brain with shh.
• 15:04
  SPEAKER_01: It actually is a thought.
• 15:07
  SPEAKER_01: It's a sound,
• 15:08
  SPEAKER_01: but you fill your brain with something,
• 15:12
  SPEAKER_01: and then that thought that was plaguing you, it doesn't have space, right?
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 15:21
  SPEAKER_00: That's really cool.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Cool.
• 15:22
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm glad
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_01: you enjoyed it.
• 15:24
  SPEAKER_01: Thanks for playing along and testing it out.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much for joining me today.
• 15:30
  SPEAKER_01: If you found this content helpful and inspiring,
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_01: I'd be so honored if you would leave a comment,
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_01: share it with your actor pals, check out my offerings below.
• 15:38
  SPEAKER_01: And also, you can find out more about Brian Zane on his website, brianzane.com.
• 15:44
  SPEAKER_01: And you can also find his podcast,
• 15:46
  SPEAKER_01: The Actor's Nervous System,
• 15:48
  SPEAKER_01: here on Substack or pretty much anywhere that you like to listen to your podcasts.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_01: And you can also find clips of the podcast on Instagram and TikTok.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you so much, and I'll see you next time.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_01: Bye!