I have questions…

What else is new?

But the question today is, how far forward do you lean?

It’s a big one.

I truly believe leaning INTO the space between is where the collaboration happens: with your teacher, your coach, your craft, your music learning, your dramatic discovery….

But when is it too far?

As annoying as it is, many of us are people-pleasers. And, in that vein, we tend to, consciously or not, lean so far forward that we release ourselves to become what we think someone else wants, demands, expects.

From a lifetime of experience, I can tell you right here, right now, it never works. It always backfires. Trust me.

So, what do you do?

Release the desperate-isms. ESPECIALLY NOW. We have all been in the same storm. You have the opportunity to shape the next into whatever you want to, including how you lean, with whom you lean, and why.

The industry can learn to lean in too. You simply have to make it happen from your end. You don’t need to lean so far forward, that you lose yourself in the process. No more of that. No more of changing yourself to please someone else, to appease their whims. It never works long term. Ever. And especially now.

You have an opportunity to lean in as you want to be seen. You have the opportunity to stay pliable within the boundaries YOU set. You have the opportunity to never have to change yourself for someone or something that is asking you to do it. EVER.

If the first response/reaction you have as you lean, is “what do you need from me?” STOP.

You need to know from where you are leaning. If you don’t anchor yourself in what you have, who you are, how you are, what you want them to see, what you choose to reveal, then you are never going to feel settled, nor fulfilled.

Lean forward ONLY when you know what your boundaries are. Only when you are fully aware of what you are anchoring from. The expectation is that “the other” will lean forward to meet you, and that’s when the collaboration happens!

You should never be expected to lean so far forward that you lose yourself. Ever.

So, as you begin the momentum again within your artistic life in motion, please release the desperation. Please trust that you are enough. Please ask questions. Please release the panic. We are all in it together. We will build things together.

The permission you give yourself to reveal what you do, who you are, how you are is YOURS and only yours.

Find that grounded-ness each day. Recognize and acknowledge when you begin pulling off that; when you begin to apologize; when you start adjusting or changing for someone or something else and ask yourself why?

Know how you are leaning, when you are leaning, and why you are leaning.

Then simply readjust your balance and carry THAT into the room!

with fondness & fierceness,