Category: Projects

Kitchen

Letting go of….my Implants

By

The producer and star of the next play I was going to be in, cornered me in my tiny kitchen in my NYC apartment and looked at me and said…” The Director is concerned about your breasts.”

He had just gotten a full view of them that evening while I was portraying Helen of Troy and protesting who couldn’t want “these” and pulled my top down.

It was closing night for Helen of Troy …so looking back …I probably heard those words more as HELEN than Susie when I heard this NOTE. but both Susie’s drive and Helen’s passion became determined to FIX the problem.

I went home to Miami and went to a doctor. He suggested a lift but I didn’t want scars
( ya know topless scenes and all) and so I said what are my options and there you have it..I got my boobs. I always loved big boobs but honestly the moment I saw them on me I knew they weren’t mine but my mom told me to wait it out..I did..some 18 years)

I ended up NEVER returning to NYC after the surgery…

Instead I ended up getting married and having kids

( THANK GOODNESS- if I would go get bibs ha I mean BOOBS for a role what else was a I capable of doing for a part?)

The boobs served me well in Miami and I learned to love them and use them to the best of my abilities until after the second kid was 11 I realized I Have fully and truly waited it out…and I was finished being the SEXY SUSIE – I wanted something else and thus these BOOBS they had to go.

It took a while to find the right Doctor that would allow me to process out the way I needed. From a draining of the saline to the explanation to the lift. ( she is still convinced I won’t be happy and will return in a year for the implants because she knows how many other women can’t go the long hall without the power of those boobies…a fix that once you experience you KNOW what your are REALLY missing out on )

But since MY boob explanation was part of a fuller journey of self it has a platform to rest on. I have other desires that demand NOT FAKE anything and in that I have become super content with my tiny ta tas- they are not in the way and allow me to move through the world without too much MALE GAZE from men and WOMEN…

That song Tits and Ass is TRUE- 100% and I am happy I found it out myself and was able to undue it for myself as well.

Kitchen

Letting go of… the Male Gaze

By

No Home for the Feminine

About a year and a half ago I learned I wanted to hang out with ONLY WOMEN-

– I was working on a play about the intense relationship between Bettie Page and Bunny Yeager and I started to feel that they used their sexuality to get ahead and in that I realized they were quite cruel to themselves and others and maybe I was too.

The Male Gaze revealed itself to me and I wanted to explore the impact it had on my life. How was a using and being used by the Male Gaze

The question was where in my life can I be go to AVOID IT?

I wanted to know the value of speaking directly to a group of women.

I considered FACEBOOK-

I spent a day removing 500 men from my facebook page, including my husband and what I found was that over the course of the year I was able to be more sincere in my videos…without placing the air of Secuality on what I was doing…in order to give it value…( something I didn’t realize I have always done)

I found that most of my life I have used my sexuality as a crutch or a sword to gain position and now speaking to women..I began to see who I was without that GAZE- without the need to implore my sexual energy to gain attention.

My facebook videos become super honest and direct and I started to see a softer version of Susie in the public eye and it was refreshing and freeing.

This understanding that I was powered and empowered through the MALE GAZE led me on a personal journey to unplug form it in every way and to every degree I could without sacrificing my authentic self.

IT took a year but I believe I have explored a life without the gaze and the detox of being without it and the joy of knowing the addiction of it and the calmness of not needing it or wanting it as I know it is a doorway to a path I have fully explored.

I yearn for newness in my life now-

S

Kitchen

Letting go of… bibbitec

By

The bibbitec bib that I created and took to Shark Tank.

THANK YOU FOR YOUR SUPPORT….
It was a beautiful ride….

It took a while to tear myself off of bibbitec and let my true self return to acting and such other purely creative endeavors…funny how we can fake ourselves out so much that we believe our own dares.

but here was the signs and the cues.

During bibbitec …I never felt secure

Now in my acting I am confident and kind and secure and that tells me…I am in my flow I am in my passion and I am fine being fine. I am also not miserable…I am happier and kinder and much more relaxed.

Thank you for everyone who purchased my bib..I still think it is an amazing product and I am happy I did it..
sometimes you have to go left in order to know you had to go right and sometimes we have to remind ourselves about this…a few times along the journey..

XOXO

Kitchen

Letting go of … PERFORMING

By

Me Myself and I
I studied acting in school since I was in 5th grade. I loved it. Learning how to become another person was fascinating to me and I became an expert at it.

The reason I am not going to “perform” ever again is that it is based on lying and deception. A tool that has allowed me to grow OFF my center. Off my Authentic point.

Learning to become another person to the best of your abilities is freeing as it allows you to look back on your OWN character with new perspective. THe issue is when you PLAY the CHaracter so long that you have forgotten which is the real YOU- the real authentic self.

Charge is powerful- wether it comes from applause or likes or money- It helps you feel like you are alive. THe problem is that sometimes that charge is plugged into the wrong outlet – not LOVE – but rather PAIN- FEAR- SEX- and you are simply creating a FALSE version of yourself.

The healing art of acting -when used to let go of characters rather than add characters is a beautiful tool for me- a process I enjoy sharing with people who desire to KNOW THEMSLEVES FULLY AS WELL.

Kitchen

Letting go … about the S.U.R.F. Process

By

THe story -the way we connect to ourselves, to each other, to our past and to our future seems like the logical place to start when you want to let go of pain in your life. G0 to the point of entry.

But GO as An actor Goes towards a role. With a notebook and curiosity and lots of respect and love for the story. If you judge it the story will go fuzzy.

I love using music and movement and it has been how I healed ALL my pain. I am not angry or angst UNLESS something enters into my immediate life and it is not for me- THEN I get angry and angst and I address that STORY ASAP. BUT there are no layers involved usually- it is just a toxin that came in and because my air is clean I feel it and it bothers me…and I try and get it out ASAP.

This process came to me through my own personal experiences and yesterday I was pointed in the direction of narrative Psycology and from what I read this is the umbrella of what I came to realize and explore in my SURF MEthod.

As an actor trained to hold story to access emotion I eventually found this troubling when my own father past away and I was holding the pain and the injury and counldn’t understand why I wasn’t letting go.

What was revealed to me was that I was trained to use pain as motivation. Anger as inspiration and I believe now that our society has absorbed this training in our content and as a society are being programmed through our PROGRAMS to do the same.

Subconsciencly i couldn’t let go of the pain because my internal actor was harboring it in her tool kit. I finally found this story within myself and kindly and softly sat down with HER and said. Listen…even if we never act again you can’t carry this pain with you my love, you Won’t make it. She released that was a truth and though my SURF movement process slowly and thus the idea of relief set in.

I learned through this idea personally and by training others that empathetic acting is much more interesting but the only way to insure you aren’t hurting yourself and others by “USING IT” ( a line in acting to tap into your pain and use it for your role) is to know you have cleaned your plate of all the HYPER CHARGE STORIES you have..

LEtting go of anything that you hold as a version of WHO YOU ARE is what this is about and many people do not SEPERATE the STORY from theirselves. If feels like a death, a MELTING away and even having been doing it for years it never gets easier but the process goes faster and the relief lasts longer.

Last night I followed a sign and went to a movement studio in MIami called the Republic of Movement and as we began the first game A smile crossed my face…I found a gold nugget that is in the movement itself kind and not demanding and honest and not forced. Exactly what I have internally found within myself.

MY question was- How do you move from GRACE…well last night I found out…Beautifully and Slowly.

Kitchen

Letting go of…Your Story

By

I was the lead in a play a few years ago and during one final run before we opened I made an internal independent decision to make the character more forgiving.

After the run we sat for our notes and our director just stood there. All the hard work we had rehearsed the past three week was gone. Nothing. He was not even mad it seemed he was just helpless.

Before he began to give the notes I raised my hand. I said, “ That was my bad.” He looked at me and said “Thank you for being able to own that and never do that again.”

See-

None of the other actors could play their part because I wasn’t playing mine. The DRAMA we were trying to play out became a light hearted story. Not what the director was going for-

Change your ROle Change the Genre of your story.
We can’t remove stories in our lives. That would be more of a denial situation and can get really dangerous but we can decide to change our role in the story as soon as possible.

Try playing the Character that doesn’t allow the other actors to play against you.

The STORIES stay the same but your part in them shifts and if you are willing to let go of

How can you do this in your own DRAMAs?

CAn YOU make an independent internal decision to be a more forgiving character in one of your Stories?

Would that be so bad? What would you gain? What would your loose?
What Role would you be and would that be OK? Woul should still exist if you chose a different motivation?

LOVE SUSIE