Tag: authentic self

Marriage

20 years and so?

Marriage is this…is this very slippery slope you are trying to navigate…to where…I suspect a look out…a viewpoint…a moment when you can access the distance you achieved. Or so I thought.

Marriage I have found in my 20 year of becoming a married woman….is about reflection…a house of mirrors you can’t escape that you eventually ( maybe) begin to feel the need to just sit down in….see the versions of you and realize…this is a truth…

maybe not you one you wished to expose
maybe not the one you thought you’d maintain the entire two decades
maybe not even a version of a person you would hug in the street but
you just the same

if you are able to receive that…a group of impressions from a person and their family and your family of who you are… then you stay married

If you can’t
If other people’s inability to totally see you whole tortures you…
I suppose ( like I have often toyed with ) RUN

RUN The hell out of anything that offers you broken versions of your perfection.

I have come to understand my kinder mirror is in nature…in the ocean and in the trees.

They care not what your camera captures.
They know not of what light allowed the golden rule to exist
they care nothing

And they–like me— respect others limited perspective….limited viewpoint…
and i …i soften my gaze –blur my vision and
feel
feel myself. we FEEL just FINE and that…that new understanding of a FINE TUNED PERSON……
sits still in the joy of her achievement…
sits anywhere on that slippery slope and realizes as she places her hands on the ground…

it was all a perspective…the ground has been leveled -the road clear and only the internal chaos has murkied the playing field.

Marriage is what you make it…
just like anything else you do in your life

So 20 years just given a spiritual handshake

Yes the sky is what you say it is Pertrucio
and yes I KATE have become a married woman
and what of that.

A place to hold my chair to sit and mediate to take a breath.
a touchstone.

My marriage is my touchstone……

to the next 20

S

Kitchen

Chord Cutting

Have you heard of this? I was just told that my friend did a CHORD cutting ceremony. I was listing to the description of what she did and I said to myself and perhaps out-loud, that is my class. My class is about getting to a place in myself to both cut chords and allow others to attach. It is more of a puppet thing than anything else. I am the puppet, these are my chords and these are now cut and now I look for other chords other strings to hold me up and what I have found ..
I have found that WHAT those strings are attached to makes all the difference.

Attache them to a person and there will always be a possibility of disappointment, Attachment to an idea and there is a chance that idea may cease to serve you BUT if you attach it to you… how I see it is a go into my song with a hook attached within me…I do the piece as I move through the STORY i find where the hook is attached and in what angle and with kindness I remove the hook. Then I take the hook and I re-hook it…I reattach it…I sort of place it in my heart and say….ok what if I was connected here on this story to my self – to my heart…what would that look like and most often…I awake form my piece and I feel freedom from everything and self sustaining energy and clarity but fresh and new and vulnerable clarity. NOT yet knowing of how powerful it is but I know this journey.. I have done this with thousands of people and stories and lies and versions of Self. I have become accustomed to letting myself go in order to find true self hooking into myself..

As artist form the theater and film world start to take a closer look on the way we create my need to question it goes quieter and I find myself in a NEW space in a new conversation with OLD friends that are new to me but old to my soul and the conversation is brought to me…offered to me and I say wow. Someone is talking ME to ME…and I feel joy and my lines vanish and my worry for why no one ever defended me disappears as I count the thousands of hooks I placed back into my heart to guide me and pull me home and I say..i BELIEVE in YOU…I can depend on you…If you fall I will catch YOU I will be waiting….TIME AFTER TIME.

xo
s

SURFing Process

F$%K … Recasting

In my process of getting out of character (SURF) the hardest part for ME is recasting. It is the point where I know what I am doing is perpetuating pain and I have to change but the question is what and how and where and when.
And i am not moving…not doing my class…no studio…just tried to get time at little Haiti and one door was locked- one was taken and the theater was setting lights as i heard the sound and knew there was someone in the light booth..

Where is ALONE….

Today i realized that

I have wanted my own artistic VOice for a long while and I have it and it is so strong that it isn’t letting me work with anyone or any company or any message that isn’t on the same path.
THUS it has become clear that it is…
dibiulitaing to me NOT to have my own company…

Knowing what I can’t do without causing me pain pushing me into a corner of the ONE and ONLY thing I Can do.

Officially establish my company
My PLACE to do MY work and work with like minded creative that are in line with ME…

Artist that are here to spread LOVE
Not pain
Artist that are healed or demand to try and be
Artist that let go and move on and forgive
Artist that take responsibility
Artist that have empathy
Strong ALPHA voices that have vision and alphaness
People who can hold me

I am heading to the graphic designer to create the SURF logo
So i can take my freind up on talking at the chamber and introduce officially to the city my company. My Artistic Company

I can set a date for the next show and how stories are our passions…seeing the story you are in and choosing to shift what is needed form your position and with those you live with so that you can have a better version of your story…pas-present and future.

Transforming through performance…

So my a issue in my tissue is that i am an amazing pleaser and I have to stop activating that becasue it is not aligned…I am pleasing others before myself and that is never a good thing. I can’t do it anymore and this last part – the accommodating – I have no time for that-

This is the year of pleasing Susie…If it pleases me…

Now I must lift weights and strengthen my core-

solidification

RECASTING AS
A strong older woman with wrinkles and a voice!
Cue the kitchen walls as they fall open like a house of cards and the world is revealed and I am free- Flowing and forgiven.

List
Logo for SURF
Trademark name
Class and process
Venue for Edinbough

S

Kitchen

Hello …Hoʻoponopono

The prayer of Ho’oponopono is as I learned it to let go of the TIDES the generational pain you carry so as to not transfer them to the next one. IT is based on the idea of the lineage of emotional pain.

You say the name of the person that you have an “issue with” ( past or present
Then say
Please forgive me
I am sorry
I love you
Thank you

You will find that it is difficult for you to do for certain people and those are the people you need to keep saying this to until you don’t have difficulty doing it.

For me it was like I was slowly releasing  myself from a rope that was tied around my neck and with each repetition over time it was a thread that broke until I was free and so was the person I did the prayer for…

THe prayer is Hawaiian and it was given to me by a Reike teacher who told me to say it for the people I claim have hurt me. At the time the list was long. I was late 30ths and I had a colorful life and in it there were missteps but the thing about this prayer, for lack of a better word is that it changed the villain from them to me…it gave me a sense of responsibility in the relationship because for one reason or another I was still holding onto it in a negative way. IT needed a correction if I wanted to be set free and who better to set yourself free than your own self.

It was about ME asking for forgiveness of the “people who wronged me” and in that I slowly began to realize that I had created extended pain and stress in my body by holding others in their characters—-their roles in my life. My negative thoughts had warm homes becasue I gave them that place in my body. I allowed them there..THis was a wonderful key that unlocked my own ability to negotiate my thought process and since then…I try to immediately release negative thoughts and then use that grace toward my own desires or destiny…

This energy we have is strong and when you speak ill of someone you can indeed maintain the “pull” that story you are telling yourself has on you.

The wild thing i learned from this experience was that I am NOT my stories or my experiences…I can let them go through forgiveness and movement and in the end I find that I am what I think about…who I see and how I do what I do.

My stories are justification…beliefs that only mean as much as we lean on them

Look at your life, your daily habits- you are all those thoughts and those things…

if you are thinking nastly thoughts about others and yourself…then you are  dare I say nasty person… becasue I have come to learn that being kind means… you can address those thoughts in your own head..and heart…and spend time trying to see the situation from as many angles as possible so that YOUR point of view is just ONE of them and not the only one.

Then you begin to dilute your Nasty thoughts and ask them kindly to leave because as long as you have them… you are them…

I know this because I have spent the last 5 years walking though my life and although I am not friends with everyone in my life..i hold no ill will to anyone…no matter what happened between us and I have asked forgiveness if not personally then spiritually as often as I can until I feel I let them go or vis a versa… because Karma is a boomerang and unless you let people go from what they “did” to you” you will hurt them …maybe more that they ever hurt you and then WHO is the VIllain?

Be sweet because you can…and the world needs that now…don’t be nasty or mean or sarcastic…because it is overplayed…

Be the one that is ok and if you can’t be OK then go and work on trying to be…one relationship at a time.

Xo
S

Kitchen

An Actor’s Approach to Letting go of a Character to Avoid Personal Psychological Concussions

As an actress I devoted myself to years of intensive training that taught me how to embody any type of character I wanted to portray. The training was based around the concept of tapping in to a thought or belief within my personal life experience that I could then manipulate and repurpose to say and do things that would be convincingly portrayed via a character to the audience. This style of training is successful, yet I also find it capable of causing psychological concussions. Concussions caused by stitching your own personal experiences into the material of a character so seamlessly that you struggle to remember where you end, and your character begins. In my intensive training I was never taught how to tear apart the seams, to separate, to let go, to get out of the character and back in to myself and only myself. I find the omission of this additional training to “fall out of character” fascinating since the ability to let go of a character is part of being able to get another job. So, why wasn’t I taught that? I have my theories!

These physiological concussions are creating repercussions on actors and the society they help mold. The ability to go in and out of a belief system or physical world of one character and into the belief system of another is powerful, playful and at times dangerous. It can be noted in Jim Carey’s documentary, Health Ledger’s experience playing the Joker and Denzel Washington’s journey in Fences to name a few. We should suspect there are countless others if we all dared to look, or they dared to tell. With such a negative social stigma on mental illness it is not safe in the world of acting to admit such a thing, a mental weakness of losing the ability to identify self from character. Perhaps we would train our actors to be better equipped for the life of an actor if we can accept the risks of the business and the management of rewards from success. Leaving yourself open and vulnerable to people in the business, as well as the embodied characters, is dangerous and steps should be made to be more honest with this truth. Perhaps at the very least offer early counsel to parents and talented young souls of where a career in acting can lead.
Much like football we all watch the entertainment with little or no concern for the players. If we cared too much the game lose its luster. As a culture we would have look for another option of entertainment which may not be hard to do however, it would still require a shift in culture. We are starting to hear the desperate concerns from players and their families regarding the long-term ailments from early and repeated concussions. It was only recently that the football world mentioned this and yet it was a known issue, but they would just put the players back on the field until it was publicly addressed.
I love acting and have decided to teach it even though I feel my career as an actor was demonstrative and toxic to my life. I was greatly affected by the psychological concussions caused by acting and they were a heavy burden. They not only impacted many aspects of my life but those of my husband and children as well. The burden was so much to bare and the continual negative outcomes from the concussions created an environment so toxic that I couldn’t maintain a healthy and fulfilling work-life balance. I decided to leave the profession and focus all my love and compassion to raising my children. As my children have grown and their independence has matured I found myself with an opportunity to return to acting which lead to teaching acting.
To part surprise and part dismay I returned only to be haunted by the ghost of the characters I had embodied. Sometimes they are helpful by giving me skills I had yet to learn and other times, because I was a method actor, they put my whole family and everything we had built on the chopping block. How could this be happening even after taking a ten-year long hiatus from the profession? I have pondered this for quite some time and believe it is because of the way I was trained to set up a story for the character and how to format the character. The format demands the character be present in my own life. It parallels a bad habit, an addiction, that now becomes something you must contend with in your own life.
I found myself captivated with the practice of acting and the aspect of movement. I began to create my own concept of training that keeps the acting skills at the forefront of character development but also provides guidance on returning the actor back to neutral- home again, to fully self-identify and unstitch the seam they created to embody their character of choice. My concept is successful and yet my concept creates a dilemma. It is contradictory to the training that many other teachers in my department implement. They rely on the same techniques I was subjected to in my formative years to get the actors to tap in to a very personal place to format a character, yet they do not intend or advise them on the absolute necessity to peel that character away when they are through with the act.
Another challenge I am currently facing is where, do we as teachers, draw the line of acceptable behavior from an actor who has failed to disembody a character? A male student acted out a scene where he portrayed an abusive lover. This actor himself is believed to have attacked a fellow actress at the school. The actress had to leave because of the trauma from the alleged attack. The faculty is aware of the attack and has opted to allow such behavior to happen in the name of artistic expression. Failing to distinguish a realistic attack versus one that was allegedly performed under guise of acting. They can’t seem to distinguish the actor from the character because their belief in the formation of a character doesn’t require such separation.
Parents should question the use of their money being spent on such practices? Are we as teachers at any point obligated to nurture character formation yet also teach the limit of the actions of a character? I have brought my concerns to the school faculty, but the consensus is that no action is required on behalf of the school. I hypothesize that the concepts they rely on to train actors use pain as talent and they refuse to try and find another way to format characters. The issue is that the actors must KNOW THYSELF-know home, self-identify and even more so be taught to know themselves as to create a more defined boundary between them and the character.
Many actors enjoy acting for the opposite reason, it keeps them away from self. If they wear a mask, then there is somewhere to hide physically and emotionally all the while never creating the environment to mature in to their own personal selves. My concept of training teaches the actors to be whole people who have healed their own anger by learning how to get out of character. Know who they are and recognize the natural paths of their own personal maturity. Understand that they are powerful and must respect their abilities or they will become part of the problem. An open and willing actor can find themselves being used and manipulated emotionally without any concern for what they are enduring. Thus, subjecting themselves and those around them to the emotional and psychological concussions from acting. They return to other players in the profession such as agents and managers who don’t delve in to the intentions or practices of the director nor care to, if the actor is getting roles and providing a profit regardless of what those roles represent and the concussions that they are likely to cause.

Kitchen

Hello…Content

Hello Content-

It feels like getting a massage but a soft tissue one where Nothing feels like it is happening.

That is what CONTENT- feel like…and FLOW is that with a soft wind at my back…

It is a flow state and it is hard to manage IF you don’t respect it. Honor it…

It has taken me a while to simply enjoy the GO WITH THE FLOW but this past summer I became aware of what it feels like, who challenges it in my life and what I do to Sabotage it and why.

Let me walk through it using the SURF process
Four steps that are taken if desired softly.

S- I am in flow- the world is providing me with everything I need at every moment
U- I understand that being micro managed in other peoples homes is tough and makes me want to have my OWN vacation home- something to grab onto-
A fellow actor offers me a role in a film he is doing about an unhappy wife who brow beats her husband and I take it without a thought. Jump at it- FAST and WITHOUT CONSIDERATION…a high comes over me and a feeling of aggression towards anything that is FLOW or building or helping comes over me..I instantly have NO patience for being KIND and I get angry and sad…
R- I think about the feeling and walk around it and quiet it…and then the guy in the film backs out and I slowly think about it and back out as well and then this cool peaceful feeling—saying NOT to acting like a jerk in someone else’s story.
F- THe wind is bare able again and I smile at my mom and my husband and my family and I am content…

Kitchen

Hello SHARKS

Dear Mr. Wonderful

I never got to thank you. I am not sure if you even remember me. I was standing in front of you back in 2013 pitching my idea for bibbitec bibs and you told me to “take it behind the barn and shoot it!”

Thank you for two things-
FIrst because when I started laughing hysterical you clapped your hands together and reminded me “This is serious!”
What happened next was that my actor sensibilities kicked in and then I began to cry. We call it NEW CHOICE in the acting world.

My pitch became very emotional at that point and I think that is actually why our episode even aired to begin with no to mention the dozens of times since. Thank you!

Second: You were right. I think what I couldn’t get past was that I was mushing a whole bunch of things together. I was trying to be taken seriously as a person and so I wanted the product to be that way when indeed it could have been much more simple. The embroidery and the stitching which is what drove the cost up and the most complicated aspect of the bib was not a necessity. It did not help the kids stay clean and I could have seen the bib as the functional tool it was and kept it all in that arena.

I am going to try and take your advice in my way. Drop the product down to simplicity, cut the cost in my way without cutting the quality that makes the bib WORK and I am going to give it one more go in my own way.

I adore you- I think you are wonderful. I know you play the “mean” guy and I understand why.  Resistance is important in drama but under it all I adored you.

Last time I saw you I was walking by you in a bathing suit while you were on a call on the Beach and I didn’t recognize you at all. My friend did- She said- Isn’t that Mr. Wonderful and as I turned and saw you I said…why YES….Yes it is….

Love Susie

Dear Daymond…

Remember when you asked me to step forward alone. Leaving Steve e behind me? Remember you said you would only be dealing with one of us and I was the one you were going to be dealing with? Remember you asked me HOW MUCH? How much more I was going to put in. At the time. At that moment in time I was freaking out.

I felt like perhaps I would get a deal if I mentioned the right thing. If I said EVERYTHING..If in-fact me being on Shark Tank wasn’t my end goal as an angry mother who bought crap products and wanted to prove to parents they were making them on purpose…if that wasn’t my goal..I would have said…Whatever I NEED TO..but the point was.. I was already DONE. I had achieved the goal and getting you involved along with the whole FAMILY wasn’t going to work out.

The reason was I wasn’t in control at all. I had no ability to hold my voice and my desire to work with people was part of my desire to be liked and loved not deserted and well I can go on and on…

But the point is that you have taught me so much. I have watched several of you conversations and read books you Recommend and even your own story of trying three times inspires me..

I am now at this point where I have the patent for a few more years. I have awareness of self and I am not using this product to prove how valuable I am And I am over wanting to NOT be deserted..

I have worked through so many of my issues that I think I can step up again and say..whatever I need to do…without causing me stress. That is what I am willing to give.

I adore you Daymond and will always be grateful to you.

Dearest Barbara-

I am not sure if you remember what you said to me and I kind of hope you don’t. It was pretty aggressive and harsh..even if it had a bit of truth in it. It was not what I thought you and I would discuss..and how it would go down.

Basically you told me I was a poor excuse for a woman…in not so many ways and although it never made it past the cutting room floor I have to say it was a really aggressive comment.

I know it was TV and I know you were doing your job but I was, not my insecure child ego, was really thrown by that.

I know you are a tough business woman and I respect all you have done but my approach is different, I am not fierce in the ways you are and well..I wanted to say that as the only woman on the panel that day I thought you would have had my back-

But looking BACK i guess you too were playing your role and in the end you said I could sell it through a network of MOMs which I found interesting seeing that you just insulted my MOMMINESS-

Anyway… I wanted to just saw that is was pretty sever the way you spoke it to me and how you insulted my personage and I knew and know it is only for TV and such but I was really there. I wasn’t acting…that much…;) I was trying to be sincere and in that moment being insulted by a woman hurt the most…because in the end we know where the tendon to the jugular is and we go there.

Men in my life have never gotten to me as much as the women have…and that is something ..

S

Dear Cuban,

First of all you are the only one that didn’t say anything mean to me except that I wasn’t the one to run the company. I was too emotional maybe..yeah…I was. I couldn’t separate business from my self value and I was way too concerned about trying to keep the concept I had..

It was kind of you to agree with me…tell me that selling directly to customers online for the price I was asking was fine.

Since the back end in the past several years has gotten even more streamlined I am going to go back to doing the company like you said. Considering once we left Shark TAnk, my partners took me to trade shows and convinced me we should hit the stores..I lost interested and let my interest wain and now a few years later – it is JUST me myself and I –

I have no emotion connected to this project..perhaps a diluted sense of passion mixed with purpose mixed with flow…

I am going to try again at this little simple Idea. I am going to play with it…from the position I think you seem to take. WHY NOT. And a smile that seem to brighten up the whole world.

Thank you for that faith you had in my vision. And even though you pointed to me and told me NOT YOU I am happy to say that the person you pointed at has grown up in these past few years and I think….we…YES ME.

Xo susie

Dear Robert,

I am just adding you into this series because in the end you said you were scared of my husband suing you. I agree he is a tough and will defended his wife at any cost….
Smart move!

S

Kitchen

Letting go …of Botox

I tried Botox a few years ago. It was great all my lines disappeared and my age went down at least five maybe even ten years. It was amazing…the first time when it went well but the constant returning to the Dr’s office became a drag.

“ THose lines must be driving you crazy” She comes toward me with a vile of relief and the movement of this repetitive action begins to scrape at my internal chord. My chord that was growing stronger..or wanted to. THe desire to know myself.

I decided to try and see what life was like without it…it sucked I grew ten years older over night and felt the power of my prowess dissolve. I expected the frequency of the Male Gaze to drop but it was the female smirks I was now receiving.

Lines on anyone’s forehead are starting to drive people crazy it seems and trying to communicate with loved ones whose expressions were limited was beginning to bother me.

I have chose to explore the road… as best I can… without FAKE things in me. Without limiting my movement and without disgracing my experiences. I am ok- I can’t say I am fully at FLOW with it- but I believe it is the aging process more than anything.

I google reasons not to do it just to keep me centered in the journey but it is harder than I imagined. Becoming OLD in Miami at a day and time when youth and the young hold the power.

I suppose it is part of letting go of a power that perhaps wasn’t mine to begin with because in the end your can’t loose what was never yours.

S

Kitchen

Letting go of … PERFORMING

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

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.