Renunciation – rejection – repudiation – abandonment – denial; these are very powerful words that often accompany how we feel inside after an audition that might not have gone as well as expected. Or perhaps you presented an amazing audition but still didn’t get the job or win the competition and start questioning what happened; what you did wrong. Or it could also show up at a family gathering during the holidays when the old emotional buttons start getting pushed.
Are you free and responsible enough to live by your belief in what is right for you without trying to conform or conversely over indulge in your emotions when something along your career path or life seems to take a dive? Being responsible doesn’t mean being held to account for the thoughts and actions of others. It means using your energy to continue being who you are at your very core; always continuing to look at each new situation for what it is, choose to take action or not as necessary, and never,never become attached to the outcome.
"Everyone has his burden. What counts is how you carry it." - Merle Miller
How do you see and experience yourself? This is an important question because when you put all that you have worked on and accomplished into an audition or social situation, you often leave out one of the most important elements of being at your very best at that particular moment. We often fall into the habit of defining ourselves by the external rather than remaining true to what is inside of us, what we know to be our truth. You might get programmed to identify yourselves with things that you are not. You can often “look” the part, have the most amazing PR Packet, can network well, follow-up with panache, run a great business and be the life of the party. But ---- how about the inside, what kind of relationship do you have with yourself? Does it creatively support what’s happening on the outside? Do you believe and run your internal thoughts and feeling by the sum of your memories or relationships with others? Are you afraid someone might find out your secret of not being enough?
I feel there can often be a great deal of personal misery caused by the tension between the public “You” and the profound sense of your inner, frequently unfulfilled self. And if you continue to identify yourself too much with the “public I” you become vulnerable – your identity may become shattered over and over again when you experience what you might be considered as a social or personal dismissal or when you have been passed over during the audition experience. You take it personally and it becomes just another bead on the long heavy string you carry around that contains memories of other instances of rejection or failure even if they have nothing to do with one another. It is just an illusion caused by attachment to that outcome you just experienced.
"It’s not what happens to you that determines how far you will go in life; it is how you handle what happens to you." - Zig Ziglar
Who’s in charge in there? Do you want to be the master over your own thoughts, feelings, needs and decisions? Then you have to awaken my friend, and live by the truth that you are more than a body with a thinking brain that continually allows external factors to pressure and stress you.
Here are the four ministers within yourself that you take advice and evidence from:
In our own little internal kingdom we can start accepting our limitations, so long as we don’t think of them as inevitable or insurmountable. Experience is always the best teacher so when you feel you have made a mistake or have failed at something, remember that it is just feedback. Rummage through it, find out what worked and what didn’t, where you might want to make some adjustments or plain old “just don’t do that again” kind of things, learn the lesson they offer and move on. When emotions threaten to bubble up rebelliously, we know that we can harness and transform them through the power of intellect. They are recognized and acknowledged, then allowed to pass through and beyond us, where they can do no harm.
When physical appetites tempt us, we know that we have the strength of mind and personality to resist this kind of addiction.
When criticized, we retain dignity and self-respect, rather than succumbing to defensiveness or anger.
After making a mistake or feeling a failure, we can quickly move through guilt and repentance and begin effectively and without delay start taking action if the situation calls for it, find the lesson within or look for a solution to the problem.
"Minds are like parachutes - they only function when open." - Thomas Dewar
If you are truly in control, you realize that everyone else has that same power which allows each of us to be a momentary constellation of perceptions, appetites, opinions, actions, thoughts, creativity, power, and memories. The value of this kind of recognition and acceptance is that you get to choose how you want to deal with your life as it unfolds. Who’s in charge in there, is a really important question that I hope will come to mind often as you tackle the emotional rush during this auspicious audition and holiday season. Give yourself the gift of being more of who you are than you have ever been before and know that being congruent and prepared internally will allow you to choose what’s best for you and do that on a consistent basis. It is your choice you know.
Ciao for now and happy holidays!
Carol
