being vulnerable

I moved to New York to be an actress. Performing in front of an audience is exhiliarating. There is this feeling of flow, of letting go, that nothing else in the world matters except connection. And, yet, when someone asks me what I do (because inevitably they’re going to ask, especially when you live in New York), for a while now I’ve felt a sense of doubt saying that I’m an actress.

A voice inside has been saying, “I’m not sure this is what I want.”

On the outside I’ve acted as though I know exactly what I want. But on the inside I’ve been scared–scared to even admit this voice exists to myself. If I let go of “actress,” there is nothing there to take its place.

About a year ago I started sharing my doubts, open and honestly.

It wasn’t until I saw this TedTalk wth Brene Brown that I had a name for it: I was being vulnerable.

Vulnerability: a place I hadn’t let myself live, particularly when it came to my career. And there was power in this. A magical thing happened. Friends, strangers began opening up, too. One friend said she felt like we were living parallel lives, that everything I was saying was giving a name to her feelings, that perhaps we could support eachother in this journey. Another actress friend having been at the same day job for years started an impromptu job search after our talk. She said she wasn’t sure if she really considered herself an artist, that maybe she was really just a patron of the arts. These are friends I’ve known for years, and we had never discussed these feelings.

This is what prompted me to write. It wasn’t merely wanting to track my own exploration–I could do that in a private journal. But rather, by sharing my feelings open and honestly, by being vulnerable, that maybe others would open up to their own inner questions and share right along with me. This is permission for you to share doubts, uncertainties, fear (whatever they may be) with a friend, on your own blog, or even here in the comments.