Episode 228: Control and the Actor

Ken Rea's Outstanding Actor Workshop Wendy Alnutt Class Last week I talked about the potential writer's strike, and I also talked about control. This is a business of practicing self-control. But what I think is far healthier is really learning how to keep the focus on ourselves.  The Language of Letting Go "Control. Many of us have been trying to keep the whole world in orbit with sheer and forceful application of mental energy. What happens if we let go? If we stop trying to keep the world orbiting and just let it whirl? It'll keep right on whirling. It'll keep right on whirling. It'll stay right on track with no help from us. And we'll be free and relaxed enough to enjoy our place in it."  "Control is an illusion. Especially the kind of control we've been trying to exert on our acting career." Your exercise for this week is to list out what are the things that I am trying to control in my acting career that will happen whether I try to control them or not. Writing things down. And seeing them with our own eyes. Teaches us more wisdom. To be smarter to access our higher knowledge.  How many times did I think, "Oh my God, am I going to get a callback for that?" How many times have I thought, "Oh my God, am I going to get that role?" How many times have I thought those kinds of things? Did it affect the outcome? Of course, it didn't. All it did was it drove me crazy at that moment when I could have been enjoying the day when I could have been present. When I could have been listening to higher knowledge and maybe hearing about guidance for something else that was going to come through for me. How much of my life do I miss? Because I'm trying to control the uncontrollable.  "Whatever we try to control does have control over us and our life. I have given this control to many things and people in my life. I have never gotten the results I wanted from controlling or trying to control other people. What I received from my efforts is an unmanageable life, and I will add an unmanageable mind, whether it's whether that unmanaged ability was inside of me or in external events. It just makes everyone crazy. I trade a life where I have tried to control to receive something better. And that thing that I receive by giving up control is a life that is manageable." A manageable mind is something that needs to be earned. And the only person we can earn it from is ourselves.