The Aligned Actor

In this episode, we’re once again practicing mindfulness and in keeping with what we talked about in the episode about mindfulness misconceptions, I’m going to introduce you to a practice where your mind will definitely not be clear (we’re going to intentionally give it some very specific thoughts to think) and we’re only going to practice for less than 1 minute at a time.We’re actively dispelling the misconceptions that you have to stop thinking and you have have to meditate for a long time in order to be practicing mindfulness.A 10-Count Moment of MindfulnessThis is what I call A 10-Count Moment of Mindfulness and it’s a very simple way to start your mindfulness practice.All you’re going to do is count your inhales and exhales up to 10. You’ll count “One” as you inhale, “Two” as you exhale, “Three” as you inhale, “Four” as you exhale, and so on all the way up to ten.Go ahead and give it a try right now.* Count “One” as you inhale.* Count “Two” as you exhale.* Count “Three” as you inhale.* Count “Four” as you exhale.* Count “Five” as you inhale.* Count “Six” as you exhale.* Count “Seven” as you inhale.* Count “Eight” as you exhale.* Count “Nine” as you inhale.* Count “Ten” as you exhale.That’s it. Once again, you practice mindfulness and you did a great job. Congrats! 🥳Let’s Make It A Regular PracticeFor the next week, commit to practicing A 10-Count Moment of Mindfulness 1-3 times each day. I know that sounds like nothing, but I promise it’s enough to get you started. If you follow through on this, at the end of this week you will be able to say, “I have a regular mindfulness practice.”The trickiest part will be remembering to do it, so here are some suggestions to help you with that. * Put up sticky notes around your living space. Practice whenever you see them.* Set a few alarms on your phone. Practice whenever the alarm goes off.* Pair the practice with something you already do regularly, such as brushing your teeth or washing your hands. (You still might have to put a sticky note on your bathroom mirror for a while as you build the habit)Pick one of these (or make up your own) and make a commitment to yourself to remember to practice.You got this!Thank you so much for joining me! If you found this content helpful and inspiring, I’d be honored if you’d leave a comment, share it with your actor pals, and check out my offerings below. Thanks!Get Out of Your Head and Rock Your Next Audition 🎧I’ve created a free guided meditation to help you get out of your head and into your character so that you can rock your next audition. It’s going to help you calm your nerves, let go of distracting thoughts — How can I book this? What do they want? — and focus in on what your character wants, what’s going on in the scene, so that you can present your best work every time.Access Your Presence and Feel Empowered in Your Actor Life 📖The Aligned Actor Mindfulness ToolkitThis ebook is comprehensive collection of tools guaranteed to be the Dramamine you need for the roller coaster ride of #ActorLife. Whether you’re dealing with audition nerves, obsessively checking your email after submitting a self tape, or just learned your series has been canceled, there’s something here that will help you access your presence and feel grounded again.I’m a professional actor, a mindfulness and mindset coach, and I’m ready to help you thrive in your actor life.🎭 I’ve been a professional actress for almost 20 years. I’ve survived 3 industry shut downs - 2 strikes and 1 global pandemic. I’ve worked in TV, film, commercials, and produced my own award-winning web series.🧠 I’ve been a life coach for 5 years, specializing in mindfulness and neurolinguistic programming and helping people become more aware and focused on making positive changes in their lives.💖 I blend lived experience with powerful, proven coaching tools.🎢 Let’s get you feeling resilient, empowered, focused, playful, relaxed, confident, and riding the acting career roller coaster without throwing up! 🤗 Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode we’re going to talk about Mindfulness Misconceptions. Because unfortunately there are some ways that mass media and pop culture talk about mindfulness that are not helpful for beginners and can lead to a lot of unnecessary frustration as you’re starting a practice.When I first tried meditation I would get super frustrated with myself because I would try to stay focused on my breath, but that was really hard. My mind always seemed to be racing with thoughts and I would then heap all this judgment and shame on myself. “Ugh, why am I so bad at this? My mind keeps thinking! I’m supposed to clear my mind. What’s wrong with me? I can’t do this.”When I actually studied mindfulness and got my certification, I learned that clearing my mind wasn’t actually required. There really was nothing to DO in mindfulness meditation except notice my experience with kind curiosity. Coming to understand that was SO FREEING!I started to understand that one of the key factors to mindfulness meditation was me being kind to myself while I was practicing, even when my mind wandered. And also that it was no big deal and even expected that my mind was going to wander.It took so much pressure off me to “get mindfulness right” when I realized, “Oh, there really isn’t a right or wrong here and I can relax about this.”Mindfulness MisconceptionsHopefully talking through some mindfulness misconceptions will help you relax and feel more empowered in your practice, too.❌ You have to completely clear your mindNope. In mindfulness meditation your brain is going to continue doing what it does — keeping your body alive and processing your experience. Focusing on your breath gives your mind a simple, present moment task, but the brain is gonna brain. Thoughts are going to come up, and it’s no big deal. You’re not failing if your mind doesn’t become a blank void.❌ You’re failing if your have thoughtsAgain, no. You’re just becoming an intentional, kind and curious witness to whatever is happening in your present moment, and that might be a lot of mind chatter. Thoughts are just part of your present moment. The key is to notice them without engaging with them. Just watch them come and go.❌ A “good meditation” is when your mind is quietI honestly don’t think there’s such a think as a “good” or “bad” meditation. Maybe you find it more peaceful and relaxing when you mind isn’t as busy with thoughts, but your mind’s state is not a mark of success or failure - it just is what it is.❌ A “bad meditation” is when your mind is busyAgain, your mind’s state is not a mark of success of failure. Just that your mind is busy. As my kid once said, “I have a lot of brain going on.” Sometimes that’s what’s happening in our present moment.❌ You have to meditate for a LONG timeI practice mindfulness meditation for 10 minutes each day, and later in this series I’ll teach you a technique that takes less than a minute. If thinking “I don’t have the time!” is your biggest barrier to practicing mindfulness regularly, think again. ❌ You have to meditate in a specific way (or even AT ALL!)There are mindfulness gurus out there who will try to convince you that you have to meditate in specific ways, usually using their expensive meditation tracks. I am not one of them. There are many ways to access the present moment and what matters is finding a way that works for you. Additionally, informal mindfulness also counts as practicing mindfulness. You don’t have to sit quietly with your eyes closed. You can practice mindful eating, mindful handwashing, mindful cooking, mindful anything.Remember…Let’s go back to our simple definition of mindfulness — a special way of paying attention to the present moment with kind curiosity.Do you see any of these misconceptions present in this definition? (I don’t. 😉)Stay with this definition and gently, kindly, and maybe even curiously, let go of any other ideas you may have picked up about mindfulness that don’t fit with this.Thank you so much for joining me! If you found this content helpful and inspiring, I’d be honored if you’d leave a comment, share it with your actor pals, and check out my offerings below. Thanks!Get Out of Your Head and Rock Your Next Audition 🎧I’ve created a free guided meditation to help you get out of your head and into your character so that you can rock your next audition. It’s going to help you calm your nerves, let go of distracting thoughts — How can I book this? What do they want? — and focus in on what your character wants, what’s going on in the scene, so that you can present your best work every time.Access Your Presence and Feel Empowered in Your Actor Life 📖The Aligned Actor Mindfulness ToolkitThis ebook is comprehensive collection of tools guaranteed to be the Dramamine you need for the roller coaster ride of #ActorLife. Whether you’re dealing with audition nerves, obsessively checking your email after submitting a self tape, or just learned your series has been canceled, there’s something here that will help you access your presence and feel grounded again.I’m a professional actor, a mindfulness and mindset coach, and I’m ready to help you thrive in your actor life.🎭 I’ve been a professional actress for almost 20 years. I’ve survived 3 industry shut downs - 2 strikes and 1 global pandemic. I’ve worked in TV, film, commercials, and produced my own award-winning web series.🧠 I’ve been a life coach for 5 years, specializing in mindfulness and neurolinguistic programming and helping people become more aware and focused on making positive changes in their lives.💖 I blend lived experience with powerful, proven coaching tools.🎢 Let’s get you feeling resilient, empowered, focused, playful, relaxed, confident, and riding the acting career roller coaster without throwing up! 🤗 Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

In this episode we’re going to practice what we learned in the previous episode — paying attention to the present moment with kind curiosity — which is the definition of mindfulness. So just listen and follow along as I help you pay attention to your current present moment.If you want to close your eyes, and it’s safe for you to do so, you can, but you certainly don’t have to. Practicing mindfulness doesn’t have to mean doing a formal, seated, closed eyes meditation. Really we’re just intentionally noticing ourselves and our current circumstances. You can even think of this like doing a little character study on yourself and your present moment. Just see what you notice.* What, if anything, do you see, hear, feel, smell, taste?* Do you notice any sensations in your body?* Can you notice the sensation of your breath?* Do you notice any thoughts in your mind?* Just notice what you notice. Kindly. Curiously. Non-judgmentally.For me, I see my computer and my phone, I hear my voice talking, I feel the floor under my feet, I don’t notice any particular smells, I can taste some coffee in my mouth. I can feel the aliveness of my body and a bit of amped up energy as I record this episode. As I breathe, I can feel cool air coming into my body as I inhale and warmer air going out as I exhale. I notice thoughts related to this recording, the ideas I’m relating to you and also some thoughts about how this recording is going.Now that you’ve experienced my example take a moment again to tune into your own present moment.What do you kindly and curiously notice right now?And that’s it. That’s mindfulness. You paid attention to your present moment with kind curiosity.Great job! You can practice paying attention to your present moment – intentionally noticing yourself and your current circumstances with kind curiosity – anytime, anywhere. As a fun challenge, set a random alarm on your phone labeled “Notice Right Now” or “Take a Mindful Moment” and take yourself through this exercise again. Just pause and notice what you’re doing and what’s happening around you.Thank you so much for joining me! If you found this content helpful and inspiring, I’d be honored if you’d leave a comment, share it with your actor pals, and check out my offerings below. Thanks!Get Out of Your Head and Rock Your Next Audition 🎧I’ve created a free guided meditation to help you get out of your head and into your character so that you can rock your next audition. It’s going to help you calm your nerves, let go of distracting thoughts — How can I book this? What do they want? — and focus in on what your character wants, what’s going on in the scene, so that you can present your best work every time.Access Your Presence and Feel Empowered in Your Actor Life 📖The Aligned Actor Mindfulness ToolkitThis ebook is comprehensive collection of tools guaranteed to be the Dramamine you need for the roller coaster ride of #ActorLife. Whether you’re dealing with audition nerves, obsessively checking your email after submitting a self tape, or just learned your series has been canceled, there’s something here that will help you access your presence and feel grounded again.I’m a professional actor, a mindfulness and mindset coach, and I’m ready to help you thrive in your actor life.🎭 I’ve been a professional actress for almost 20 years. I’ve survived 3 industry shut downs - 2 strikes and 1 global pandemic. I’ve worked in TV, film, commercials, and produced my own award-winning web series.🧠 I’ve been a life coach for 5 years, specializing in mindfulness and neurolinguistic programming and helping people become more aware and focused on making positive changes in their lives.💖 I blend lived experience with powerful, proven coaching tools.🎢 Let’s get you feeling resilient, empowered, focused, playful, relaxed, confident, and riding the acting career roller coaster without throwing up! 🤗 Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

It is my firm belief that mindfulness is a tool that can be like a balm for so many of the things that challenge us the most as actors, and one of my goals with my work is to demystify mindfulness and make it as simple and accessible as possible for you.To that end, we are starting a series on The Aligned Actor Podcast!In this series we’re going to do a deep dive on mindfulness.Mindfulness has the power to completely transform you as an actor both in how you approach your craft and your career. From calming your nerves to remaining fully present in a scene to increasing your emotional intelligence and range to perhaps most importantly, allowing you to handle anything that the entertainment industry throws at you without burning out.Living Under Constant ThreatThe entertainment industry regularly wreaks havoc on our nervous systems.* Work is unpredictable — we have to say ready for auditions at anytime and sometimes it’s slow for no apparent reason.* Rejection is a cultural norm – whether it’s an audition we didn’t book, or our series getting cancelled, or the fact that The Academy keeps nominating and giving awards to those other guys.This business is not a meritocracy, so you can be an incredibly talented, established actor and still face work instability and rejection regularly, all of which has the potential to leave you questioning “Am I good enough?”Our confidence, our sense-of-self, and our very identity as actors is continuously threatened and can be harmed by all this uncertainty and rejection.No matter how well we intellectually understand ideas like…* “You can’t book every job.”* “Book the room, not the job.”* “Avails are a sign that you are so close!”* “They just went in another direction.”…we are still a human beings, in human bodies, regularly facing uncertainty and rejection, and all of that takes a toll on our nervous system and can trigger very real primal, survival reactions within us.For our cave-dwelling ancestors, rejection literally meant death. To be turned away by your group meant you were on your own to deal with finding food and staying safe from predators. Our brains haven’t evolved all that much since those days, so there are parts of our brains that still perceive any form of rejection as a threat to our survival.Additionally, for us as actors, the professional uncertainty and rejection we face IS tied to our survival. We need money to survive, so slow times, dry spells, and changes in the entertainment industry all threaten our survival within this profession.Sure, we can have day jobs and other sources of income, but there’s still a very real threat to our identity as actors because many of us still hold the belief that “If I’m not making a living from acting, I’m not really an actor.”A New (Old) HopeBut hope is not lost, friends. Just because the entertainment industry wreaks havoc on our nervous system doesn’t mean we just have to take it.Mindfulness has been around for thousands of years and offers a scientifically proven way to soothe and fortify our nervous systems. It can act like a balm for all the challenges of Actor Life.* Mindfulness can help us soothe the stress response triggered by uncertainty and rejection.* Mindfulness can help us sit with (and get comfortable with) all the uncomfortable feelings that arise in this roller coaster of a career.* Mindfulness can help us recognize that thoughts like “I’m not really an actor if I’m not making a living from acting” is just a thought and we get to decide if we want to believe it.* Mindfulness can help us stay focused on why we chose this career in the first place – our love of acting and our deep desire to tell stories and play characters and impact an audience.And so much more.Let’s Learn and PracticeSo we’re going to learn and practice mindfulness together in this series.* We’re going to learn what mindfulness is.* We’re going to let go of common misconceptions about mindfulness that often get in the way of starting or sticking with a practice.* We’re going to break mindfulness down into its micro steps so you really understand what’s going on in a formal mindfulness meditation and completely demystify the process for yourself.* We’re going to put a simple story to your mindfulness practice because as actors, we love stories and human beings actually understand things better through story.* We’re going to talk about all the many benefits of mindfulness for actors.* We’re going to practice mindfulness — A LOT! (so you can learn by doing!)And we’re gonna start right now by defining and practicing mindfulness…Mindfulness is a special way of paying attention to the present moment with kind curiosity.So let’s take just a second and do that together now. Tune into whatever is happening in your present moment with curiosity and kindness.* Where are you?* What are you doing?* What, if anything, do you see…hear…feel…smell…taste?Before I asked you to tune into your present moment, were you somewhere else? Off in the future or the past? Just gently notice, remembering that mindfulness is a judgement-free zone of kind curiosity.And that’s it. That’s mindfulness. It’s simple. Maybe WAY simpler than you were thinking, because there are a lot of misconceptions about mindfulness that get in our way, which we will get into in a future episode.But for now, STAY HERE in this present moment with this simple definition of mindfulness - paying attention to the present moment with kind curiosity — which is what we’re going to practice in the next episode.Thank you so much for joining me! If you found this content helpful and inspiring, I’d be honored if you’d leave a comment, share it with your actor pals, and check out my offerings below. Thanks!Get Out of Your Head and Rock Your Next Audition 🎧I’ve created a free guided meditation to help you get out of your head and into your character so that you can rock your next audition.It’s going to help you calm your nerves, let go of distracting thoughts — How can I book this? What do they want? — and focus in on what your character wants, what’s going on in the scene, so that you can present your best work every time.Access Your Presence and Feel Empowered in Your Actor Life 📖The Aligned Actor Mindfulness ToolkitThis ebook is comprehensive collection of tools guaranteed to be the Dramamine you need for the roller coaster ride of #ActorLife. Whether you’re dealing with audition nerves, obsessively checking your email after submitting a self tape, or just learned your series has been canceled, there’s something here that will help you access your presence and feel grounded again.I’m a professional actor, a mindfulness and mindset coach, and I’m ready to help you thrive in your actor life.🎭 I’ve been a professional actress for almost 20 years. I’ve survived 3 industry shut downs - 2 strikes and 1 global pandemic. I’ve worked in TV, film, commercials, and produced my own award-winning web series.🧠 I’ve been a life coach for 5 years, specializing in mindfulness and neurolinguistic programming and helping people become more aware and focused on making positive changes in their lives.💖 I blend lived experience with powerful, proven coaching tools.🎢 Let’s get you feeling resilient, empowered, focused, playful, relaxed, confident, and riding the acting career roller coaster without throwing up! 🤗 Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to The Aligned Actor Podcast! I’m Amy Schloerb, your friendly fellow actor and mindfulness and mindset coach helping us all thrive in our full actor lives. This is the podcast were I offer practical mindfulness tools and mindset shifts to help you handle the roller coaster ride of being an actor, all the ups, downs, twist, turns, and sometimes full on loop-de-loops so that you can actually enjoy your craft and career.I participated in Self Tape May this year and learned a ton about myself as an actor and self taping in general. I’m sharing those learnings with you today.Lesson 1 - Acting Is Good For Me!I had long suspected that acting was a form of self care for me, but now I have the data to confirm it. My Oura ring tracks my stress levels throughout the day and without fail, my body entered the “Relaxed” and/or “Restored” zones while I was doing my Self Tape May practice.What this tells me is that even if pretty much everything that surrounds being an actor is stressful — wondering when my next audition will be, hope my last gig was not actually my LAST gig, sending self tapes into the void — the actual craft of acting is relaxing and restorative for me. My body feels good doing it.That just makes me want to continue my self tape practice beyond May, and so do the rest of the lessons I’ve learned, so let’s continue…Lesson 2 - A Great Reader is a GiftPlenty of folks out there talk about how to optimize your self tape setup with lights and backdrops and camera angles. But truly, the reason my self tape practice became easy, fun, and resulted it scenes that I’m proud of, is because of my amazing reader.We’ve been actor buddies for years and during the pandemic we just started meeting up weekly on Zoom to chat about life, our careers, and play around with fun scenes. We’re so comfortable with each other and connect easily in scenes, which makes self taping feel like “Actor Play Time” instead of “Actor Stressing Try To Get a Job Time.”So if you don’t have a reader who LOVES reading with you, find that person and it will change EVERYTHING about how you feel about self tapes. Auditions will stop feeling like a means to an end and finally feel like just another opportunity to do what you love!Additionally, being able to connect with another actor and enjoy playing in the craft together is so important for us as artists. There’s so much about being an actor that is very isolating, and so finding times to be in community with each other and collaborate with each other is EVERYTHING.Lesson 3 - Self Taping is a Skill Worth PracticingThe only way to feel comfortable with the process of self taping is to practice. * Practice setting up your equipment so it isn’t a 90-minute slog of adjusting angles and lights and backdrops.* Practice working with your amazing reader so that connecting with them — really listening and reacting to what they are giving you — is second nature.* Practice noticing, acknowledging, and breathing with your nerves so that you train your body and mind not to fight against the audition butterflies, but to work with them confidently.* Practice self taping SO MUCH that your self tape space starts to feel like a second home, a place where you feel free to express your character fully and expect to have fun presenting your amazing work.* Practice moving on after submitting (because there’s always another fun character to play with!) so that it’s easier to move on after real auditions.Basically, I want to be practicing self tapes so often that I start to forget whether I’m doing a tape for a real audition or just for fun. I recently heard the origin story of Self Tape May. Audrey Moore, actress and host of The Audrey Helps Actors Podcast, started working audition sides every single evening and then doing two takes the next morning. It worked so well for her that she decided to share the practice with her fellow actors and make it a contest during May, which is traditionally a slower time of the year for auditions.What I absolutely love and admire about Audrey’s daily self tape routine is that she essentially started practicing acting the same way a musician practices music. Now, I realize there are some differences between actors and musicians — we often need at least one other person in order to practice scenes — but go back to Lesson 2 of this article and remember that finding an actor buddy to practice acting with will be one of the best things you do for your career. And remember Lesson 1 (acting is self care) and suddenly, regularly practicing something that WILL impact my ability to book work is also a way to connect with a fellow actor, and not feel so alone on this journey, AND a way to care for my creative soul?SIGN ME UP! 🙋🏼‍♀️Self taping doesn’t have to be something that we dread.It can be something that we love.Those are my lessons from Self Tape May. Thank you so much for taking the time to read my reflections. I hope you found them helpful and inspiring.And if you did find this content helpful and inspiring, I’d be honored if you’d leave a comment, share it with your actor pals, and check out my offerings below. Thanks!Get Out of Your Head and Rock Your Next Audition 🎧I’ve created a free guided meditation to help you get out of your head and into your character so that you can rock your next audition. It’s going to help you calm your nerves, let go of distracting thoughts — How can I book this? What do they want? — and focus in on what your character wants, what’s going on in the scene, so that you can present your best work every time.Access Your Presence and Feel Empowered in Your Actor Life 📖The Aligned Actor Mindfulness ToolkitThis ebook is comprehensive collection of tools guaranteed to be the Dramamine you need for the roller coaster ride of #ActorLife. Whether you’re dealing with audition nerves, obsessively checking your email after submitting a self tape, or just learned your series has been canceled, there’s something here that will help you access your presence and feel grounded again.I’m a professional actor, a mindfulness and mindset coach, and I’m ready to help you thrive in your actor life.🎭 I’ve been a professional actress for almost 20 years. I’ve survived 3 industry shut downs - 2 strikes and 1 global pandemic. I’ve worked in TV, film, commercials, and produced my own award-winning web series.🧠 I’ve been a life coach for 5 years, specializing in mindfulness and neurolinguistic programming and helping people become more aware and focused on making positive changes in their lives.💖 I blend lived experience with powerful, proven coaching tools.🎢 Let’s get you feeling resilient, empowered, focused, playful, relaxed, confident, and riding the acting career roller coaster without throwing up! 🤗 Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

Raise your hand if you wish you could wave a magic wand and never feel nervous for an audition or a performance again. Well, you’re in luck because today on The Aligned Actor Podcast we’re talking about nerves — stage fright, audition nerves, performance anxiety — and I’m going to help you reframe your mindset around nerves and offer you a few simple techniques to calm your body and mind quickly.I’m Amy Schloerb, your friendly fellow actor and mindfulness and mindset coach for actors, helping us all thrive in our full actor lives. This is the podcast were I offer practical tools and mindset shifts to help you handle the roller coaster ride of being an actor, all the ups, downs, twist, turns, and sometimes full on loop-de-loops so that you can actually enjoy your craft and career.Nerves are something that every actor faces throughout their career. They show up any time we are putting our work out into the world, whether that’s for an audition or showing up on set or stage.I don’t know any human who enjoys feeling nervous, and feeling nervous when doing something that you love, such as acting, feels especially unpleasant and sometimes confusing. If we love acting so much, why would we feel nervous doing it?I think many of us, myself included for a long time, believe that our nerves are somehow a sign of weakness or an indication that we’re not good enough. If we could only get rid of our nerves once and for all, we’d finally be “legit” actors, worthy of our dream careers.It makes sense that we feel this desire to “conquer” our nerves so that we never have to feel nervous while acting again. But I hear so many A-List actors — the folks who have “dream careers” — saying that they still get nervous. Meryl Streep said she was nervous her first day on Only Murders in the Building and Perdo Pascal holds his hand on his belly while walking the red carpet because that’s where his nerves show up in his body.So I want you to know…* Nerves are not a sign that you are untalented. * Nerves are not a sign that you don’t know what you’re doing. * Nerves are a sign that you care.I don’t want you to fight them or push them away. Because when you resist your nerves, you just feed them more power. They grow and grow until they take over your entire experience.As the saying goes, what we resist persists. Befriending Your NervesInstead, I want to encourage you to befriend your nerves by mindfully noticing them just like we notice thoughts and sensations in mindfulness meditation. When we sit for a formal mindfulness session, we focus on our breath and notice our thoughts, body sensations, and sometimes our dog sighing in our lap. We don’t push away or attach to any of those stimuli. We just acknowledge them and allow them to come and go while we choose to stay focused on our breath.When we stop resisting our nerves and instead say, “Hi, I see you, nerves. Of course you’re here, I’m about to record a big audition and I care a lot about doing a good job” something magical happens. Having been acknowledged and accepted, our nerves tend to lose their intense grip on us. They become acknowledged as a part of us, and therefore no longer fully consume us.So “Step One” of dealing with your nerves is to stop fighting against them. Stop making them the enemy. Acknowledge and accept your nerves as a normal, human nervous system reaction that makes sense in this moment.Getting Present For The SceneAdditionally, I have three simple mindfulness techniques that you can use to calm your body and mind thereby lessening the uncomfortable physical sensation of the nerves. These techniques will calm you down, and get you present in your body and mind, so you can focus on the scene.1 - The long, slow exhaleMindful breathing is one of the fastest ways to calm the body and mind, and my favorite calming breath technique is the long, slow exhale.Your heart rate goes down during your exhale, so intentionally elongating your exhale is a great way to calm your body.How to do it: You can slow down your exhale by constricting the airflow coming out of your mouth. You can purse your lips, like when you blow across the top of a bottle to make that deep, low whistle sound. Alternatively, you can make your lips into an “O” shape, like when you are gently blowing bubbles with a bubble wand, or using a straw to blow bubbles in your chocolate milk! (was I the only one who did this as a kid?)As you inhale and slowly exhale, really tune into the body sensations of breathing. Notice the feeling of air coming into your body. Notice your belly and chest expanding. Notice the light positive pressure of air on your lips as you slowly release the breath through pursed lips.Also tune into the calming effects on your body and mind. Notice your shoulder tension release. Notice your body start to relax. Notice your mind calming as it focuses solely on the sensation of your breath.2 - Hand TracingThis is a wonderfully soothing technique that combines light, gentle touch with slow breathing. You’re basically doing the same breath technique as described above, while also tracing from your wrist to the end of each finger and back again with each breath cycle.How to do it: Hold your hand palm up. Beginning at your wrist, lightly trace the index finger of your opposite hand up through the center of your palm and out to each finger. As you trace out to your finger tip, inhale. As you trace back down to your wrist, slowly exhale.3 - “Feel your feet on the floor.”This one comes from my audition coach (the amazing John M. Keating — seriously, take his class and book him when you need audition coaching).When folks are feeling nervous or in their head before a scene, he simply says “feel your feet on the floor.”Seems deceptively simple, but all too often our nerves get us in our heads and completely out of our bodies. Feeling the contact between your feet and the floor is an instant way get back into your body.Each of these mindfulness-based techniques will help you bring your body and mind back to the present moment so you can be ready to act.Practicing Creates Muscle MemorySelf Tape May is a great time to practice befriending and working with your nerves!You have ample opportunity (16 tapes!) to practice acknowledging and accepting your nerves, and employing mindfulness tools to calm yourself and get present for your scene.Additionally, practicing NOW and OFTEN will give your nervous system a kind of muscle memory that it will retain for every audition and performance moving forward.The first week that I did Self Tape May, I was nervous. I felt pressure to put out “good tapes” online. I did a six tapes my first day and it was great because it didn’t take too long before I relaxed into the fun zone of “actor playtime.”When my week two work session rolled around, I was feeling way more relaxed in my space because my body and nervous system remembered, “Oh, yeah! I’m showing up to act and I generally feel calm and present when I act. Let’s do this!”You can give your body and mind the muscle memory of infusing your self tape space with acting fun and joy and play, so that when a real audition rolls around, you will be ready to rock ‘n’ roll. Your body will feel automatically feel calmer for the practice that you gave it.Remember…Your nerves are not your enemy. They are a part of you that cares so much about you and your acting. They want to protect you. They are on your side. And you can ease their uncomfortable sensations by accepting them, not resisting them, and offering them some calming techniques that really work.You can find even more calming techniques in my book, which is linked up in the show notes or the Substack article.If you found this content helpful or inspiring I’d be honored if you’d leave a comment, share it with your actor pals, and find out more about me and my offerings below. Thanks!I’m a professional actor, a mindfulness and mindset coach, and I’m ready to help you thrive in your actor life.🎭 I’ve been a professional actress for almost 20 years. I’ve survived 3 industry shut downs - 2 strikes and 1 global pandemic. I’ve worked in TV, film, commercials, and produced my own award-winning web series.🧠 I’ve been a life coach for 5 years, specializing in mindfulness and neurolinguistic programming and helping people become more aware and focused on making positive changes in their lives.💖 I blend lived experience with powerful, proven coaching tools.🎢 Let’s get you feeling resilient, empowered, focused, playful, relaxed, confident, and riding the acting career roller coaster without throwing up! 🤗 Get Out of Your Head and Rock Your Next Audition 🎧I’ve created a free guided meditation to help you get out of your head and into your character so that you can rock your next audition. It’s going to help you calm your nerves, let go of distracting thoughts — How can I book this? What do they want? — and focus in on what your character wants, what’s going on in the scene, so that you can present your best work every time.NEW: Check Out My Book to Help You Access Your Presence and Feel Empowered in Your Actor Life 📖The Aligned Actor Mindfulness Ebook & Toolkit: Access Presence in Your Actor Life and Feel Empowered in Your Craft and Your CareerThis ebook is comprehensive collection of tools guaranteed to be the Dramamine you need for the roller coaster ride of #ActorLife. Whether you’re dealing with audition nerves, obsessively checking your email after submitting a self tape, or just learned your series has been canceled, there’s something here that will help you access your presence and feel grounded again. And it’s just $7. Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

If you’ve ever hit submit on a self tape or left an in-person audition and immediately started tearing yourself to shreds, this is the episode for you.Hello and welcome back to The Aligned Actor Podcast. I’m Amy Schloerb your fellow actor, and mindfulness and mindset coach for actors, and this is the place where I share practical tools and mindset shifts to help you thrive in your craft and your career. I want you to feel resilient, empowered, focused, playful, relaxed, and confident in your full actor life.One of the ways we can do that is by actually doing something to change your relationship with your inner critic, who I bet is abusing you with their never ending monologue of harsh criticisms. Stuff like….* If you were a better actor you’d be booking more.* Ugh. That moment was so fake.* I can tell you were in your head on that line!* Gawd, why are you so terrible in this tape?!* I bet casting will watch this and laugh…not in a good way!Sigh. Why do we do this to ourselves?Yes, it’s good to have high expectations, but does the voice in our head need to be sooooo self-critical, harsh, and downright abusive?No. It does not.But we’ve given it a lot of practice over the years and literally have created a whole saying that affirms it’s normalcy in our lives.I am my own worst critic.And yes, that statement does imply that no one else is judging our acting as harshly as we are, and that we’re “better than we give ourselves credit for,” but at what mental cost are we continuing to feed this beast?There’s an Indigenous parable about two wolves that battle inside each of us. One is good and one is evil. The one that wins is the one that you feed.Now, I’m not saying that our inner critic is all evil. It’s trying to protect us from the judgments of others by expecting a lot from us. It’s trying to keep us safe.But when its criticism is excessively negative and harsh, it doesn’t feel very safe and it can actually harm our overall actor mindset and impact the actions we take in our careers. It can cause us to feel unmotivated, get in our heads during auditions, and lead us to feeling burnt out in our careers.Fortunately, there’s another “wolf” that lives within us — our Inner Fan.This is the part of us that knows we’re an amazing, talented, highly book-able actor.Now, maybe the idea of an inner positive, supportive, “you’re so talented!” type of “voice” makes you feel uncomfortable. Amy, isn’t that just bragging?It’s actually not bragging at all because to quote Robin Williams in The Birdcage, “you keep it all inside.” That’s why it’s called your INNER fan, same as your INNER critic.Feeding Your Inner FanPracticing your inner fan voice is all about intentionally acknowledging your talent instead of only seeing your flaws. Intentionally noticing and acknowledging when you do good work helps break the default habit of judging your work solely through the eyes of your inner critic. Maybe you’re used to finishing a scene and immediately pointing out everything you did wrong in it.“Eh, I was in and out on that one and I rushed that line at the end. And now, watching the tape back, I can totally tell I’m acting. This is all terrible. I’m terrible!”Those self-critical, wet blanket statements are your inner critic running a muck! Nothing is ever good enough for them. They will never be able to see your good work, even when it’s right in front of them.But your inner fan knows and recognizes your true actor talent. You can practice their voice out loud (or in your own mind) by intentionally acknowledging your skills as an actor when you feel them and see them. Evaluate your work through their eyes for a change.After you finish a scene, notice and acknowledge the moments in the scene that felt good to you.* I really felt connected in that moment.* That part in the middle felt awesome.* I really had fun with the character in that take.Watch your self-tapes. Notice and acknowledge the moments where you enjoy your work. * I like my reaction on that line. I can tell I was really listening there.* I was really going after my character’s want in that moment.* I’m proud of how committed I was at the end there.If your inner critic is especially good at their job, this new way of doing things may take a lot of getting used to. At first you may have to practice by saying, “Oh, my inner critic has a lot to say about that take, but let me ask my inner fan to point out at least one good moment.” It’s okay to start small and let this practice grow.Give It A Try!Self Tape May a great time to practice seeing your work with your inner fan’s eyes.Practice finding 3-5 moments you like in each tape. Ask yourself, “What does my inner fan think of that take?”When you train your inner fan to be louder and take control of the microphone of your mind more often, you will be amazed with how much better you feel in your actor life. I bet you feel more motivated, more optimistic, more creative, and enjoy your craft and your career so more than ever.That’s what I want for you.I want you to enjoy your full actor life and feel confident in your craft and your career. Your inner fan is the key.If you found this content helpful or inspiring, I’d be honored if you’d leave a comment and/or share it with your actor pals. Also, check out my free audition meditation and my mindfulness ebook below.I’m a professional actor, a mindfulness and mindset coach, and I’m ready to help you thrive in your actor life.🎭 I’ve been a professional actress for almost 20 years. I’ve survived 3 industry shut downs - 2 strikes and 1 global pandemic. I’ve worked in TV, film, commercials, and produced my own award-winning web series.🧠 I’ve been a life coach for 5 years, specializing in mindfulness and neurolinguistic programming and helping people become more aware and focused on making positive changes in their lives.💖 I blend lived experience with powerful, proven coaching tools.🎢 Let’s get you feeling resilient, empowered, focused, playful, relaxed, confident, and riding the acting career roller coaster without throwing up! 🤗 Get Out of Your Head and Rock Your Next Audition 🎧I’ve created a free guided meditation to help you get out of your head and into your character so that you can rock your next audition. It’s going to help you calm your nerves, let go of distracting thoughts — How can I book this? What do they want? — and focus in on what your character wants, what’s going on in the scene, so that you can present your best work every time.NEW: Check Out My Book to Help You Access Your Presence and Feel Empowered in Your Actor Life 📖The Aligned Actor Mindfulness Toolkit: Access Presence in Your Actor Life and Feel Empowered in Your Craft and Your CareerThis ebook is comprehensive collection of tools guaranteed to be the Dramamine you need for the roller coaster ride of #ActorLife. Whether you’re dealing with audition nerves, obsessively checking your email after submitting a self tape, or just learned your series has been canceled, there’s something here that will help you access your presence and feel grounded again. And it’s just $7. Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

Hello and welcome back to The Aligned Actor Podcast on Substack.I’m Amy Schloerb your friendly neighborhood actor and mindfulness and mindset coach for actors and creatives, offering practical ideas and inspirations to help you thrive in your full #ActorLife.All too often, auditions feel “unfinished” until we know the outcome - did we book or not?In reality, an audition is finished, complete, done and dusted as soon as we submit the self tape or get a “Great, thanks for coming in” from the session runner.It’s over. It’s done. It’s out of our hands. It’s out of our control. It’s time to move on.But that’s so hard because we’re in a liminal space of uncertainty. This audition might lead to something we really want — or it might not — and leaving it open ended like that is torture.It feels like getting to the end of a song, but never hearing the last resolving note or phrase.“O’er the land of the free…and the home…of the—”FINISH THE DAMN SONG! I BEG OF YOU!!!!!If you’re waiting for the “result” — callback, booking, etc — to feel complete with the audition, you are likely living in an uncomfortable state of uncertainty, that you do not need to occupy. You are also denying yourself a much deserved and satisfying hit of dopamine that comes from completing a task.Close The LoopSo what do we do? How do we get out of audition liminal-limbo hell?Find a way to feel complete with the audition. Close the loop on your audition instead of leaving it open-ended by “waiting to hear.” Tell your brain it’s done so your brain can move on to other things. Of course, this is easier said than done, but that’s why we practice. Practice the energy of “that’s done” as soon as you’ve hit submit on your self tape or as you walk to your car after an in-person audition.* Mentally (or physically) cross that audition off your to do list. Put a big, ol’ check mark next to it. The satisfaction that we get from checking things off a list is thanks to the dopamine hit of completion. ✅* Give yourself a little pat on the back and or say “Good job, me!” for the work that you just did. That little self-acknowledgement and celebration further activates dopamine in the brain and reinforces the idea that this audition is done. 💁🏼‍♀️* Throw your hands up like the bakers on The Great British Bake Off when the hosts say, “Your time is up! Please step away from your bakes.” A physical action further reinforces the “it’s done” energy for your mind and body. 🙌🏻 EMBODYING* Use a post-audition affirmation and mindfully redirect your focus back to that phrase whenever it drifts into the limbo land of “I wonder if I’ll book that.” 🤔➡️🤗* “I did my work.”* “My work is done.”* “That audition is finished.”* “I’m done with that audition.”* “Checking it off and moving on with my day!”* “Thank you! Next!”* Practice knowing that each tape you submit and every audition you go on strengthens your reputation in the entertainment industry. You never know who will see your tape and what it will lead to. Thinking that “booking THIS job” is the only amazing outcome this audition could be leading to is a lack of imagination. 📈* Many years ago, I built up a relationship with a commercial casting director who would call me in all the time. For whatever reason I never booked any of the commercials they were casting, but one day, seemingly out-of-the-blue I got a straight offer from them for a web series they were casting. They had liked my work over the years and knew that I would be great in this part.An audition is just some completed acting work that shows off your talent and builds your reputation as a reliable actor. It’s done and complete just as it is. It’s completion and the fact that you share it with the industry is the ultimate audition success.Practice ‘Closing The Loop’ During Self Tape MayYou can practice this idea during Self Tape May. Don’t wait for likes and comments or to be reposted on The Audrey Helps Actors story feed to feel successful and “complete” with that tape. The fact that you posted the tape is the success. Move on to the next. Heck, even just doing the tape for yourself and reviewing it like game footage without sharing it with anyone else, is the success. Move on to the next.There are so many tapes to do in Self Tape May — 16 if you want to be eligible for the prizes — that it’s the perfect opportunity to practice “That’s done” energy and make it a habit. You did the work, you turned it in, and now it’s time to say “Woohoo! Yay me!” and move on.Don’t live in limbo with your auditions.Practice the energy of DONE.Your mind will me clearer and calmer for it.If you found this content helpful or inspiring, I’d be honored if you’d leave a comment and/or share it with your actor pals.I’m a professional actor, a mindfulness and mindset coach, and I’m ready to help you thrive in your actor life.🎭 I’ve been a professional actress for almost 20 years. I’ve survived 3 industry shut downs - 2 strikes and 1 global pandemic. I’ve worked in TV, film, commercials, and produced my own award-winning web series.🧠 I’ve been a life coach for 5 years, specializing in mindfulness and neurolinguistic programming and helping people become more aware and focused on making positive changes in their lives.💖 I blend lived experience with powerful, proven coaching tools.🎢 Let’s get you feeling resilient, empowered, focused, playful, relaxed, confident, and riding the acting career roller coaster without throwing up! 🤗 Get Out of Your Head and Rock Your Next Audition 🎧I’ve created a free guided meditation to help you get out of your head and into your character so that you can rock your next audition. It’s going to help you calm your nerves, let go of distracting thoughts — How can I book this? What do they want? — and focus in on what your character wants, what’s going on in the scene, so that you can present your best work every time.NEW: Check Out My Book to Help You Access Your Presence and Feel Empowered in Your Actor Life 📖The Aligned Actor Mindfulness Ebook & Toolkit: Access Presence in Your Actor Life and Feel Empowered in Your Craft and Your CareerThis ebook is comprehensive collection of tools guaranteed to be the Dramamine you need for the roller coaster ride of #ActorLife. Whether you’re dealing with audition nerves, obsessively checking your email after submitting a self tape, or just learned your series has been canceled, there’s something here that will help you access your presence and feel grounded again. And it’s just $7. Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

Hello and welcome back to The Aligned Actor Substack.I’m Amy Schloerb your friendly neighborhood actor and mindfulness and mindset coach for actors and creatives, offering practical ideas and inspirations to help you thrive in your full #ActorLife.Last week we talked about letting yourself want to book the part and how acknowledging YOUR want can actually help you stay focused on what your character wants in the scene.Both wants — the actor’s and the character’s — exist in our present moment. Mindfulness helps us acknowledge our want without resisting or attaching to it. From that acknowledging, non-attachment space, we are free to focus more easily on our character’s want.This week we’re gonna put that idea into practice! I have a guided audio that’s going to help you get out of your head and rock your audition.To make the most of this audio you will need…* a scene (audition, classwork, job, etc)* to know what your character wants in that sceneIf you want to be able to download a copy of the meditation to keep forever and always, you can get it here free. Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

Hello and welcome back to The Aligned Actor Substack.I’m Amy Schloerb your friendly neighborhood actor and mindfulness and mindset coach for actors, offering practical ideas and inspirations to help you thrive in your full #ActorLife.Let’s Break Some Rules!I want you to break a BIG “good little actor” rule in your next audition.Want it.I mean REALLY WANT it.Let yourself feel how much you want to book this part.Ooooh! Feels a little scary and reckless, right?I know. Do it anyway. 😉“But, Amy, I shouldn’t think about booking…”Your “good little actor” brain is telling you, “Don’t think about booking. Just have fun with it. Book the room. You can’t expect to book every job, so just do the audition and let it go.”But, let’s be real. There’s a part that lives inside every actor that whispers seductively…“If I’m a talented enough actor, I should book everything.”And so we WANT to book everything. That desire lives inside us no matter how much we try to deny it.So let’s try something completely against the rules.F—ING. WANT. IT.Let yourself feel that deep desire to book the role.Acknowledge and explore YOUR want…just like you do with your character’s want.When we resist and suppress our desire to book, we trap all that energy inside us, and it takes even more energy to resist those genuine feelings.When we fully acknowledge OUR want, we free up that desire energy AND all the energy we were subconsciously using to resist that want.When we acknowledge how cool it would be to book this part and play this character, we amp up our commitment to a whole new level.Take the role.Claim the role.Don’t subconsciously turn the role down before you’ve even auditioned by saying stuff like, “I probably wont get it.”Yeah, we all know “you can’t book every job.”Who cares?The line is tired and it hold us back.We can OWN every audition.Ownership comes from letting yourself want it — acknowledging your desire to play this character in this project working with these people.Acknowledging Your Want Sets You FreeOnce you acknowledge YOUR want, you are free to move on to focusing on your character’s want.Additionally, you can stay focused more cleanly on your character’s want because you will spot the difference between focusing on your want vs focusing on your character’s want.You will feel the difference in your body and notice the difference in your thoughts.You’re “in your head” thinking things like…* I want to remember my lines.* I want to get this scene right.* I want to book this job.All valid things to want as an actor.But when it’s game time, your focus needs to shift.You need to get out of YOUR head and into the character.* I want him to stay in the car.* I want to take this couple’s wedding cake order.* I want to give the FBI agents the information.Your character is never thinking, Am I getting this scene right? What’s my next line? Am I being “too big” in this moment?Your character is fully focused on their want.As an actor, that’s where your focus needs to be during your audition.The mindful way to do that is to acknowledge BOTH your desire to book and your character’s desire to get whatever they want, so that you can cleanly shift between the two and stay with your character’s want.Just like in mindfulness meditation where we practice focusing on our breath and then noticing when we’ve lost that focus and gently returning to that focus, so it can be with our auditions, too.I want to him to stay in the car — Oh, I’m thinking about getting this scene right — Okay, let’s keep him in the car.Simple. Gentle. Just keep practicing.Practice Acknowledging YOUR WantNext week we’re going to do a practice to help you acknowledge your want to book and keep your focus on your character’s want.For this week, I just want you to start embracing this idea of letting yourself want to be great in your auditions.* Let yourself want to book.* Let yourself want to present good work to casting.* Let yourself want to do a good job with the audition.You’re allowed to want whatever you want.So just practice acknowledging that you want to book.Quick Note: “I don’t want to get my hopes up.”Really quick, because we’re gonna do a full episode on it later, let’s just acknowledge the phrase that might be holding you back from fully embracing your want.“I don’t want to get my hopes up.”I hear you. Disappointment SUCKS.However, as soon as I hear someone say, “I don’t want to get my hopes up” I know that their hopes are already up. They WANT whatever they want and that phrase is a red flag of resisting that want — because no one wants to feel the disappointment of not getting what they want. It hurts.Again, we’re gonna get into this WAY more later, but I just wanted to acknowledge that phrase might be making the idea of letting yourself want to book feel really uncomfortable.And I want you to try it anyway. Just play with it.You got this. ❤️If you found this content helpful or inspiring, I’d be honored if you’d leave a comment and/or share it with your actor pals.I’m a professional actor, a mindfulness and mindset coach, and I’m ready to help you thrive in your actor life.🎭 I’ve been a professional actress for almost 20 years. I’ve survived 3 industry shut downs - 2 strikes and 1 global pandemic. I’ve worked in TV, film, commercials, and produced my own award-winning web series.🧠 I’ve been a life coach for 5 years, specializing in mindfulness and neurolinguistic programming and helping people become more aware and focused on making positive changes in their lives.💖 I blend lived experience with powerful, proven coaching tools.🎢 Let’s get you feeling resilient, empowered, focused, playful, relaxed, confident, and riding the acting career roller coaster without throwing up! 🤗Get Out of Your Head and Rock Your Next Audition 🎧I’ve created a free guided meditation to help you get out of your head and into your character so that you can rock your next audition.It’s going to help you calm your nerves, let go of distracting thoughts — How can I book this? What do they want? — and focus in on what your character wants, what’s going on in the scene, so that you can present your best work every time.NEW: Check Out My Book to Help You Access Your Presence and Feel Empowered in Your Actor Life 📖The Aligned Actor Mindfulness Ebook & Toolkit: Access Presence in Your Actor Life and Feel Empowered in Your Craft and Your CareerThis ebook is comprehensive collection of tools guaranteed to be the Dramamine you need for the roller coaster ride of #ActorLife. Whether you’re dealing with audition nerves, obsessively checking your email after submitting a self tape, or just learned your series has been canceled, there’s something here that will help you access your presence and feel grounded again. And it’s just $7. Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

Hello and welcome back to The Aligned Actor Substack. I’m Amy Schloerb your friendly neighborhood actor and mindfulness and mindset coach for actors and creatives, offering practical ideas and inspirations to help you thrive in your full #ActorLife.I’m writing this article from bed because I am turning this publication into an OnlyFans. JK. 🤣In actuality, I am a little under the weather at the moment and as I was resting — Okay fine I was making tweaks to my Substack, so not really resting — I got an idea for a post.Rest feels dangerous to actors.We’re literally scared to stop.Why?Because there is always SOMETHING we could be doing to further our careers.* Practicing our self tapes* Working out* Attending a casting director workshop* Attending a class* Switching out our headhsots* Picking looks for our next batch of headshots* Updating our reel* Cutting our reel into bitesized clips* Writing our own script* Filming a short with our friends* Self-submitting on Actors Access (and all the other sites)* Reaching out to other industry professionals* Researching and watching all the movies and shows…and so and so forth…forever and ever…and…EVER…And if we are not doing something to further our acting careers…Then we must not want it bad enough to deserve it.That’s the sneaky, secret thought that keeps us hustling and grinding and too scared to rest.But the whole notion of “wanting it bad enough” is ridiculous anyway. Allow me to demonstrate by replacing “acting career” with “cookie” — because who doesn’t want a cookie?How badly do you want a cookie? * Bad enough to walk to the cupboard?* Bad enough to drive to the store?* Bad enough to travel across your city, state, country, or the entire world?* Bad enough to go into space?* Bad enough to sacrifice all other food for the rest of your life?* Bad enough to never see your family again?* Bad enough to give up acting? (see what I did there?)Sure. Maybe you’d drive across town for a really good cookie, but the rest of these hypotheticals just end up sounding goofy. No one wants a cookie THAT badly.I’m not giving up my WHOLE HUMAN LIFE for a cookie.And yet, that’s what we start to expect of ourselves when it comes to our acting careers. That’s why we feel scare to rest.But we need to rest.Rest allows us to recharge and get ready for whatever is next.So we need to ditch the idea that anything less than 27/7/365 hustle and grind means we don’t want it bad enough.We want it and we’re doing it. FULL STOP.And we must rest and live our lives as we’re doing it.That’s why I talk about actor life, not just acting career.You’re an actor.You have a career AND you have a life.You have an actor FULL life.Don’t give that up for anything.So I’m going to go back to resting and recovering from whatever the heck this is and I will see you next time.If you found this article helpful or inspiring, I’d be honored if you’d leave a comment, share it with a pal, or give a one-time donation.I’m a professional actor, a mindfulness and mindset coach, and I’m ready to help you thrive in your actor life.🎭 I’ve been a professional actress for almost 20 years. I’ve survived 3 industry shut downs - 2 strikes and 1 global pandemic. I’ve worked in TV, film, commercials, and produced my own award-winning web series.🧠 I’ve been a life coach for 5 years, specializing in mindfulness and neurolinguistic programming and helping people become more aware and focused on making positive changes in their lives.💖 I blend lived experience with powerful, proven coaching tools.🎢 Let’s get you feeling resilient, empowered, focused, playful, relaxed, confident, and riding the acting career roller coaster without throwing up! 🤗Get my FREE Pre-Audition Focusing Meditation 🎧I’ve created a free meditation to help you get out of your head and into your character so that you can rock your next audition.It’s going to help you calm your nerves, let go of distracting thoughts — “How can I book this? What do they want?” — and focus in on what your character wants, what’s going on in the scene, so that you can present your best work every time. Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

*Note: If you watch the video, keep in mind that it is from 2023, the year that I thought using cute GIFs to illustrate my points was the most brilliant idea ever for going viral on YouTube. Oh, Amy….I think we’re all grateful that I’ve moved on from that phase. 🤣We’re on the messy side of my office today because the sun is being weird on that side where my backdrop is pretty, but we’re just gonna go with it cause this is not about perfection, right?So I’ve been on a bit of a healing journey recently specifically around my mom, thinking a lot about her and about how she was my biggest fan, and I really miss that.For those of you who don’t know, my mom died when I was 24.She was my biggest fan. It was so wonderful and beautiful, how much she believed in me and thought I was talented.I remember this one improv show that I did. She had this joke where she always had this fantasy of standing up in the middle of the audience when I was performing on stage and yelling out, “That’s my baby!”She got to do it that night, and I actually like teed her up for it. I said, “This was always my mom’s dream to...” and then she took it from there.Everybody loved it. It was very fun.The show then ended up being really great, which is always a bonus. Somebody took her home I came home later. She had kind of waited up in her bed to be like, “Amy, Amy, I have to talk to you about the show. It was so good. Oh my goodness. It was amazing. You were so good and everybody in the show was so good. And it was just amazing! It was wonderful!”She went on and on and on and on and on and on about how great it was.Here I had been thinking, “Man, I have a lot to learn and I am not as good as all those folks over there. Ugh, there’s always ways to get better and I gotta be thinking about how I can get better.”And here she was basically just like, “You’re great! You’re awesome! Look at how good you already are!”And I really like tapping into that energy and that feel.And that has inspired me to become my own biggest fan.Maybe that sounds kind of cheesy and cliche, but I wanna do that.I wanna become my own biggest fan.Two Ways to PlayThere’s two ways that all of us can gently start playing with this idea.1️⃣ — One, we can tap into the energy of other people around us who do believe in us, who do think we’re talented, who do think we have a lot going for us, on our side, rah rah, rah, cheering us on.I can go back and kind of live in the memory of that night with my mom and see how that affects my self-concept.2️⃣ — And then the other thing I think we can do is think about people that we believe in, that we think are talented or are doing a great job, and we’re like, “Why can’t you see what a great job you’re doing? I see what a great job you’re doing. I want you to know what a great job you’re doing.”We all have people in our lives that we believe in and so I think tapping into that energy, and remembering what it’s like to feel that for somebody else where maybe they don’t see it yet and then finding a way to direct that inward.It can be a lot harder for us to direct those good feelings, that praise and pride inward for our own accomplishments.But we can.I think the only thing we can do is practice.Let’s face it, our inner critic has become really loud and it only got really loud ‘cause we practiced the thoughts, we listened to those thoughts.It’s kind of a pervasive belief in our society of like, “ Oh, I am my own worst critic.” Everybody says that, right? It’s just like in the collective.That only happened through practice.Why aren’t we practicing something that serves us far better?The inner critic can be useful. It can help us with like healthy striving, improving, but at some point, we also have to be acknowledging how great we already are and giving ourselves credit for that.Start practicing that biggest fan voice. Start becoming your own biggest fan.It’ll be helpful for all of us. 💖If you found this article helpful or inspiring, I’d be honored if you’d leave a comment, share it with a pal, or give a one-time donation.I’m a professional actor, a mindfulness and mindset coach, and I’m ready to help you thrive in your actor life.🎭 I’ve been a professional actress for almost 20 years. I’ve survived 3 industry shut downs - 2 strikes and 1 global pandemic. I’ve worked in TV, film, commercials, and produced my own award-winning web series.🧠 I’ve been a life coach for 5 years, specializing in mindfulness and neurolinguistic programming and helping people become more aware and focused on making positive changes in their lives.💖 I blend lived experience with powerful, proven coaching tools.🎢 Let’s get you feeling resilient, empowered, focused, playful, relaxed, confident, and riding the acting career roller coaster without throwing up! 🤗 Get my FREE Pre-Audition Focusing Meditation 🎧I’ve created a free meditation to help you get out of your head and into your character so that you can rock your next audition. It’s going to help you calm your nerves, let go of distracting thoughts — “How can I book this? What do they want?” — and focus in on what your character wants, what’s going on in the scene, so that you can present your best work every time. Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

*Note: If you watch the video, keep in mind that it is from 2023, the year that I thought using cute GIFs to illustrate my points was the most brilliant idea ever for going viral on YouTube. Oh, Amy….I think we’re all grateful that I’ve moved on from that phase. 🤣I’m wearing my ‘SAG-AFTRA Strong’ shirt so that I can tell you about the day I almost quit acting.It was the middle of the pandemic. Everyone’s stressed out.My child, who was a preschooler/toddler at the time, had a meltdown right before I was going to start recording on a self-tape.It got me all up in my own feelings and very sort of activated and stressed within my body. And then I tried to just go right into this self-tape, which was not a good idea at all and I recognize that now.I was having a really hard time focusing and getting the work done.I decided to take a break and I put it all away for a while, but the entire time that I had it, like, “Okay, I’ll go back to that later” I couldn’t put it down.There was something that was just so off.Every time I thought about going back in to do the self-tape, I would be on the verge of tears.I had all these gremlin voices that kept telling me things like, “If you were a real actor, you’d be able to get this done. Guess you’re not really an actress.”That mental garbage floating around in my brain while I’m already feeling stressed about the pandemic, and stressed about getting a self-tape in, and stressed about how my child is handling their emotions and what I can do to help them as a mom.It was a complete disaster s**t show.In the end, I passed on the audition.I emailed my agent and I said, “Guys, I’m really sorry. This is just not happening.”And, of course, as soon as I passed on the audition, I felt relieved that I wasn’t going to have to do that now, but the gremlin voices got louder.All of a sudden it was like, “Well, if you can’t get that one audition done, why are you doing any auditions? Why don’t you just quit acting all together? What’s wrong with you? Are you an actress or not?”Oh, I was beating myself up to no end and it was a nightmare.Thankfully, another voice started to come forward. And I believe that that was the voice of my inner guidance, my intuition.That voice said, “This doesn’t mean anything about you as an actor.”And I kind of went, “Wait, what? I don’t understand.”And it was like, “No. This doesn’t mean anything about you as an actor.”Listening to that voice, starting to kind of guide my thoughts in that direction, that’s what really helped to bring me back around and realize that I’m the one who makes the meaning here of all of this stuff.I can choose to make passing on an audition and not being able to get a self-tape done mean I’m a horrible actor and I don’t even deserve to be in this profession.Or I can make it mean I’m having an off day, I’m a human being, everybody has off days, and this just wasn’t meant to be, and that’s okay.Choosing to follow my inner guidance, my own heart, that calm, steady voice — instead of all the gremlin, monkey mind, bleh voices — The voice of “This doesn’t mean anything about you as an actor” really helped.It brought me back from almost quitting acting.That’s the power of that voice and how helpful it was.The bigger story and lesson here is we make the meaning. Human beings are meaning making machines. We make meaning about everything in our lives so that we can understand it better.But when we start making meanings that make us feel bad about ourselves, that’s not so helpful.“My kid has too much screen time, that means I’m a bad mom.”“I can’t make my living as an actor, I have to have a day job, that means I’m not really an actor.”“I don’t look like the Photoshopped model on the magazine cover, so therefore, that means I will never find a partner.”None of those have to mean any of those things.They can mean what we choose to make them mean.So my question to you is: What are you making _______________ mean about you?And if it’s making you feel bad I would encourage you to look at the situation in a new way. Can you find a more empowering meaning from that situation?Let’s make sure we’re finding empowering meanings in our lives.Thank you so much for joining me. Please like, comment, and share this video with your friends, anybody who you think needs to hear it.Also, please check out my website, thealignedactor.com for more on me, and my work. And be sure to grab my Pre-Audition Focusing Meditation below! ⬇️ I’m a professional actor, a mindfulness and mindset coach, and I’m ready to help you thrive in your actor life.🎭 I’ve been a professional actress for almost 20 years. I’ve survived 3 industry shut downs - 2 strikes and 1 global pandemic. I’ve worked in TV, film, commercials, and produced my own award-winning web series.🧠 I’ve been a life coach for 5 years, specializing in mindfulness and neurolinguistic programming and helping people become more aware and focused on making positive changes in their lives.💖 I blend lived experience with powerful, proven coaching tools.🎢 Let’s get you feeling resilient, empowered, focused, playful, relaxed, confident, and riding the acting career roller coaster without throwing up! 🤗 Get my FREE Pre-Audition Focusing Meditation 🎧I’ve created a free meditation to help you get out of your head and into your character so that you can rock your next audition. It’s going to help you calm your nerves, let go of distracting thoughts — “How can I book this? What do they want?” — and focus in on what your character wants, what’s going on in the scene, so that you can present your best work every time. Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

*Note: If you watch the video, keep in mind that it is from 2023, the year that I thought using cute GIFs to illustrate my points was the most brilliant idea ever for going viral on YouTube. Oh, Amy….I think we’re all grateful that I’ve moved on from that phase. 🤣“I try not to let it bother me.” Have you ever said that to yourself?Some kind of situation has happened in your life, it clearly bothers you, but you’re really trying to not let it bother you.I totally get that because whatever that bothered feeling is, is uncomfortable in our bodies.It’s maybe disappointment, like, “Oh, I try not to let it bother me that I didn’t a callback for that role. I’m trying not to let it bother me though.”But clearly I’m already bothered, right?So, here I am feeling sad, disappointed, whatever feelings I’m feeling as an actor about not booking. And I’m also resisting that feeling, so I’m trying not to feel it, which is also uncomfortable.So I have two things going against me simultaneously.I have the undercurrent of whatever that uncomfortable feeling is that I’m resisting. And then I have all of the energy that I’m putting into resisting feeling that way.It’s like a double whammy and it’s no fun at all.And I understand why it is that I, and maybe you, all of us, resist being bothered, feeling disappointed, sad, hurt, upset.These feelings are very uncomfortable within our bodies.So I understand why it is that we try to push them away, not feel that way.“I’m going to put on a happy face and go out and something fun” and whatever.But I think when we do that, we also deny a part of ourselves that we can deny it for a certain amount of time and it will kind of quiet down.But it keeps talking, in some way, until we finally just acknowledge it and listen to it.I have found it much more valuable in my life to listen to that voice, that part of me that feels hurt or disappointed or upset about whatever the situation is. Give it voice, give it acknowledgement and say, “Okay, so this is how I’m feeling right now, and that’s okay, and if I acknowledge this and I feel this through in my body, it will start to dissipate.”I think we get scared that we’re going to get trapped there and that really doesn’t ever happen.Someone, somewhere, and I think Oprah then repeated what they said, the lifespan of a feeling is about 90 seconds.I don’t know if that’s necessarily true or not. I know I’ve certainly felt upset for maybe at least a couple of days over certain things, but that also might’ve been me feeling upset and then resisting feeling upset.I might’ve cut that time down a lot if I had just gone, “I feel upset. I’m gonna throw myself a little pity party because things didn’t go the way that I’d kind of wanted them to go, and I’m sad.”And that’s it.So my question to you would be… If you’re one of the people that likes to say, “I’m trying to not let it bother me” or “I don’t want it to bother me. I’m trying to just move on and whatever” and everything.Let it bother you.So that’s not a question.That’s actually just a statement.Let it f—ing bother you.It’s okay.You will live.I promise.As long as you don’t cause harm to yourself or anyone around you, you just feeling bothered by a situation and then extending to yourself the compassion of acceptance of that emotion.Try that out.I think that’s going to take you a lot farther than you think it might.That’s what I have for you today. Thank you so much for joining me.Please comment on this video, like it, share it.And if you would like more information about me, you can go to thealignedactor.com, find out all about me. About me as an actor, about me as a coach, whatever you want to know.If you found this article helpful or inspiring, I’d be honored if you’d leave a comment, share it with a pal, or give a one-time donation.I’m a professional actor, a mindfulness and mindset coach, and I’m ready to help you thrive in your actor life.🎭 I’ve been a professional actress for almost 20 years. I’ve survived 3 industry shut downs - 2 strikes and 1 global pandemic. I’ve worked in TV, film, commercials, and produced my own award-winning web series.🧠 I’ve been a life coach for 5 years, specializing in mindfulness and neurolinguistic programming and helping people become more aware and focused on making positive changes in their lives.💖 I blend lived experience with powerful, proven coaching tools.🎢 Let’s get you feeling resilient, empowered, focused, playful, relaxed, confident, and riding the acting career roller coaster without throwing up! 🤗 Get my FREE Pre-Audition Focusing Meditation 🎧I’ve created a free meditation to help you get out of your head and into your character so that you can rock your next audition. It’s going to help you calm your nerves, let go of distracting thoughts — “How can I book this? What do they want?” — and focus in on what your character wants, what’s going on in the scene, so that you can present your best work every time. Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

Last week we talked about why it’s important to stop asking the question, “Why didn’t I book?” That question just keeps us stuck in a cycle of shame and self-doubt, which is no way to approach future auditions or our acting career in general.The subtext of that question is usually, “Why wasn’t I good enough? How can I be better? What do I need to fix about myself?”Instead of assuming we did something “wrong” and ruminating on how we can “fix” our auditions moving forward, I want us all to trust that our work is solid and each audition we present to casting strengthens our reputation as actors.To that end, this week I’m going to guide you through a relaxing visualization which will help you rewrite your mental script from “Why didn’t I book? Was I not good enough?” to “I trust my work and I strengthened my reputation in the industry.” We’re going to begin the process of rewiring your brain from it’s default, unhelpful mindset of “Not booking means I wasn’t good enough” to a more supportive mindset of “My work is good and I just have to keep presenting it to the world.”The good news is that our brains are highly neuro-plastic meaning that they can change and grow in ways that support our overall well-being. Repetition is a key way that we rewire the brain in ways that we choose. Using this audio after every audition, and maybe even auditions long since past, will help you cultivate trust in your work and allow you to move on from auditions more gracefully. Over time, that attitude of self-trust and confidence will become your new default mindset.Here’s the guided audio…Hopefully you found that helpful and it allowed you to feel good about your recent audition.I hope that you celebrate every audition you do. That’s the work of being an actor and you deserve to feel proud and complete with every bit of work you present in every single audition ever.If you found this article helpful or inspiring, I’d be honored if you’d leave a comment, share it with a pal, or give a one-time donation to support my on-going work — so I can bring you more content like this.I’m a professional actor, a mindfulness and mindset coach, and I’m ready to help you thrive in your actor life.🎭 I’ve been a professional actress for almost 20 years. I’ve survived 3 industry shut downs - 2 strikes and 1 global pandemic. I’ve worked in TV, film, commercials, and produced my own award-winning web series.🧠 I’ve been a life coach for 5 years, specializing in mindfulness and neurolinguistic programming and helping people become more aware and focused on making positive changes in their lives.💖 I blend lived experience with powerful, proven coaching tools.🎢 Let’s get you feeling resilient, empowered, focused, playful, relaxed, confident, and riding the acting career roller coaster without throwing up! 🤗 Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

There’s an unhelpful question that many actors ask. “Why didn’t I book that role?”When enough time has passed that we know we didn’t book the role, our brains start to get desperate to find out why. We yearn for feedback, thinking there might be something we can fix about our craft or audition technique.But we will never know why we didn’t book. The question will never be answered. And brains HATE questions they cannot answer. The uncertainty feels so uncomfortable, that our brain starts serving up all kinds of made up answers to the question just so we can get some kind of relief.Maybe I didn’t book because I used my sides…Maybe I didn’t book because I fell out of connection with my reader…Maybe I didn’t book because I made that pause WAY too long…Maybe I didn’t book because I didn’t make a “bold” choice…Maybe I didn’t book because I was too quirky in my slate…Maybe I didn’t book because I wasn’t quirky enough in my slate…Maybe I didn’t book because my acting was so awful that the casting director watched my tape, laughed hysterically, and called in all their associates to watch “the worst self tape in the history of self tapes!”But here’s the real reason you didn’t book, and the only reason that we know is 100% factually accurate.You didn’t book the role because… …someone else did.That’s it.And I realize that might seem like a really irritating and unsatisfying answer, but again, it’s the only one that we know is 100% factual. All the other reasons that your brain is serving up to you are likely complete and utter nonsense.STOP. TORTURING. YOURSELF.Stop letting your brain spin on a question that has no answer.Ruminating on the question “Why didn’t I book?” is one of the worst forms of self-torture you can inflict on yourself as an actor. It zaps your mental energy and keeps you stuck in a cycle of shame and self-doubt, which you carry with you into your next audition.Now when you’re prepping your next audition you’re in your head going, “Okay, what can I do better this time so that I can book this one?”Whether you realize it or not, that question adds an undertone of self-doubt to your audition, which has a profound impact on the quality of your performance.Then, if you don’t book AGAIN, you’re back beating yourself up AGAIN, nit-picking every piece of your craft AGAIN, and perpetually stuck in the demoralizing energy of “What is wrong with me?!”And the cycle continues, audition…after audition…after audition.But here’s the truth: There is nothing wrong with you when you don’t book. You’re just experiencing the life of the actor.You will never know why you didn’t book.So stop asking.Break The Audition Self-Doubt CycleWhy you didn’t book doesn’t matter. It’s not your business and not worth your mental energy.What matters is making sure you stay confident in yourself as an actor so that you can always be ready to show your best work to casting. To do that, you need to break the cycle of audition self-doubt by unsubscribing from the idea that “not booking” means “I wasn’t good enough.”Because it’s so rarely ever that.Stop asking, “Why didn’t I book?” and searching endlessly for things to fix about yourself. Start trusting that your work is good enough and that every audition strengthens your reputation in the industry.This mindset shift will completely change the energy with which you approach your auditions.“Why didn’t I book?” is a question steeped in self-doubt.“Every audition I do strengthens my reputation in the industry” is a statement brimming with grounded self-confidence.Auditioning with the energy of the latter will lead to WAY better performances than the energy of the former.You shift the entire energy of your audition from “Is this okay? Is this what you want?” to “Here’s my work. I’d love to collaborate with you now or in the future.”Share your work proudly and let the industry fall in love with you.Key TakeawaysHere’s what I want you to remember above all else.The ONLY REASON you know for sure is 100% factually accurate as to why you didn’t book a job is: because someone else did.So, the next time your brain asks the question, “Why didn’t I book that?” you can answer it plainly and directly, “Oh, that’s easy. I didn’t book that role because someone else did.”If your brain continues to kick up a fuss, presenting you with a laundry list of reasons that make you feel miserable about yourself, and you feel yourself slipping into self-doubt, tell your brain this:“Even though I didn’t book that role, my audition strengthened my reputation in the industry.”If you found this article helpful or inspiring, I’d be honored if you’d leave a comment, share it with a pal, or give a one-time donation to support my on-going work — so I can bring you more content like this.I’m a professional actor, a mindfulness and mindset coach, and I’m ready to help you thrive in your actor life.🎭 I’ve been a professional actress for almost 20 years. I’ve survived 3 industry shut downs - 2 strikes and 1 global pandemic. I’ve worked in TV, film, commercials, and produced my own award-winning web series.🧠 I’ve been a life coach for 5 years, specializing in mindfulness and neurolinguistic programming and helping people become more aware and focused on making positive changes in their lives.💖 I blend lived experience with powerful, proven coaching tools.🎢 Let’s get you feeling resilient, empowered, focused, playful, relaxed, confident, and riding the acting career roller coaster without throwing up! 🤗 Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

We’re gonna be talking more about auditions in March so it felt appropriate to re-release this article as a jumping off point. Enjoy!*Note: If you watch the video, keep in mind that it is from 2023, the year that I thought using cute GIFs to illustrate my points was the most brilliant idea ever for going viral on YouTube. Oh, Amy….I think we’re all grateful that I’ve moved on from that phase. 🤣Actor friends, listen up because there’s something that we need to stop doing in our auditions ASAP.We need to stop talking ourselves out of the role before we’ve even auditioned for it.“Oh, I’m not quite right for this. I don’t really play characters like this very well. They probably want somebody more...blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.”When we do this, we psych ourselves out completely and we basically are subconsciously saying to ourselves, “I can’t do this.” and then sure enough, our audition suffers.We put all of this distance in between us and the character.We kind of play at the character instead of fully investing and fully inhabiting them.We have a generic idea of what this person is supposed to be like, but we don’t bother getting into specifics because we feel like, “Oh, this isn’t really something that I do. It’s more over there and I’m more over here“ instead of creating a grounded, real person.I used to do this to myself all the time, but I have one story to tell you that really changed everything for me, where I consciously recognized that I did this to myself and I said, “No. No more. I’m stopping this pattern. I’m not doing this to myself anymore.”I got a series regular audition to play the mom of an 18-year-old.My history in Hollywood is always being told that I look very young, and that’s a great problem to have, but it can kind of mess with your mind as you’re starting to play characters that are actually your age.Of course, all the “old Amy patterns” showed up and I was going, “Oh, I’m probably too young for this” or “I don’t know if I really play moms very well” and that would have led me to back off of that performance and kind of keep it over there and I’m over here, right?Instead, because I was aware of this thought pattern that I have, I very consciously did everything that I could to convince myself that I was absolutely right for this role.I started saying stuff to myself like, “I could very easily, biologically, have a child this age. That’s not difficult.”I looked up the show and I realized that the character I would be playing the sibling of, we look very similar and I was like, “Oh, I could absolutely play that person’s sister, not a problem.”I am a mom. I tapped into all of that, my own life experience, which is exactly what we’re supposed to do as actors.I sold myself on how right I was for that role.And I sold myself on it so much that when my husband came in to read with me, we were reading the scene and he was like, “You’re doing great with this. I really like this character for you, like, this is awesome. I think you’re too young for this—”I cut him off immediately.And I was like, “No, no, no. I’m not too young for this. I am absolutely right for this because of X, Y, and Z.”I had convinced myself that I was right for this role so much that no one could talk me out of it.And that’s what I think we all need to do for every single role we audition for.When we get the audition, we are right for that role.In the end, it was a great tape. I was very proud of that tape. I was proud to submit it.It did not lead to a booking in the end, but it did lead to several additional auditions with that casting director and writing team, so I know that the work that I did in that self-tape is what was able to shine through, because I didn’t talk myself out of the role and I didn’t shy away from it.I didn’t pull back.I invested fully.I went all in on it by convincing myself that I was absolutely right for the role, even though I didn’t quite believe it to start.I did everything in my power to make myself realize, “No, this is my role right now. I’m going to do this. I’m going to make this mine.”The moment you get an audition, you are right for that role.While you’re working on that audition, that character’s yours. You got the part for the audition.How do you play sexy? How do you play confident? How do you play shy and weak?Whatever the role is that you think you’re not, what’s your version of that?Own your performance. Show your work. Build your reputation in this industry.That’s all we have to do at the end of the day.How are you right for this role?Ask yourself that question and I think you’re off to the races and your work is going to be better for it.And now, your moment of mindfulness…Get my Pre-Audition Focusing Meditation 🎧I’ve created a free meditation to help you get out of your head and into your character so that you can rock your next audition. It’s going to help you calm your nerves, let go of distracting thoughts — “How can I book this? What do they want?” — and focus in on what your character wants, what’s going on in the scene, so that you can present your best work every time.Let’s chat! ☕️If you’re ready to transform your actor mindset, let’s connect in a complimentary session. Rest assured, this is not a “sales call.” I’m not Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross. In my world ABC means “Always Be Celebrating!” 🥳This is a chance for us to connect and for you to walk away with some specific, actionable ideas that you can start applying right away to shift and strengthen your actor mindset.Think of it like an audition where you are the production team. I’ll show you what I do in the role of “coach” by actually coaching you, and then you get to decide, “Does my production need a mindset coach right now, and is Amy right for this role?” Sounds fun, right? Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

Last week we talked about core desired feelings and you started figuring out how you want to feel as an actor as you engage in your career, in your craft, and in your life in general. This week, we’re going to do a guided audio exercise to help you explore and embody those feelings even more deeply.This type of work is meant to be fun and inspiring. You may get new ideas of actions to take in your career or how you can more fully enjoy your craft. You may reignite that magnetic pull of your goals and feel motivated in a whole new way. If nothing else, hopefully you get a fun and delightful day dream that tickles your imagination and makes you feel really good in your body.Grab your list of core desired feelings and let’s do this!Embodying Your Core Desired FeelingsPick one of the feelings from your list to work with in this guided session. Don’t worry, this recording is here for you so you can explore the embodiment of each of your core desired feelings in turn. For now, pick the juiciest one, the one that really lights you up.Welcome back. Hopefully that was a fun and informative exploration for your body and mind. Please use the recording again to explore the embodiment of your other core desired feelings.If you found this article helpful or inspiring, I’d be honored if you’d leave a comment, share it with a pal, give a one-time donation, or consider becoming a paid subscriber.I’m a professional actor, a mindfulness and mindset coach, and I’m ready to help you thrive in your actor life.🎭 I’ve been a professional actress for almost 20 years. I’ve survived 3 industry shut downs - 2 strikes and 1 global pandemic. I’ve worked in TV, film, commercials, and produced my own award-winning web series.🧠 I’ve been a life coach for 5 years, specializing in mindfulness and neurolinguistic programming and helping people become more aware and focused on making positive changes in their lives.💖 I blend lived experience with powerful, proven coaching tools.🎢 Let’s get you feeling resilient, empowered, focused, playful, relaxed, confident, and riding the acting career roller coaster without throwing up! 🤗 Community Zooms for Paid-Subscribers! 💻I’m offering exclusive Zoom sessions for paid subscribers. Support my on-going work and enjoy “office hours” with yours truly! Drop into a Zoom session to experience guided mindfulness and supportive, community-based mindset coaching.If you’re curious about mindset coaching, but saving for your next headshot session, this is a great way to get affordable access in a supportive, community environment. Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

Go to episode on Substack --> https://open.substack.com/pub/thealignedactor/p/how-do-you-want-to-feel-as-an-actorLet’s talk about goals.What are your goals for yourself as an actor? Maybe you want to be on a certain show, maybe you want to work with a certain director, maybe you just want to book more work — Hey, don’t we all?Goals are great, but you know what’s even better? Exploring the feelings behind our goals, because that’s where the real magic lies.Core Desired FeelingsIn her book, The Desire Map: A Guide to Creating Goals with Soul, Danielle LaPorte talks about how one new year’s eve she and her partner decided to infuse their regular goal setting practice with feelings.She writes, “Instead of talking about external goals, we talked about how we wanted to feel in the various parts of our lives.” And goes on later to say, “We wrote out a bunch of positive feelings, and then we asked ourselves, ‘So what can we do to feel that way?’”They then adjusted their goals based on how they wanted to feel in their lives.Feelings Are What We Really WantUltimately, the only reason we want anything in life is because we believe that attaining that thing or having that experience is going to make us feel a certain way.For example, I want to be a recurring role on a fun TV show because I believe doing that work will feel playful, creative, collaborative, and consistent (stable/routine).If those are feelings I crave in my career, why not do whatever I can to feel that way and incorporate that energy into my career right now?There are TONS of ways to feel playful, creative, collaborative, and consistent! I don’t have to hold myself apart from those feelings just because I haven’t booked that part yet.I can feel playful, creative, collaborative, and consistent by…* Working regularly on monologues I love* Working on fun scenes with my actor friends* Attending an acting class regularly* Playing a board game with my son* Crocheting a Wooble (not a sponsor, I just love them!)* Writing my Substack* Filming and editing a reelSuddenly, I’m not waiting until I achieve my goal to feel how I want to feel. I’m cutting out the middle man and getting straight to the good stuff!And the more I focus on doing things that make me feel playful, creative, collaborative and consistent, the more I engage in my career in those ways too. I can literally infuse my career with those feelings and make tangible shifts in how I show up in my career.* I approach auditions and class scene work with the energy of those feelings.* I engage with my peers and colleagues in ways that align with those feelings.* I approach career decisions with those feelings as a guide. (Is this opportunity likely to get me one or more of my core desired feelings? If yes, great! Game on! Let’s do it! If not, probably a “No, thank you” is more in order.)I can honestly say that I feel playful, creative, collaborative, and consistent in my career, despite having never booked a recurring role on a fun TV show. Maybe I’ll achieve that goal at some point or maybe I won’t. Either way, I’ve gotten what I really wanted: My core desired feelings for my acting career!Let’s Explore Your Core Desired FeelingsIf you have a list of goals, you can follow my example above to figure out the feelings you associate with them and then brainstorm additionally ways to access those feelings.* How do you think it will feel to [insert your goal here]?* What are other things you could do to feel that way(s) more often in your life?You can also start with the feelings. Decide how you want to feel in different areas of your life and build goals around those feelings. Here’s a looooooooong list of feeling words and some questions about various areas of life to consider.* How do you want to feel as an actor?* How do you want to feel as you engage in your craft?* How do you want to feel as you engage in the business?* How do you want to feel in your body?* How do you want to feel in your living space?* How do you want to feel in your social life?* How do you want to feel at your day job?* How do you want to feel with your family, friends, and loved ones?Play around with these approaches and questions and come up with 3-5 core desired feelings for yourself.Again, everything comes back to how we want to feel, so spending some time musing on your goals and making sure they’re aligned with how you want to feel is really going to benefit you.It will activate motivation for your goals in a whole new way because you will know WHY you want them and what’s really driving you toward them. It may also lead you to discover some new goals that light you up like never before!If you found this article helpful or inspiring, I’d be honored if you’d leave a comment, share it with a pal, give a one-time donation, or consider becoming a paid subscriber.I’m a professional actor, a mindfulness and mindset coach, and I’m ready to help you thrive in your actor life.🎭 I’ve been a professional actress for almost 20 years. I’ve survived 3 industry shut downs - 2 strikes and 1 global pandemic. I’ve worked in TV, film, commercials, and produced my own award-winning web series.🧠 I’ve been a life coach for 5 years, specializing in mindfulness and neurolinguistic programming and helping people become more aware and focused on making positive changes in their lives.💖 I blend lived experience with powerful, proven coaching tools.🎢 Let’s get you feeling resilient, empowered, focused, playful, relaxed, confident, and riding the acting career roller coaster without throwing up! 🤗Community Zooms for Paid-Subscribers! 💻I’m offering exclusive Zoom sessions for paid subscribers. Support my on-going work and enjoy “office hours” with yours truly! Drop into a Zoom session to experience guided mindfulness and supportive, community-based mindset coaching.If you’re curious about mindset coaching, but saving for your next headshot session, this is a great way to get affordable access in a supportive, community environment. Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

Last week, I presented the “What’s On Your Plate?” Exercise and you looked at everything you have going on in your life — all the stuff that requires energy from you and everything that’s stressing you out.Likely, you have a lot on your plate and maybe that exercise even left you feeling a little overwhelmed.Well, I have good news for you. There’s a tool we’ve been practicing here a lot and that we will practice again today, which will help you reduce your stress and restore your energy.Of course, I’m talking about Mindfulness.As a reminder, mindfulness is a special way of paying attention to the present moment with a curious, kind, and non-judgmental attitude.Now, of course, mindfulness is not going to magically fix your life so that you have abundant energy and everything is sunshine and rainbows for the rest of time.But, a regular practice of mindfulness meditation definitely can calm you physically and mentally, allowing your body and mind a chance to recharge.Let’s practice now so that you can experience this for yourself.Hopefully you feel calmer and more restored. Notice what positive effects that meditation had on your mind and body. Maybe you feel a bit more relaxed and energized for the rest of your day.The effects of mindfulness are immediate and cumulative. You benefit during the session and continue to benefit even when not actively practicing. As an example, I bet you sleep a little better tonight after practicing today which will help you restore your energy even more.Next week we’ll explore more ways for you to re-energize yourself, but for today, I want to leave you with some guided mindfulness recordings to support your practice this week.Build Your Mindfulness PracticeI’ve built up quite a library of mindfulness recordings that can support your practice. Here are some tracks to get you started…Mindful Moment (6:54)Mindful Moment (6:56)Mindful Moment (7:22)Mindfulness Meditation (12:06)Mindful Breathing (12:20)Mindfulness Practice (12:53)Paid subscribers get full access to The Aligned Actor Guided Audio Library which includes mindfulness meditations, focusing meditations, and NLP exercises.If you found this article helpful or inspiring, I’d be honored if you’d leave a comment, share it with a pal, give a one-time donation, or consider becoming a paid subscriber.I’m a professional actor, a mindfulness and mindset coach, and I’m ready to help you thrive in your actor life.🎭 I’ve been a professional actress for almost 20 years. I’ve survived 3 industry shut downs - 2 strikes and 1 global pandemic. I’ve worked in TV, film, commercials, and produced my own award-winning web series.🧠 I’ve been a life coach for 5 years, specializing in mindfulness and neurolinguistic programming and helping people become more aware and focused on making positive changes in their lives.💖 I blend lived experience with powerful, proven coaching tools.🎢 Let’s get you feeling resilient, empowered, focused, playful, relaxed, confident, and riding the acting career roller coaster without throwing up! 🤗Community Zooms for Paid-Subscribers! 💻I offer exclusive Zoom sessions for paid subscribers. Support my on-going work and enjoy “office hours” with yours truly! Drop into a Zoom session to experience guided mindfulness and supportive, community-based mindset coaching.If you’re curious about mindset coaching, but saving for your next headshot session, this is a great way to get affordable access in a supportive, community environment.Get my FREE Pre-Audition Focusing Meditation 🎧I’ve created a free meditation to help you get out of your head and into your character so that you can rock your next audition.It’s going to help you calm your nerves, let go of distracting thoughts — “How can I book this? What do they want?” — and focus in on what your character wants, what’s going on in the scene, so that you can present your best work every time. Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

Before we get into our work today, I want to pause and acknowledge the horrible situation going on in Minnesota. If you have been feeling powerless, here are a few actions you could take. Even if these feel small, every action matters and will move you out of powerlessness.* Go to the website (or download the app) 5 Calls. It will get you in touch with your representatives so that you can demand that they take action to defund ICE. It’s very easy, the folks who answer the phone are kind, and if you’re incredibly phone shy, you can call after business hours and leave a message. In fact, calling both CA senators always goes straight to voicemail anyway.* If you have the resources, you can donate to various organization and mutual aid groups in Minnesota via the website standwithminnesota.com.Recently we’ve been talking about energy and how being a human living in 2026 takes a lot of energy — work, family, kids, social life, staying informed/overwhelmed by the news, etcAnd being an actor takes extra energy. For many of us it’s an additional full time career on top of our full time job and our full time life. Plus, the essence of the acting craft itself takes a ton of energy. Yes, it’s super fun and sometimes cathartic to portray the rich emotional life of complex humans, but that work — fully committing with our bodies and minds — can be physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting. I want us all to respect and acknowledge that for ourselves.It’s all too easy to say, “Acting is so fun! It’s so juicy and delicious to play these fun scenes and characters. It’s all playtime!” Yes. Acting is fun. It’s also work and takes effort from our bodies and our minds, which means it requires energy.We have a special skill set as actors and our craft deserves our respect. The best way for us to honor instrument and our craft is by giving ourselves the energy we need, so that we can pour ourselves into our characters fully.How Do You Fill Your Cup?In order to pour into our characters, we need to pour into ourselves first. We’ve all heard to saying…You can’t pour from an empty cup.We can’t show up for our acting when we’ve got nothing in the tank. It’s harder to memorize our lines. We end up staying surface level with our characters. Our brain is too tired to really figure out and get specific about our character’s circumstances, wants, and stakes in the scene.You don’t want to half-ass a scene on set or in a self-tape because you’re too exhausted to do the work. You want to an abundance of energy you can channel into living your character’s wants, stakes, and circumstances, take-after-take-after-take.So, how do you fill your cup?How do you get yourself the energy you need to be able to show up in your life and your acting craft and career how you want?The unsexy answer is good ol’, basic self care. I’m not really talking about spa days, mani/pedis, and massages, although that all definitely counts, too. But what really gives us the most energizing bang for our buck is the often basic and boring daily care we give our bodies, minds, and spirits. It’s highly personal and intentional care that we give ourselves so that we can show up present, energized, and ready to get “in flow” with whatever we’re doing in our lives.* Rocking an audition* Writing our solo-show* Working an overnight shoot* Cooking dinner with our family* Managing a deadline at the day jobLet’s fill up your cup and get you that energy!How Do YOU Care For Your Body, Mind, and Spirit?Self-care is highly, highly personal. We all have different bodies. We all have different minds. We all have different spirits.The body is probably the easiest area to consider first, because there are some general categories that apply to most, if not all, bodies.* Sleep. Are you getting enough quality, restorative sleep?* Hydration. Are you staying hydrated? Are you drinking enough water?* Nutrition. Are you eating foods that make your body feel good?* Hygiene. Are you staying clean so that you can avoid getting germs and spreading germs?* Movement. Are you moving your body and using your body so that it stays strong and healthy?Mind and spirit are where things get really, really personal, but some questions to get you going on this might be…* What activities stimulate and engage your mind? (creative projects, puzzles, games, discussions, acting work, etc)* What activities help your mind turn off and restore? (meditation, cozy games, chill music)* What kind of passive input feels good to your mind? (shows, books, podcasts, music, etc)* What kind of passive input doesn’t feel good to your mind and how might you limit your exposure? (social media? cable news?) * What activities light you up and make you feel good?Personally, mindfulness is a HUGE way that I nurture my mind (plus, my body and spirit benefit, too!). I also enjoy games, logic puzzles, funny podcasts, music and my spirit really benefits from laughter, nature, and social connection, just as some ideas.Again, these lists could be endless in terms of what feeds energy into your unique human system.The questions to ask yourself are: * How do I want to care for my body daily?* How do I want to care for my mind daily? * How do I want to care for my spirit daily?These answers are going to be highly, highly personal. What’s self-care for me might not be self-care for you. And what’s self-care for you might not be self-care for me.So release any expectations you have around what self-care is supposed to look like, and just do an exploration for yourself in terms of how you want to be caring for yourself.Below is a worksheet to help you brainstorm a list of energy-boosting self care items you can prioritize in your daily life. You can get a print out here or refer to the image below. You will get the greatest benefit from this exercise if you write down your list and post it somewhere you will see it regularly. That way your brain doesn’t have to remember your list when you’re tired and need self care the most.You can also you self care apps like Finch where you take care of a little bird by doing the items on your list.Get Back Your Energy!Now that you have a list of energizing self care items - USE IT! Remember the vow you made a few weeks ago and follow through for yourself. Get yourself the energy you need for your FULL Actor Life.Do it for yourself as a human. Do it for yourself as an actor. Do it for your life. Do it for your career. Do it for your craft.You need this care. You need this energy. Your life and your career will thank you.If you found this article helpful or inspiring, I’d be honored if you’d leave a comment, share it with a pal, give a one-time donation, or consider becoming a paid subscriber.I’m a professional actor, a mindfulness and mindset coach, and I’m ready to help you thrive in your actor life.🎭 I’ve been a professional actress for almost 20 years. I’ve survived 3 industry shut downs - 2 strikes and 1 global pandemic. I’ve worked in TV, film, commercials, and produced my own award-winning web series.🧠 I’ve been a life coach for 5 years, specializing in mindfulness and neurolinguistic programming and helping people become more aware and focused on making positive changes in their lives.💖 I blend lived experience with powerful, proven coaching tools.🎢 Let’s get you feeling resilient, empowered, focused, playful, relaxed, confident, and riding the acting career roller coaster without throwing up! 🤗 Community Zooms for Paid-Subscribers! 💻I offer exclusive Zoom sessions for paid subscribers. Support my on-going work and enjoy “office hours” with yours truly! Drop into a Zoom session to experience guided mindfulness and supportive, community-based mindset coaching.If you’re curious about mindset coaching, but saving for your next headshot session, this is a great way to get affordable access in a supportive, community environment. Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

Last week, I presented the “What’s On Your Plate?” Exercise and you looked at everything you have going on in your life — all the stuff that requires energy from you and everything that’s stressing you out.Likely, you have a lot on your plate and maybe that exercise even left you feeling a little overwhelmed.Well, I have good news for you. There’s a tool we’ve been practicing here a lot and that we will practice again today, which will help you reduce your stress and restore your energy.Of course, I’m talking about Mindfulness.As a reminder, mindfulness is a special way of paying attention to the present moment with a curious, kind, and non-judgmental attitude.Now, of course, mindfulness is not going to magically fix your life so that you have abundant energy and everything is sunshine and rainbows for the rest of time.But, a regular practice of mindfulness meditation definitely can calm you physically and mentally, allowing your body and mind a chance to recharge.Let’s practice now so that you can experience this for yourself.Hopefully you feel calmer and more restored. Notice what positive effects that meditation had on your mind and body. Maybe you feel a bit more relaxed and energized for the rest of your day.The effects of mindfulness are immediate and cumulative. You benefit during the session and continue to benefit even when not actively practicing. As an example, I bet you sleep a little better tonight after practicing today which will help you restore your energy even more.Next week we’ll explore more ways for you to re-energize yourself, but for today, I want to leave you with some guided mindfulness recordings to support your practice this week.Build Your Mindfulness PracticeI’ve built up quite a library of mindfulness recordings that can support your practice. Here are some tracks to get you started…Mindful Moment (6:54)Mindful Moment (6:56)Mindful Moment (7:22)Mindfulness Meditation (12:06)Mindful Breathing (12:20)Mindfulness Practice (12:53)Paid subscribers get full access to The Aligned Actor Guided Audio Library which includes mindfulness meditations, focusing meditations, and NLP exercises.If you found this article helpful or inspiring, I’d be honored if you’d leave a comment, share it with a pal, give a one-time donation, or consider becoming a paid subscriber.I’m a professional actor, a mindfulness and mindset coach, and I’m ready to help you thrive in your actor life.🎭 I’ve been a professional actress for almost 20 years. I’ve survived 3 industry shut downs - 2 strikes and 1 global pandemic. I’ve worked in TV, film, commercials, and produced my own award-winning web series.🧠 I’ve been a life coach for 5 years, specializing in mindfulness and neurolinguistic programming and helping people become more aware and focused on making positive changes in their lives.💖 I blend lived experience with powerful, proven coaching tools.🎢 Let’s get you feeling resilient, empowered, focused, playful, relaxed, confident, and riding the acting career roller coaster without throwing up! 🤗Community Zooms for Paid-Subscribers! 💻I offer exclusive Zoom sessions for paid subscribers. Support my on-going work and enjoy “office hours” with yours truly! Drop into a Zoom session to experience guided mindfulness and supportive, community-based mindset coaching.If you’re curious about mindset coaching, but saving for your next headshot session, this is a great way to get affordable access in a supportive, community environment.Get my FREE Pre-Audition Focusing Meditation 🎧I’ve created a free meditation to help you get out of your head and into your character so that you can rock your next audition.It’s going to help you calm your nerves, let go of distracting thoughts — “How can I book this? What do they want?” — and focus in on what your character wants, what’s going on in the scene, so that you can present your best work every time. Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

Acting is a unique career that requires A LOT of energy. Sure, it’s fun to play characters expressing all kinds of emotions, but it’s also exhausting. Not to mention the 4:30am call times and overnight shoots.Additionally, many of us have full time jobs in addition to our full time career, and we all have general life stuff going on too.That’s a lot to juggle!We need energy for our FULL Actor Life. Otherwise, how will we turn in a kickass self-tape after a long day of work and parenting and all the other stuff we have going on?This week I invite you to take some time to acknowledge everything going on in your life — everything that requires your physical and mental energy."What’s on Your Plate?"This exercise will help you acknowledge everything you have going on in your life.* What are you doing regularly? What are your responsibilities? What do you need energy for? Where is your energy going?* What’s stressing you out? What are your sources of stress? What’s weighing on your heart and/or mind?You can get a print out here. Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

We’re practicing mindfulness today because mindfulness is an incredibly important tool that can help us thrive physically, mentally, and emotional in all areas and aspects of our creative lives.As a reminder, mindfulness is an incredibly simple practice — it’s a special way of paying attention to the present moment with kindness and curiosity.In the past I’ve used the term, “non-judgmental curiosity” but I’ve been enjoying Mindfulness Daily with Tara Brach & Jack Kornfield — a free 40 day course I highly recommend — and they often use the word “kindness” to describe the quality of mind cultivated through mindfulness. I’m finding I prefer the term “kindness” over “non-judgmental” because it keeps the focus on what to do instead of what not to do.Check out my website --> thealignedactor.comGet my Pre-Audition Focusing Meditation (free!) --> https://pre-audition-focusing-meditation.teachery.co/get-it-now Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

Today I want to share with you a super simple starter mindfulness practice. It’s so simple that you can do it anytime, anywhere. It’s small enough that you will think “This couldn’t possibly be doing anything for me!” but I promise you, if you do it consistently, it will deliver big results.What I like to call “10-count Mindfulness” is a great way to get started practicing mindfulness. All you do is count your inhales and exhales up to 10.“One” on the inhale, “two” on the exhale, “three” on the inhale, “four” on the exhale, etc…all the way up to 10.That’s it. Easy-breezy, lemon-squeezy.Go to Substack post Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

Happy New Year! Happy 2026!I thought it would be fun to spend some time together exploring how we want 2026 to look and feel for us. I wrote a creative, meditative visualization designed to relax you and allow your mind’s eye to just play and dream.If you found this content helpful or inspiring, I’d be honored if you’d leave a comment, share it with a pal, give a one-time donation, or consider becoming a paid subscriber.Go to post on Substack Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

‘Tis the season of Peace on Earth and Goodwill Toward All, so in keeping with that theme, I thought it would be a good time for us to do a loving kindness meditation together.Loving kindness meditation is a beautiful practice where we focus on and activate feelings of love, kindness, and compassion within us, and then flow those feelings energetically out to various people and creatures we envision in our mind.Let’s practice together.May you be safe…may you be healthy…may you be happy…may you live with ease.I wish you all the best this season. Take care until next time.If you found this article helpful or inspiring, I’d be honored if you’d leave a comment, share it with a pal, give a one-time donation, or consider becoming a paid subscriber.NEW! Community Zooms for Paid Subscribers! 💻I’m now offering exclusive Zoom sessions for paid subscribers. Support my on-going work and enjoy “office hours” with yours truly! Drop into a Zoom session to experience guided mindfulness and supportive, community-based mindset coaching.If you’re curious about mindset coaching, but saving for your next headshot session, this is a great way to get affordable access in a supportive, community environment.I’m a professional actor, a mindfulness and mindset coach, and I’m ready to help you thrive in your actor life.🎭 I’ve been a professional actress for almost 20 years. I’ve survived 3 industry shut downs - 2 strikes and 1 global pandemic. I’ve worked in TV, film, commercials, and produced my own award-winning web series.🧠 I’ve been a life coach for 5 years, specializing in mindfulness and neurolinguistic programming and helping people become more aware and focused on making positive changes in their lives.💖 I blend lived experience with powerful, proven coaching tools.🎢 Let’s get you feeling resilient, empowered, focused, playful, relaxed, confident, and riding the acting career roller coaster without throwing up! 🤗 Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

If you’ve spent any time in my world at all, you know that one of my favorite mottos is ABC: Always Be Celebrating.I celebrate EVERYTHING.I celebrate every time I record a PodTubeStack.I celebrate every time I complete a workout.I celebrate every time I skip a glass of wine in the evening.I celebrate every time I submit a self tape.I celebrate every time I teach a workshop or coach a client.Celebrating throughout my day is fun and makes both my body and brain feel good. It’s also a surefire way to boost my motivation and self-esteem, both of which are important elements of a strong and positive mindset.Celebration Builds MotivationCelebration activates the reward center of our brain. We get a little hit of dopamine which makes us feel good and then we associate that good feeling with whatever we are celebrating. As a result, we tend to seek out ways to do that thing again. Celebrating after I record a PodTubeStack motivates me to record more PodTubeStacks. My brain associates creating content with good feelings, so of course it wants to create more content to get more good feelings.Celebration Builds Self-EsteemOn a deeper level, celebration also makes us feel positive about ourselves because WE did that thing!Celebrating after I submit a self tape makes me feel good about myself as an actor and boosts my self-esteem. Regardless of the outcome, I did my work and shared it with the industry. Good job, me!Celebration Builds a Positive MindsetFeeling motivated and confident in ourselves is a really healthy headspace to be in as an actor. This mindset keeps us focused and taking action on our goals in a kind and supportive way. Instead of letting our inner critic bully and berate us using tactics that make us feel bad about ourselves — “You’re so lazy! It’s about time you got off your ass and recorded!” — celebration activates our inner super fan — “Woohoo! You’re awesome! You did it!!!” — who cheers us on and makes us feel good about ourselves.Think back to your school days and your favorite teachers. I bet the ones you remember most fondly were the ones who encouraged you, celebrated your progress, and made you feel good about yourself. I bet you did better in their classes, too.As an adult, you get to decide what kind of approach to take with yourself now. I know which I prefer. 😉Exercise: “I’m proud of myself for…”Now that I’ve sold you on celebration, let’s get you started with your intentional celebration practice by celebrating your 2025.This is an exercise I use with my clients that can feel awkward at first, but when folks get going, it lights them up like nothing else. It’s a rampaging process that will help you acknowledge and celebrate yourself. All you do is complete the phrase “I’m proud of myself for…” over and over and over again. You can do this out loud or in written form.Important note: If you’re the type to downplay your accomplishments because you fear celebrating them would turn you into an insufferable braggart, please know that this exercise is entirely different. This process is meant for you and you alone. It will help you feeling good about yourself by acknowledging things you did and ways you showed up this year. That’s not bragging! It’s acknowledging and celebrating yourself. Like I said in the post, you’re just boosting your self-esteem and motivation.Go wild with celebration for yourself!If you found this article helpful or inspiring, I’d be honored if you’d leave a comment, share it with a pal, make a one-time donation, or consider becoming a paid subscriber.NEW! Community Zooms for Paid-Subscribers! 💻I’m now offering exclusive Zoom sessions for paid subscribers. Support my on-going work and enjoy “office hours” with yours truly! Drop into a Zoom session to experience guided mindfulness and supportive, community-based mindset coaching.If you’re curious about mindset coaching, but saving for your next headshot session, this is a great way to get affordable access in a supportive, community environment.I’m a professional actor, a mindfulness and mindset coach, and I’m ready to help you thrive in your actor life.🎭 I’ve been a professional actress for almost 20 years. I’ve survived 3 industry shut downs - 2 strikes and 1 global pandemic. I’ve worked in TV, film, commercials, and produced my own award-winning web series.🧠 I’ve been a life coach for 5 years, specializing in mindfulness and neurolinguistic programming and helping people become more aware and focused on making positive changes in their lives.💖 I blend lived experience with powerful, proven coaching tools.🎢 Let’s get you feeling resilient, empowered, focused, playful, relaxed, confident, and riding the acting career roller coaster without throwing up! 🤗 Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

As we approach the end of 2025, there’s a natural inclination to reflect on the year and for actors that can mean looking at our numbers.* How many auditions did I have?* How many callbacks?* How many avail checks?* How many bookings?Data holds value.But data does not tell the whole story.Personally, I had a slow year, so my 2025 numbers leave me feeling uninspired and a little down. Fortunately, I also recognize that there are some significant ways that I grew and up-leveled as an actor that just can’t be measured in the numbers, but are worth celebrating and acknowledging. A Different Year-End Review For ActorsI decided to write some prompts to help us all reflect on our Actor Life beyond the numbers. These questions will get you exploring more of your inner actor world — how you’re feeling about things, how you’re growing, where things feel good, and where things feel not-so-good, etc — so that you can celebrate what’s working for you as an actor and also see if there are any shifts you want to make in how you approach your craft, your career, or your actor mindset.Some of these prompts may feel really good to answer and others may feel challenging or confronting, so I encourage you to be gentle with yourself as you explore this work. You can answer them all, just some, or none at all. This is YOUR work.I invite you to explore these questions mindfully, and with non-judgmental curiosity. If you have a strong reaction to a question, gently ask “Hmmm, I wonder why…?” you may discover a part of you that needs to voice something.Again, play with this and “make it your own” as they say. Trust that you will get out of this exactly what you need.Your Inner Actor World 2025 ReflectionHow did you grow this year?How did you challenge yourself this year?What new things did you learn about yourself?In what ways did you up-level your craft?What did you love about this year?What didn’t work for you in 2025?What do you want to bring with you into 2026?What will you leave behind in 2025?How did you feed your creative soul this year?How did you care for yourself this year?Who inspired you this year?What small wins can you celebrate?What big wins can you celebrate?Where could you offer yourself more grace, compassion, and forgiveness?What felt good this year?What didn’t feel good this year?What challenges or struggles did you face this year?How did you show up differently this year than in previous years?Regardless of the results, which auditions did you have the most fun with?Regardless of the results, how did your audition process feel in general this year?Regardless of the results, is your audition process working for you?How could you enjoy your audition process more?What would make auditioning easier and more enjoyable for you?Even if nothing external changed, what are some ways you could enjoy your career more?What made you feel most alive as an actor?What would you like more of in 2026?What would you like less of in 2026?How do you want to feel in 2026?How will you show up for yourself in 2026?And remember…No matter your numbers or your answers to these questions…YOU. ARE. AN. ACTOR.If you found this article helpful or inspiring, I’d be honored if you’d leave a comment, share it with a pal, buy me a coffee, or consider becoming a paid subscriber.NEW! Community Zooms for Paid-Subscribers! 💻I’m now offering exclusive Zoom sessions for paid subscribers. Support my on-going work and enjoy “office hours” with yours truly! Drop into a Zoom session to experience guided mindfulness and supportive, community-based mindset coaching.If you’re curious about mindset coaching, but saving for your next headshot session, this is a great way to get affordable access in a supportive, community environment.I’m a professional actor, a mindfulness and mindset coach, and I’m ready to help you thrive in your actor life.🎭 I’ve been a professional actress for almost 20 years. I’ve survived 3 industry shut downs - 2 strikes and 1 global pandemic. I’ve worked in TV, film, commercials, and produced my own award-winning web series.🧠 I’ve been a life coach for 5 years, specializing in mindfulness and neurolinguistic programming and helping people become more aware and focused on making positive changes in their lives.💖 I blend lived experience with powerful, proven coaching tools.🎢 Let’s get you feeling resilient, empowered, focused, playful, relaxed, confident, and riding the acting career roller coaster without throwing up! 🤗 Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

‘Tis the season of joy and magic and festive good cheer. ‘Tis also the season of……rushing to finish all the goals you set for yourself at the beginning of 2025 (or lamenting how you fell short)……shopping for all the gifts for all the folks, including that ONE THING your kid desperately wants that is sold out EVERYWHERE……attending all the work parties, and friend parties, and school recitals……traveling… or hosting…or dealing with disappointing the in-laws…yet again.Basically, ‘tis the season of stress, which is why I want to help you PLAN.PLAN: A Mindfulness-Based Self Care PracticeHectic holidays aside, PLAN is one of the main way that I practice self care these days. It’s how I ensure my physical and mental needs are met, no matter how busy my life gets.In the past, when life got busy, self care was the first thing I let slide.My schedule is packed, I have no time for lunch today.I have so much to do, I’ll catch up on sleep on the weekend.I’m rushing everywhere, there’s no time to meditate!Yet, when life is busy and hectic, that’s exactly when we need self care the most. If we’re not caring for our bodies, minds, and spirits, we feel exhausted, stressed, and start putting our physical and mental health at risk. As the saying goes, “You can’t pour from an empty cup.”Hence the need for a…PLAN: Pause, Look, Acknowledge, Nurture(see what I did there?)Pause. Literally stop what you’re doing and take a moment to check with yourself.Look (inward and outward). Notice your current mental and physical state, including your current circumstances.* Inwardly —> What thoughts are running through your mind? What emotions do you notice within you? What physical sensations do you feel in your body?* My thoughts are muddy and unfocused. My brain is fried. * I’m feeling ‘meh’ emotionally. Not good or bad, just ‘meh.’ * Physically, I notice a headache and some shoulder tension.* Outwardly —> What is happening in your world? What are your current (or recent past/future) circumstances?* I had a long work day with a lot of Zooms that required a lot of energy from me. * Up next, I have to figure out dinner and the rest of the evening with the family.Acknowledge. Witness and validate yourself. Acknowledge what is happening for you in this moment, and where you are mentally, emotionally, and physically.I’m feeling tired and drained after a long work day. Makes sense, given all the energy I had to put on on Zoom. I have a headache and my shoulders feel tense, also makes sense. Now, I have to figure out dinner and the rest of the evening with my family, which requires more mental and physical energy. I acknowledge all that’s happening within me and around me. I see myself with compassion this moment.Nurture. Take action (big or small) to care for yourself. What can you do to nurture yourself in this moment? I’m going to finish my child’s snack of cheese and crackers to get some fuel into my body and take some ibuprofen for the headache and shoulder tension.Nurturing doesn’t have to be expensive or time consuming. It can be as simple as taking a few deep breaths or making yourself a cup of tea to enjoy while you continue your day.That’s it. PLAN. Short, simple, and ready to go any time you need it.The Real Magic of PLANOf course, engaging in an intentional act of self care (nurture) is the end goal of PLAN. Noticing your needs and taking action to meet them is how you build a powerful, lasting habit of self care.However, the true magic of this exercise starts when we acknowledge ourselves and our circumstances. If you watch the full video version of this post, you’ll notice that I started to feel better while I was acknowledging myself. Truly, it felt like a great relief to just notice and validate everything I was feeling and experiencing in that moment.It’s like when I have something weighing on my mind, and just sharing it with a trusted loved one magically seems to cut the weight in half. That’s the power of self-acknowledgment.Self-acknowledgment is when YOU show up as your own trusted loved one.It’s a powerful act of self care, self love, and self compassion. Now THAT’s a gift worth giving yourself this holiday season.Give PLAN a try for yourself and let me know what you think!If you found this article helpful or inspiring, I’d be honored if you’d leave a comment, share it with a pal, buy me a coffee, or consider becoming a paid subscriber.NEW! Community Zooms for Paid-Subscribers! 💻I’m now offering exclusive Zoom sessions for paid subscribers. Support my on-going work and enjoy “office hours” with yours truly! Drop into a Zoom session to experience guided mindfulness and supportive, community-based mindset coaching.If you’re curious about mindset coaching, but saving for your next headshot session, this is a great way to get affordable access in a supportive, community environment.I’m a professional actor, a mindfulness and mindset coach, and I’m ready to help you thrive in your actor life.🎭 I’ve been a professional actress for almost 20 years. I’ve survived 3 industry shut downs - 2 strikes and 1 global pandemic. I’ve worked in TV, film, commercials, and produced my own award-winning web series.🧠 I’ve been a life coach for 5 years, specializing in mindfulness and neurolinguistic programming and helping people become more aware and focused on making positive changes in their lives.💖 I blend lived experience with powerful, proven coaching tools.🎢 Let’s get you feeling resilient, empowered, focused, playful, relaxed, confident, and riding the acting career roller coaster without throwing up! 🤗 Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

An area of #ActorLife that is often overlooked, but crucially important when it comes to maintaining a strong, resilient mindset, is the interactions that we have with the people in our lives who are not actors and have no connection to the entertainment industry — “outsiders.”“Outsider” Thinking Can Tank Our MindsetActing is a WEIRD profession that most people are exposed to every day, but that can really only be understood by people who actively engage in it — ACTORS!Because they don’t get it, the outsiders in our lives will say and do things that irritate us and often trigger our insecurities.It doesn’t have to be this way...Fortunately, there is a way out of this mess through mindfulness and mindset work.But HOW, Amy? HOW?!?!To really get into this topic with the depth it deserves requires us to continue this party off the PodTubeStack in my two upcoming workshops.Mindfulness 101: Empower Your Craft and Your Career with Your Presence. We’re gonna break down mindfulness so that it becomes so simple and accessible that you can start making it a way of life that supports you in all aspects of your acting career.Dealing With Folks Who Don’t Get It: Stop Feeling Like Crap After Every Phone Call & Gathering. That’s where we’re gonna dive deep on this problem and set you up with a specific plan that leaves you feeling confident in yourself and your acting career no matter what banana pants thing the outsiders in your life say or ask.These two workshops are bundled together in…The December Double Feature!It’s two AWESOME Zoom workshops in ONE bundled offer, so you can feel calm, resilient, empowered, focused, relaxed, and confident going into The New Year! Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

Being an actor is not for the faint of heart.The delicious high of booking your first co-star!The agonizing low of being left on the cutting room floor after you’ve told all your friends and family “your episode” is airing tonight!The delightful twist of getting a straight-offer because you’re a recommendation of a casting director who loves your work.The devastating turn of being told hours before your call time that your role has been cut and you can kiss that pay check goodbye.Choosing an acting career is like getting on a roller coaster that’s being built as you ride it.Strap in. Hold on. Enjoy the ride?Yeah, right…Who can “enjoy” getting released from two pins in the same week?How do you say “weeeeeee” when a certified letter arrives in the mail saying your agent has dropped you?Then again, there’s nothing like the feeling of locking in with your scene partner and immersing yourself so deeply in the world of your character that hearing the word “cut” catches you completely off guard.I don’t know about you, but I’m never getting off the roller coaster.But I’m done feeling sick to my stomach.And this is where mindfulness comes in.Mindfulness is like dramamine for The Actor Roller Coaster. Let's get into it...-----I’m hosting two mindfulness and mindset workshops in December!The December Double Feature!It’s two AWESOME Zoom workshops in ONE bundled offer, so you can feel calm and confident going into The New Year! Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

Once again we’re exploring a letter I wrote a few years ago to Young Actor Amy who had just arrive in LA. This is A Letter to Young Actor Amy: Part 4 and our topic today is Create, Because No One Cares. Technically we’re combining two topics from my letter, but they go hand-in-hand, so this is perfect.Let’s read what I wrote to myself back then and see how this all holds up today.Create!Don’t wait for permission or perfection to create stuff and put it out into the world. Just do it! Lean into your inspirations and follow them full out. Play, explore, throw stuff up online, and again, rinse and repeat. Some of it might be crap, or maybe only a handful of people will ever see it, but what you will learn in the process will be invaluable. Oh, and fun. Tons of fun!Rolling right into the second bit of advice…No one cares.If you think someone is judging you, chances are good you’re really just projecting your own self-judgement onto them. Abandon judgment altogether and remember that while you’re busy worrying about “what they think” they are probably just as worried about “what YOU think” and you’re both so caught up in this stupid game of self-obsession that no one has stopped to realize, ta-da, no one cares what anyone else is doing! Or maybe we all care, but only in the “oh that’s cool!” sense rather than the “why would you do that?!” sense. Does that make sense? I hope it does, because reminding myself of this fact on a regular basis is freeing.Surprise, surprise, I still love both of these pieces of advice that I wrote to myself. And I have some updated reflections to share on each of these points and how they fit together very nicely.Let’s start with Create!The reason that I encourage myself and all actors to create — content, funny reels, visual art, crafts, join a choir, start an improv team, etc — is that we need to be feeding our creative souls.For many years, I created a comedy web series called, SchloerBITS. It was the ultimate DIY “one woman show.” I literally did everything myself — writing, filming, editing. It didn’t get many views, but it won some festival awards, got me a few acting jobs, and I learned a ton about the creative process, which really helped my overall mindset as an actor.The absolute best part was that it fed my creative soul. Instead of sitting around waiting for someone to cast me, I cast myself in funny roles and scenarios I wanted to explore. I got to express my creativity through writing, filming, acting, and even editing, which was a whole new creative challenge that I really enjoyed. Looking back on the series, I’m still really proud of my work as both an actress and a DIY filmmaker. My one rule was to make myself laugh. If I found an idea funny, hopefully the audience would also find it funny. And if they didn’t, at least I had fun and was brave enough to put my work out into the world anyway.Which is a great segue into the second half of today’s advice — No One Cares.Sharing your creative endeavors with the world is vulnerable and scary AF. There were plenty of times on SchloerBITS that I worried that people would be critical of my work. “Oh, here’s Amy and her BITS again. Does she really think she’s funny? These are embarrassing.” When my comments weren’t flooded with haters and trolls, I started to lean into the idea that people really just didn’t care one way or the other what I was doing — certainly not enough to take the time to throw shade my way. In fact, despite all my worries and fears — “What will they think?” — most comments were incredibly supportive.Additionally, whenever I have caught myself thinking, “Who do they think they are, all proud of their short film or web series or funny viral video?” most of the time it’s my own jealousy speaking. I want to be doing what they are doing, but it’s up to me — not them — to recognize that and adjust my actions accordingly.If someone slides into your DMs (are we still saying that?) or leaves a nasty comment on your post, that’s likely a them issue. If witnessing your creativity triggers something within them, that is not your fault or your problem. Let it go and keep creating! Maybe you’ll end up inspiring them to do the same.So create things, have fun, be yourself, live your life, don’t worry what others will think, and let others do the same!The Aligned Actor is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber. Paid subscribers get Zoom “office hours” with me!NEW! Community Zooms for Paid-Subscribers! 💻I’m now offering exclusive Zoom sessions for paid subscribers. Support my on-going work and enjoy “office hours” with yours truly! Drop into a Zoom session to experience guided mindfulness and supportive, community-based mindset coaching.Let’s chat! ☕️If you’re ready to transform your actor mindset, so you can enjoy the roller coaster of a creative career (instead of wanting to hurl), let’s connect in a complimentary session. Rest assured, this is not a “sales call.” I’m not Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross. In my world ABC means “Always Be Celebrating!” 🥳This is a chance for us to connect and for you to walk away with some specific, actionable ideas that you can start applying right away to shift and strengthen your actor mindset.Think of it like an audition where you are the production team. I’ll show you what I do in the role of “coach” by actually coaching you, and then you get to decide, “Does my production need a mindset coach right now, and is Amy right for this role?” Sounds fun, right?Get my Pre-Audition Focusing Meditation 🎧I’ve created a free meditation to help you get out of your head and into your character so that you can rock your next audition. It’s going to help you calm your nerves, let go of distracting thoughts — “How can I book this? What do they want?” — and focus in on what your character wants, what’s going on in the scene, so that you can present your best work every time.Super Stressed? I got you! 💖Accessing Calm is my ebook of super simple, fun mindfulness life hacks I use every day to calm down quickly when stress is high. These are the tools that help me release tension from my body and keep my mind from spinning out of control with worry and frustration. 😭 ➡️ ☺️ They help me get through the morning rush, calm down before a big audition, and deal with all the stress of the world in general.It’s a quick read that includes video demonstrations of all tools and some bonus mindfulness meditations — all for just $7!Upcoming WorkshopsI’m hosting online my mindfulness workshop in November exclusively for members of the SAG-AFTRA LA Conservatory!Mindfulness 101: Empower Your Craft and Your Career With Your PresenceCome learn about mindfulness and the many advantages it offers performers. Experience a guided mindfulness meditation, explore the benefits of developing a daily mindfulness practice, and learn some quick centering tools to use in auditions and on set.If you are a member of the SAG-AFTRA LA Conservatory, head to the calendar on the website to sign up. If you’re not a member, I encourage you to join, it’s $45 for a full year of workshops and classes. Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

It’s time, once again, dear friends to practice mindfulness together.One of my major goals with The Aligned Actor is to demystify mindfulness and make engaging in a regular practice as easy as possible for you.Remember, mindfulness is incredibly simple.Mindfulness is a special way of paying attention to the present moment with curiosity instead of judgment.You focus on your breath and you notice whatever you notice both within you and around you — thoughts, emotions, sensations, sounds, etc.If you notice that your mind wanders completely away from the present moment — back into the past or forward into the future — no big deal. It happens to all of us. When your mind wanders, just kindly and gently guide your focus back to your breath, which always lives in the present moment. No need to curse yourself out or berate your wandering mind. Just gently readjust.Simple. Gentle. Rinse and repeat…over and over and over…throughout the session.One of my favorite things about my mindfulness practice is that it has increased my self-awareness and my awareness in general. I mentioned this in a previous practice session, but it’s important enough warrant another post!I’ve long believed that awareness is a superpower. When I am aware of my thoughts, feelings, and behaviors I can choose to continue along with the status quo or I can decided to make a change. It gives me more control in my life.For example, not too long ago I became aware of my tendency to overly control my auditions. I obsessed about memorization. I not only had to say the correct words, but I also had to perform the words correctly based on how I thought the scene “should” go. Perhaps unsurprisingly, I was so anxious and in my head that I could not enjoy my work.Once I noticed this uncomfortable audition state I was able to ask the question, “Is this working for me?” Sure, I’d been able to book good roles despite this tendency, but auditions, and even working on set, felt super stressful and not fun at all. Like many, I got into acting because I love it. I love connecting with my scene partner and playing in a world of imaginary circumstances. Trying to control and perfect my auditions felt like the exact opposite of connection and play.Thanks to my mindful awareness I was able to change my approach to auditions. I still make sure to get the words right out of respect for the writers, but the words are no longer the sole focus of my audition. They are now a small part of a whole world that exists in that scene. The work (and fun!) of the audition is to create the whole world for myself.Let’s practice mindfulness together now, and as you engage with the session today, know that every time you notice a thought, or a sound, or that your mind has wandered, you are helping to strengthen your overall awareness in general. See how that knowledge impacts the rest of your day after the session. Maybe you’ll notice something new about yourself or a situation in your life and be able to make adjustments if needed.Here’s the practice for today…As you’re enjoying the afterglow of that little mindfulness session, remember, there are so many great benefits of mindfulness beyond increasing your awareness.Mindfulness can also help you…* Relieve tension and stress from your body and mind.* Calm your nerves and go to a neutral place with your instrument before filming a big scene.* Stay more present in your craft, really listening and reacting moment to moment.* Get out of your head in auditions and stay focused on what your character wants.* Notice when your Inner Critic is being really mean to you, so you can practice being kinder to yourself.* Become less judgmental of yourself and others.* Start to gently question if some of your dominant thoughts are actually limiting beliefs holding you back in your acting career or life in general.The benefits of mindfulness are immediate and cumulative, meaning regular practice, even just 10 minutes a day, will make all of these benefits more and more accessible to you over time.It just takes practice, which is why we do this.If you found this post helpful or inspiring, I’d be honored if you’d leave a comment, share it with a pal, buy me a coffee, or consider becoming a paid subscriber.NEW! Community Zooms for Paid-Subscribers! 💻I’m now offering exclusive Zoom sessions for paid subscribers. Support my on-going work and enjoy “office hours” with yours truly! Drop into a Zoom session to experience guided mindfulness and supportive, community-based mindset coaching.If you’re curious about mindset coaching, but saving for your next headshot session, this is a great way to get affordable access in a supportive, community environment.Get my FREE Pre-Audition Focusing Meditation 🎧I’ve created a free meditation to help you get out of your head and into your character so that you can rock your next audition. It’s going to help you calm your nerves, let go of distracting thoughts — “How can I book this? What do they want?” — and focus in on what your character wants, what’s going on in the scene, so that you can present your best work every time.Super Stressed? I got you! 💖Accessing Calm is my ebook of super simple, fun mindfulness life hacks I use every day to calm down quickly when stress is high. These are the tools that help me release tension from my body and keep my mind from spinning out of control with worry and frustration. 😭 ➡️ ☺️ They help me get through the morning rush, calm down before a big audition, and deal with all the stress of the world in general.It’s a quick read that includes video demonstrations of all tools and some bonus mindfulness meditations — all for just $7!Upcoming WorkshopsI’m hosting online mindfulness workshops in November exclusively for members of the SAG-AFTRA LA Conservatory!Mindfulness 101: Empower Your Craft and Your Career With Your PresenceCome learn about mindfulness and the many advantages it offers performers. Experience a guided mindfulness meditation, explore the benefits of developing a daily mindfulness practice, and learn some quick centering tools to use in auditions and on set.If you are a member of the SAG-AFTRA LA Conservatory, head to the calendar on the website to sign up. If you’re not a member, I encourage you to join, it’s $45 for a full year of workshops and classes.Let’s chat! ☕️If you’re ready to really embrace all this mindfulness and mindset stuff, so that you can ride the roller coaster of being an actor without throwing up, let’s connect in a complimentary session. This is a chance for us to connect and for you to walk away with some specific, actionable ideas that you can start applying right away to shift and strengthen your actor mindset.Think of it like an audition where you are the production team. I’ll show you what I do in the role of “coach” by actually coaching you, and then you get to decide, “Does my production need a mindset coach right now, and is Amy right for this role?” Sounds fun, right? I mean, who doesn’t love an audition?!Bye! Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

Welcome to more fun on The Aligned Actor PodTubeStack!I’m Amy Schloerb. I’m a professional actress and a mindfulness and mindset coach helping actors ride the roller coaster — all the ups and downs, twists and turns — of being an actor without throwing up.Once again we’re exploring a letter I wrote a few years ago to Young Actor Amy who had just arrive in LA. This is A Letter to Young Actor Amy: Part 3 about how All Acting Work is Real.Let’s see what I wrote back then and see how this advice holds up today.All acting work is real. Enjoy it.Don’t treat any acting job like a stepping stone or practice session for a “real job.” THEY ARE ALL REAL JOBS. Different budget levels maybe, but your job is always the same. Know your lines, know what you want in each scene, and do your work. Rinse and repeat. Any idea that “Oh, this is good practice for when I’m REALLY working” is nonsense. You’re REALLY WORKING now! Stop missing out on the fun you’re having right now by continually telling yourself that this job doesn’t count. It counts! Enjoy it! Celebrate them all!Yes! AND I want to expand this idea even more so that it includes ALL ACTING we do! Paid and unpaid. On set and in class. Auditions and silly stuff we throw up on the internet because it’s fun. Everything.When we say “This isn’t real” or “This doesn’t count” or “This is just a stepping stone to the real work” in a way we’re disparaging the work we’re currently doing by comparing it to OTHER work that we deem as “better” because it’s “real” and what we’re really saying is, “This isn’t good enough compared to THAT!”“This scene in class isn’t good enough compared to having a “real” audition.”“This audition isn’t good enough compared to having a “real” job on set.”“This co-star role isn’t good enough compared to having a “real” role as a guest star.”“This guest star role isn’t good enough compared to having a “real” role as a series regular.”Where does it end?That “compare and despair” mindset can cause a lot of stress, self-criticism, and even shame because it’s a really slippery slope from “This isn’t good enough” to “I’m not good enough because THIS is all I have and I don’t have THAT.”Whereas the mindset that says, “All acting work as the same, it’s all real, it all counts” can set us free to enjoy our acting career in a whole new way. I’m guessing you got into acting because you love it — it’s fun, it’s creative, you get to express yourself, you love playing characters, you love making people laugh, you love making people cry, you love that “performance high” you get when you act — so why not give yourself permission to really love your acting work — ALL your acting work — right now.BONUS! — I’ve seen so many videos of famous actors saying that when they stopped thinking of auditions as “something they had to do to get an acting job” and starting seeing them as “THE ACTING JOB” — “I get to act today. This acting work counts just the same as being on set” — that’s when things transformed for them. Here’s one. Here’s another. And here’s one more to complete the rule of threes.This mindset can make our work better because we’re more committed and not half-assing anything or holding back because “Eh, it doesn’t really count.” When all acting counts, I’m motivated to show up in my acting work in a different, deeper way and my work just keeps getting better and better.It also takes some of the pressure off booking because when we believe all acting counts the same, and therefore we can enjoy acting at anytime, we suddenly have full control over our access our craft. There are no gatekeepers between us and our passion. Just like a painter can pick up their brushes and access the joy of painting anytime, we can pick up a scene or a monologue and access the joy of acting anytime.Sure, some people will say actors need an audience to witness their acting, but do we? Maybe that’s just another example of “This acting doesn’t count because I’m just doing it for me.” What if even acting “just for ourselves” counts?I have a monologue which I’ve adapted from a Martha Graham quote and sometimes I do it just for myself because it speaks to my soul, and what I want to do in the world, and it affects me the same way I hope it would affect an audience.That counts for me.You can go as deep or not deep with this as you want, but the point is: In my book, all acting counts.It’s all your body of work — your acting practice — like a mindfulness practice.In fact, a mindfulness practice can help you with this mindset shift, because mindfulness is all about staying focused on the present moment — in this case, the acting work you are currently doing — and gently returning your focus to that work whenever your mind wanders off into thinking, “Eh, this doesn’t count…Oh, no wait…I’m getting to act right now, I’m getting to do what I love. Let me get present to that and enjoy it.”Mindfulness and mindset shifts like this are my jam. This is the kind of coaching work I love to do with 1:1 clients and in my workshops. Mindfulness can help you become more present in your work, more aware of where your mindset might be holding you back, better able to gently shift those thought patterns so that you can approach your craft and your career with more confidence, have more fun, and really enjoy being an actor despite how crazy-making this profession can be at times.The Aligned Actor is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.Let’s chat! ☕️If you’re ready to transform your actor mindset, let’s connect in a complimentary session. Rest assured, this is not a “sales call.” I’m not Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross. In my world ABC means “Always Be Celebrating!” 🥳This is a chance for us to connect and for you to walk away with some specific, actionable ideas that you can start applying right away to shift and strengthen your actor mindset.Think of it like an audition where you are the production team. I’ll show you what I do in the role of “coach” by actually coaching you, and then you get to decide, “Does my production need a mindset coach right now, and is Amy right for this role?” Sounds fun, right?Get my Pre-Audition Focusing Meditation 🎧I’ve created a free meditation to help you get out of your head and into your character so that you can rock your next audition. It’s going to help you calm your nerves, let go of distracting thoughts — “How can I book this? What do they want?” — and focus in on what your character wants, what’s going on in the scene, so that you can present your best work every time.And speaking of calming your nerves…Accessing Calm is my ebook of super simple, fun mindfulness life hacks I use every day to calm down quickly when stress is high. These are the tools that help me release tension from my body and keep my mind from spinning out of control with worry and frustration. 😭 ➡️ ☺️ They help me get through the morning rush, calm down before a big audition, and deal with all the stress of the world in general.It’s a quick read that includes video demonstrations of all tools and some bonus mindfulness meditations — all for just $7!Upcoming WorkshopsI’m hosting online mindfulness workshops in October and November exclusively for members of the SAG-AFTRA LA Conservatory!Mindfulness 101: Empower Your Craft and Your Career With Your PresenceCome learn about mindfulness and the many advantages it offers performers. Experience a guided mindfulness meditation, explore the benefits of developing a daily mindfulness practice, and learn some quick centering tools to use in auditions and on set.If you are a member of the SAG-AFTRA LA Conservatory, head to the calendar on the website to sign up. If you’re not a member, I encourage you to join, it’s $45 for a full year of workshops and classes. Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

Hello friends!It’s time to practice mindfulness, again. I want to demystify mindfulness and make engaging in a regular practice as easy as possible for you.As a reminder, my definition of mindfulness is incredibly simple:Mindfulness is a special way of paying attention to the present moment with curiosity instead of judgment. You tune into your breath and just notice whatever you notice both within you and around you — thoughts, emotions, sensations, sounds, etc.If you notice that your mind wanders completely away from the present moment — back into the past or forward into the future — no big deal. It happens to all of us. Just kindly and gently guide your focus back to your breath. No need to curse yourself out or berate your wandering mind. Just gently guide your focus to the present moment. Simple. Gentle. Rinse and repeat as many times as needed in the session.One of my favorite things about mindfulness is that it lays a beautiful foundation for any personal development or mindset work we want to do.At its core, mindfulness is awareness, and awareness equals choices.The more we practice becoming aware of our thoughts and emotions during mindfulness meditation, the easier it becomes to notice them throughout our day and adjust our focus as needed.We can choose to keep replaying “that audition” and questioning the performance we were so proud of only hours before, or we can choose to kindly and gently guide our focus back to our initial positive thoughts and feelings about our work. We can even choose to affirm for ourselves, “I did my work. My work is done. I’m moving on with my day.” The mindful awareness of our unhelpful, self-critical thoughts about the audition is the first step to deciding to make new choices that serve us and our mindset much better. If we don’t notice, “Hey, I’m torturing myself over this audition. Do I want to keep doing this?” we stay stuck in the icky angst of self-tape self-doubt.Let’s go ahead and practice together now. If you are driving or doing something that requires your full attention in order to be safe, please come back to this at a later time.This is the mindfulness practice…As we’re all enjoying the afterglow of that little mindfulness session, remember:There are so many great benefits of mindfulness. I gave the example earlier about becoming more aware of thoughts and emotions throughout your day and how that can give you the choice to adjust as you see fit. Practicing mindfulness, observing the present moment with curiosity instead of judgment while you breathe, can also help you…* Relieve tension and stress from your body and mind.* Calm your nerves and go to a neutral place with your instrument before filming that big scene.* Stay more present in your craft, really listening and reacting moment to moment.* Get out of your head in auditions and stay focused on what your character wants.* Notice when your Inner Critic is being really mean to you, so you can practice being kinder to yourself. * Become less judgmental of yourself and others.* Start to gently question if some of your dominant thoughts are actually limiting beliefs holding you back in your acting career or life in general.The benefits of mindfulness are immediate and cumulative, meaning regular practice, even just 10 minutes a day, will make all of these benefits more and more accessible to you over time.It just takes practice, which is why we do this.Speaking of Mindfulness! Get my Pre-Audition Focusing Meditation 🎧I’ve created a free meditation to help you get out of your head and into your character so that you can rock your next audition. It’s going to help you calm your nerves, let go of distracting thoughts — “How can I book this? What do they want?” — and focus in on what your character wants, what’s going on in the scene, so that you can present your best work every time.Let’s chat! ☕️If you’re ready to transform your actor mindset, let’s connect in a complimentary session. Rest assured, this is not a “sales call.” I’m not Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross. In my world ABC means “Always Be Celebrating!” 🥳This is a chance for us to connect and for you to walk away with some specific, actionable ideas that you can start applying right away to shift and strengthen your actor mindset.Think of it like an audition where you are the production team. I’ll show you what I do in the role of “coach” by actually coaching you, and then you get to decide, “Does my production need a mindset coach right now, and is Amy right for this role?” Sounds fun, right?Super Stressed? I got you! 💖Accessing Calm is my ebook of super simple, fun mindfulness life hacks I use every day to calm down quickly when stress is high. These are the tools that help me release tension from my body and keep my mind from spinning out of control with worry and frustration. 😭 ➡️ ☺️ They help me get through the morning rush, calm down before a big audition, and deal with all the stress of the world in general.It’s a quick read that includes video demonstrations of all tools and some bonus mindfulness meditations — all for just $7!Upcoming WorkshopsI’m hosting online mindfulness workshops in October and November exclusively for members of the SAG-AFTRA LA Conservatory!Mindfulness 101: Empower Your Craft and Your Career With Your PresenceCome learn about mindfulness and the many advantages it offers performers. Experience a guided mindfulness meditation, explore the benefits of developing a daily mindfulness practice, and learn some quick centering tools to use in auditions and on set.If you are a member of the SAG-AFTRA LA Conservatory, head to the calendar on the website to sign up. If you’re not a member, I encourage you to join, it’s $45 for a full year of workshops and classes. Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

Here’s your moment of mindfulness — right up top — so you can find it easily!Hello and welcome back to the Aligned Actor PodTubeStack.That's what I'm now calling this because I think it's fun, I like combining words, and nobody can stop me.Just as a reminder, I'm Amy Schloerb. I'm a mindfulness and mindset coach helping actors ride the rollercoaster of being an actor without throwing up — instead, gracefully moving with all those twists and turns and ups and downs and all of that stuff — so that we can have more satisfying, more fulfilling, calmer, more stable lives in general.This is part two of A Letter to Young Actor Amy: Find Your Actor Friends.Let’s dive in and see what I wrote to myself back in the day…Having some actor pals is really, really helpful when you’re starting out. These people are gonna “get you” - they’re gonna be cool if you make plans and then have to cancel because an audition comes up. They are gonna be people you can share information and resources with (headshot photographers, classes, agents, workshops). They also will understand stuff about your career that your family and non-actor friends just never will. So, for example, let’s say that you keep getting called into audition for the same casting director a dozen times, but you keep not booking. Your family might think, “what’s wrong with you? Why can’t you convert?” BUT your actor friends are gonna know that you’re really good, this casting director obviously is a HUGE fan of your work, and for whatever reason, the right role just hasn’t come up for you yet. So, your actor pals are gonna be able to help you stay smart and optimistic about your career and your craft, where as your family might have you spiraling down, and questioning yourself — “Maybe I really suck, maybe they’re just bringing me in to make the other actors look better, maybe I need to change my look or my skills or whatever…” — when the truth is, you just need to take a breath, acknowledge that, yeah, it’s frustrating to not book, but ultimately celebrate the fact that you’ve made a pretty big fan in the industry (in this casting director) and you’re certainly on a successful journey as a professional actor (just a little callback there).Where do you find actor friends? I found mine in an improv community and acting classes. If you’re coming out of a college or conservatory program, maybe see if there are alumni living in your market. When I was first starting out, Facebook wasn’t public yet, but now there are all kinds of groups there and you can follow casting directors and class studios and see what looks good to you. But seriously, get in a class, which is actually my next piece of advice…But you will have to wait for that advice because first we have to talk about this advice…This is absolutely all still true. Good actor friends are the best. There is nothing like a group of good actor friends who understand you, who know what it's like, who can commiserate with you when things are not going so well and who can celebrate with you when things are going really, really well.Actor friends are amazing and you need actor friends in your life.You can still find these folks in classes, workshops, search the hashtag #SelfTapeMay to follow them on social media, you can find them in film festivals, improv shows, and sketch shows. They're out there. They're waiting for you. You need them and they need you, so find your people.For humans in general, having social support is a huge help in terms of handling stress, which all humans deal with, and actors are humans too — newsflash!Actors also deal with a unique form of stress that only other actors really understand:Rejection…performance anxiety…last minute memorizing and audition prep when you're already exhausted from your day job and other stuff you have going on in life…battling traffic to get to that callback…pressure from your family like, "Well, when are you going to be on my TV next? When are you going to make it?"The list is just endless, right? #IYKYKThere's a lot of stress when it comes to being an actor.Your actor friends are gonna help you with that stress, and having really strong social support from peers and colleagues who get you and understand the realities of being an actor is really, really important.You want actor friends who understand the nuance of being pinned, or on hold, or on avail, but then being released, which BOTH absolutely sucks AND is such a great sign that you are doing absolutely the right thing, and you're a fantastic actor. But it still really sucks and it hurts like hell, and NOBODY really gets that particular, nuanced, “both/and” situation better than your actor friends.You want actor friends who are excited to read with you for self-tapes, maybe even last minute or really late at night because that's the only time you have to get that done. You want to like working with them, feel safe working with them, and feel like you can play when you work with them, so you can put your best performance out there.And most importantly, you want actor friends in your life who see you as a working actor and who can continually affirm that identity for you — not because you're always on TV or in films — but because you are engaged in any number of various actor actions that are the real work of being an actor.You're in classes…you're doing workshops…you're auditioning…you're submitting yourself for things…you're in the union or you're working on getting in the union…you have headshots and you keep them updated…you're on casting sites…you're creating your own content and putting it out there for the world to see your work…you're doing Self-Tape May…and so on and so forth…All the stuff that we do as actors that we as insiders of this occupation, profession, and career recognize as engaging in an acting career.Because it is so easy to let your mindset slip into outsider thinking:"Oh, well, real actors are those people that we see on TV and in movies and at award shows, and people who can pay all their bills from just their acting jobs, and everyone else is just sort of aspiring actors or wannabe actors trying to do the actor thing."That's a mindset that you can choose to have. That's a belief system that you can subscribe to, but I do not recommend it at all.So many of our loved ones, or even just random people that you meet, hold that outsider view and they will unintentionally (and sometimes intentionally) say things that will chip away at your actor identity and make you feel really bad about yourself and bad about your career, if you let them.One of the best things that really good actor friends can do for each other is to continually support and affirm each other in our occupational identity, because the outsiders never will and they have no idea how to anyway.They have on their outsider glasses and those glasses are really contagious and they can really mess with an actor mindset.My dream, my absolute, ideal world dream (aside from we fix climate change, there's world peace, and everybody's happy) my dream for actors is that every single actor ditches those outsider glasses forever and puts on insider glasses, so that we all see that what makes us actors — working actors, professional actors, whatever term lights you up the most — is the job aspects, not the results aspects.It's auditions, not bookings.It's classes, not red carpets.It's passion and engagement, not "Well, what have I seen you in lately?"It's journey, not destination. (Just another little callback there to our previous letter to young actor Amy)If we can all adopt this mindset, this insider perspective, then all actors will become so secure in their actor identity that there's literally nothing that an outsider could say that would rattle us. It would be like water off a duck's back — "Oh, they don't get it. I don't care, moving on."That's my dream.In the meantime, I think we can do this one by one, and let it ripple out in the pond.Find your actor friends who will help you maintain this insider mindset. Share this content with your actor friends who you see very easily sort of falling into that outsider thinking.Those friends are going to help you with that, and you can all support each other in maintaining that insider — "I'm an actor!" — thinking.And if you want help strengthening your insider mindset — that self-concept that says, "I'm a full-time working actor, always." Full stop. End of sentence. — I want to help you.Let’s chat! ☕️If you’re ready to transform your actor mindset, let’s connect in a complimentary session. Rest assured, this is not a “sales call.” I’m not Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross. In my world ABC means “Always Be Celebrating!” 🥳This is a chance for us to chat and connect and for you to walk away with some specific, actionable ideas that you can start applying right away to shift and strengthen your actor mindset.Think of it like an audition where you are the production team. I’ll show you what I do in the role of “coach” by actually coaching you, and then you get to decide, “Does my production need a mindset coach right now, and is Amy right for this role?” Sounds fun, right?Get my Pre-Audition Focusing Meditation 🎧I’ve created a free meditation to help you get out of your head and into your character so that you can rock your next audition. It’s going to help you let go of any nerves or thoughts of “what do they want?” and focus in on what your character wants, what’s going on in the scene, and that’s going to help you present your best work every time.Super Stressed? I got you! 💖Accessing Calm is my ebook of super simple, fun mindfulness life hacks I use every day to calm down quickly when stress is high. These are the tools that help me release tension from my body and keep my mind from spinning out of control with worry and frustration. 😭 ➡️ ☺️ They help me get through the morning rush, calm down before a big audition, and deal with all the stress of the world in general.It’s a quick read that includes video demonstrations of all tools and some bonus mindfulness meditations — all for just $7!Upcoming WorkshopsI’m hosting online mindfulness workshops in October and November exclusively for members of the SAG-AFTRA LA Conservatory!Mindfulness 101: Empower Your Craft and Your Career With Your PresenceCome learn about mindfulness and the many advantages it offers performers. Experience a guided mindfulness meditation, explore the benefits of developing a daily mindfulness practice, and learn some quick centering tools to use in auditions and on set.If you are a member of the SAG-AFTRA LA Conservatory, head to the calendar on the website to sign up. If you’re not a member, I encourage you to join, it’s $45 for a full year of workshops and classes. Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

Hello friends!I’m adding a new element to The Aligned Actor PodTubeStack. We’re going to practice mindfulness together because mindfulness is a hugely important foundation of my work — I am a mindfulness and mindset coach after all — and one of my missions is to demystify mindfulness and make engaging in a regular practice as accessible and easy as possible for people.Mindfulness is incredibly simple — it’s a special way of paying attention to the present moment with curiosity instead of judgment. Typically, you focus on your breath and then just notice whatever you notice both within you and around you — the physical sensations of breathing, the thoughts in your mind, the emotions you feel within you, the noise of that plane going overhead, etc. As you’re witnessing what’s present within you and around you, one of those things might take center stage within your mind — “Look at me! Look at me! Lalalalalalalala! Jazz hands!” — Suddenly you’re watching a solo show rehashing something from your past, forecasting into your future, or imagining what it would be like to win an Oscar. The point is, you’re no longer observing your present moment.But that’s no big deal. It happens to all of us. Just kindly and gently guide your focus back to your breath.“Oh, yes, I should definitely remember to thank all those folks in my acceptance speech, but right now I’m going to lovingly guide my focus back to my breath and my present moment experience.”No need to curse yourself out or berate your wandering mind. Just let the orchestra play you off as you return your focus to the present moment. Simple. Gentle. Rinse and repeat as many times as needed in the session.Let’s go ahead and practice together now. If you are driving or doing something that requires your full attention in order to be safe, please come back to this at a later time.This is the mindfulness practice…As we’re all enjoying the afterglow of that little mindfulness session, remember:There are so many great benefits of mindfulness for both humans in general and actors specifically. Practicing mindfulness, tuning into your breath and observing the present moment with curiosity instead of judgment, can help you…* Relax and relieve stress from your mind and body.* Calm your nerves before a big scene.* Stay more present in your work, really listening and reacting moment to moment.* Get out of your head in auditions and stay focused on what your character wants.* Notice when your Inner Critic is being really mean to you, so you can practice being kinder to yourself. * Become less judgmental of yourself and others.* Start to gently question if some of your dominant thoughts are actually limiting beliefs holding you back in your acting career or life in general.And so much more. A regular mindfulness practice, even just 10 minutes a day, will make all of these benefits more and more accessible to you. You will find it easier and easier to do all of these things.It just takes practice, which is why we do this.Speaking of Mindfulness! Get my Pre-Audition Focusing Meditation 🎧I’ve created a free meditation to help you get out of your head and into your character so that you can rock your next audition. It’s going to help you calm your nerves, let go of distracting thoughts — “How can I book this? What do they want?” — and focus in on what your character wants, what’s going on in the scene, so that you can present your best work every time.Let’s chat! ☕️If you’re ready to transform your actor mindset, let’s connect in a complimentary session. Rest assured, this is not a “sales call.” I’m not Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross. In my world ABC means “Always Be Celebrating!” 🥳This is a chance for us to connect and for you to walk away with some specific, actionable ideas that you can start applying right away to shift and strengthen your actor mindset.Think of it like an audition where you are the production team. I’ll show you what I do in the role of “coach” by actually coaching you, and then you get to decide, “Does my production need a mindset coach right now, and is Amy right for this role?” Sounds fun, right?Super Stressed? I got you! 💖Accessing Calm is my ebook of super simple, fun mindfulness life hacks I use every day to calm down quickly when stress is high. These are the tools that help me release tension from my body and keep my mind from spinning out of control with worry and frustration. 😭 ➡️ ☺️ They help me get through the morning rush, calm down before a big audition, and deal with all the stress of the world in general.It’s a quick read that includes video demonstrations of all tools and some bonus mindfulness meditations — all for just $7!Upcoming WorkshopsI’m hosting online mindfulness workshops in October and November exclusively for members of the SAG-AFTRA LA Conservatory!Mindfulness 101: Empower Your Craft and Your Career With Your PresenceCome learn about mindfulness and the many advantages it offers performers. Experience a guided mindfulness meditation, explore the benefits of developing a daily mindfulness practice, and learn some quick centering tools to use in auditions and on set.If you are a member of the SAG-AFTRA LA Conservatory, head to the calendar on the website to sign up. If you’re not a member, I encourage you to join, it’s $45 for a full year of workshops and classes. Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

Hello and welcome back to the Aligned Actor Substack, podcast, YouTube video, wherever you have found this content, I welcome you.I'm Amy Schloerb. I am a mindfulness and mindset coach and I help actors ride the roller coaster of being an actor without throwing up.September is my "actorversary" — the anniversary of when I became a professional actor by moving to Los Angeles and starting my acting career — and so I always like to reflect at this time and look back at how far I've come.A number of years ago, I wrote myself a letter, to my younger self, the version of me that had just moved out to Los Angeles, offering advice.This year I decided that I wanted to go look at that letter, see what advice I had offered myself back then, see if I still like that advice, if there's things that I would change about that advice, or if there's stuff that I would add now as extra advice to pile on top of newly-arrived-baby-actor-in-LA Amy.I had a lot of advice, apparently, for my younger self just starting out, and so this is just part one of a series of Substack-podcast-YouTube-videos that we're going to do because I didn't want any of these to get out of control long.This is part one, "Success is a journey, not a destination" which I still really like this advice. This is great advice.So let's read now what younger actor Amy had to say to even younger actor Amy and then older actor Amy — more mature, more wise, finely-aged actor Amy, "now" actor Amy — will chime in with extra additional thoughts as well.Dear Amy,“Success is a journey, not a destination”I know, I know, you’ve seen this on magnets and sometimes you even think you understand and believe it. But there’s still something nagging at the back of your mind saying, “yeah, but once I achieve THAT, then I’ll really be successful.” Sorry, no.If you believe success is a destination you’ll just end up hustling, striving, and holding yourself apart from happiness and a sense of accomplishment. You have success now. High School Amy Schloerb believed that success was graduating and getting into a good college. College Amy Schloerb believed success was, again, graduating and starting a good career. Now that you’ve arrived in LA, you’re thinking success means booking bigger and better acting jobs consistently and continuously until you’re the next Reese Witherspoon. Not gonna lie, I still sometimes think that, but then I remember the truth: Setting goals is great, but continuously moving the goal post on what it means to BE SUCCESSFUL is soul crushing. If you keep thinking, “yeah I did that, good for me, but now REAL success is up there” guess what? “Real success” will always be “up there.” Wherever the F either of those things are….Instead, put the goal post of success inside you. What?! What the heck does that mean?! It means enjoy the process and the journey because, spoiler alert, that’s all there is: Journey. And then more journey, some more journey, a quick detour journey to a foreign country (oops! I’ve said too much!), followed by, you guessed it, more journey! It’s quite a trip! Bahahahahaha! Oh, stop rolling your eyes, you know that was funny!There’s gonna be ups and downs, highs and lows, abundance and “slow times” - and the sooner you recognize that that’s just what this career IS, the happier you’re gonna be overall. You’re “in the arena” (look up the Roosevelt quote, it’s good) and that means you’re already successful.I still really love this advice because it basically means we get to define success. I've talked about this before on Substack pretty recently and on YouTube.It's a really important thing to think about, about how we define success.The way that Google, and some kind of dictionary online where I looked this up before for a different content offering, the way that they define success is...Success is defined as the accomplishment of an aim or purpose.I want us all to find a definition of success that allows us to feel good about ourselves. That's what I really think is important when it comes to our mindset about ourselves and how we're going to approach ourselves and the world.If you define success as engaging in the journey of being an actor, then ta-da! Success! Anything that you do that's you engaging in the life of an actor — auditions, taking headshots, submitting yourself for roles, meeting with your agent, getting a new agent if you need one, going on commercial auditions, networking — literally anything that you do that furthers your acting career all of a sudden becomes an act of success because you're just doing it, you're just being an actor and doing the things that actors do. On the flip side though, if you choose destination-based success, then things get a lot trickier. For the longest time I've had the goal of playing a recurring character on a fun tv show and that hasn't happened yet. I would really like to achieve that success.But if I choose to define success overall for myself as "recurring role" then everything else that I've achieved in my career starts to kind of look like a failure, and I start to feel like I'm failing.“I haven't achieved that, so therefore I'm not successful. I'm a failure.”Why would I do that to myself?Why would I view it like that?It's a lot smarter to define success based on what I can control."Yes, I did that self tape. I played that character the way that I wanted to play them. I hit all the beats that I wanted to hit. I connected with my reader really well. I felt really present and in the moment, I really went after what I wanted in that scene."Defining success that way, deciding that THAT'S the measure of success based on what I did, rather than success being based on what others do, the stuff that I can't control — how casting sees the video, what casting thinks of the video, which videos they choose to pass on to production, how production sees the video, what they actually need out of this role, the heights of the other actors and how I line up in terms of all of that.I can't control that stuff.I can't control what auditions come my way. I can't control what types of roles are casting. Maybe they're just not casting anything that works for me at the moment, and that's just how it is.I have no control over that.I can't control how casting responds to my work. I can't control how production responds to my work.What I can control is how I show up in my work and all the actions that I take as an actor.I can control how I show up in my self tapes.I can control how I engage in my career as an actor.This next little bit that I'm going to read to you, I found with the letter, and I think it was when I did a version of this on the podcast years and years and years ago, so I'm talking about the letter that I had written, but it's still really good stuff, so I wanted to share it with you now, but I wanted to clarify that this is also probably younger Amy as well.So, the take-away here is that YOU get to decide what success means and I would encourage you to define success as the entirety of the journey of your career, rather than some destination - co-star, guest star, series regular, three-picture deal, paying all your bills from acting work, Oscar, Emmy, EGOT, whatever. Holding THE JOURNEY as your marker of success is so liberating and rewarding. Please, don’t hold yourself apart from happiness, fulfillment, and achievement. You can have it now.The idea here is just engaging in your career, all of it — the highs, the lows, the twists, the turns, "staying at the table" as I once heard Henry Winkler say — that's the success."Success is a journey, not a destination" means success is what you do.The journey — you walking your path, you taking all of the actions that you take as an actor — not where you end up.And this is definitely a mindset shift because, oh boy, do we have a lot of messaging that we receive from society that says basically the exact opposite.But I think this is a really important mindset shift and it really can help with your overall happiness, and your overall drive, and your overall motivation, and your overall inspiration for wanting to continue on in your career and keeping that fire, that ember, that passion alive in you.And if you want help making this kind of mindset shift, redefining success for yourself so that you can feel great about yourself and great about your acting career, I can definitely help you with that.But first, here’s your moment of mindfulness…Let’s chat! ☕️If you’re ready to transform your actor mindset, let’s connect in a complimentary session. Rest assured, this is not a “sales call.” I’m not Alec Baldwin in Glengarry Glen Ross. In my world ABC means “Always Be Celebrating!” 🥳This is a chance for us to connect and for you to walk away with some specific, actionable ideas that you can start applying right away to shift and strengthen your actor mindset.Think of it like an audition where you are the production team. I’ll show you what I do in the role of “coach” by actually coaching you, and then you get to decide, “Does my production need a mindset coach right now, and is Amy right for this role?” Sounds fun, right?Get my Pre-Audition Focusing Meditation 🎧I’ve created a free meditation to help you get out of your head and into your character so that you can rock your next audition. It’s going to help you calm your nerves, let go of distracting thoughts — “How can I book this? What do they want?” — and focus in on what your character wants, what’s going on in the scene, so that you can present your best work every time.Super Stressed? I got you! 💖Accessing Calm is my ebook of super simple, fun mindfulness life hacks I use every day to calm down quickly when stress is high. These are the tools that help me release tension from my body and keep my mind from spinning out of control with worry and frustration. 😭 ➡️ ☺️ They help me get through the morning rush, calm down before a big audition, and deal with all the stress of the world in general.It’s a quick read that includes video demonstrations of all tools and some bonus mindfulness meditations — all for just $7!Upcoming WorkshopsI’m hosting online mindfulness workshops in October and November exclusively for members of the SAG-AFTRA LA Conservatory!Mindfulness 101: Empower Your Craft and Your Career With Your PresenceCome learn about mindfulness and the many advantages it offers performers. Experience a guided mindfulness meditation, explore the benefits of developing a daily mindfulness practice, and learn some quick centering tools to use in auditions and on set.If you are a member of the SAG-AFTRA LA Conservatory, head to the calendar on the website to sign up. If you’re not a member, I encourage you to join, it’s $45 for a full year of workshops and classes.Bye! Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

My mind tends to wander when I meditate and I bet yours does too.And really that's not a problem because it's just part of your present moment experience.Welcome to my Substack! I'm Amy Schloerb. I am a mindfulness and mindset coach.And, like I said, my mind likes to wander when I meditate.Sometimes it goes off into the future.Sometimes it goes wandering and rummaging around in my past.Sometimes it tries to offer solutions to problems I'm currently facing in my life.Look, a mind is going to do what a mind is going to do.But the good news is that when I practice mindfulness meditation...I am not my wandering mind.I am the observer of my wandering mind.It's kind of like a parent watching a toddler on the playground.Pretend for a minute that you're a parent and you're sitting on the bench in a shady area and you're watching your toddler on the playground.They're wandering over to the slide and then they wander over to the swings and then they wander over to the sandbox.You don't care where your toddler goes on the playground.You don't judge their choice of activity.You just observe them.And maybe occasionally you have to step in and redirect the toddler for whatever reason.They've taken another kid's toy or they've left the playground altogether to chase after a ball or they wandered in front of the big kids on the swings and they're about to get knocked over.But you just redirect them gently. It's no big deal.And it's the same with mindfulness meditation.I observe...my mind contemplating what I want to make for dinner.I observe...my mind thinking about a personal problem that I'm currently dealing with and offering solutions.I observe...my mind drawing a parallel between how my mind wanders and how toddlers wander around on playgrounds and then starts to write this Substack.I'm just observing my mind.I'm just watching my mind.I'm just letting my mind do what a mind is going to do.And as long as I stay aware that I'm watching my mind and all that it's doing in the present moment, I'm practicing mindfulness.I stay focused on my breath, much like the parent stays present on the bench. They don't wander away from the playground. They're not like, "Later, kid! I'm going to go to Starbucks and I'll be back." They stay present on the bench and they watch their child.And likewise, I stay present and I watch my mind.I'm ready to gently redirect my mind back to the experience of my breath each time it wanders like completely away from the present moment.Oh, I observe that I'm thinking about making spaghetti for dinner...and right now I'm going to gently return my focus to my breath.Ah, I'm thinking that I could call so-and-so to get help with that problem...and right now, I'm going to gently return my focus to my breath.Oh boy, I just had a great idea for a Substack! It's going to be about a parent and a playground and a wandering toddler and all of this stuff and how that relates to meditating...oh, no, no, no. Wait, wait, wait. Right now, I'm going to gently return my focus to my breath.Our wandering mind is not the problem.It's part of the present moment.And the best thing that you can do for yourself and your mindfulness practice is to really lean into this idea of noticing and gently refocusing.Like a parent watching their kid on the playground — Gentle, gentle, gentle.Be gentle with your mind. All the time, be gentle with your mind.Be gentle with yourself while you're practicing meditation.That's going to make your mindfulness practice so much more pleasant and enjoyable.And then that gentleness, that caretaking of your mind is going to start to ripple out into how you caretake yourself in your life in general.And now for your moment of mindfulness…Let’s chat! ☕️If you’re ready to transform your actor mindset, let’s connect in a complimentary session. This is not a “sales call.” Seriously, I couldn’t sell bread to a bread slicer.My only intention is that you leave the session feeling deeply seen, heard, and inspired with some new insights and ideas to consider and implement.After we've both let the experience of the session settle, maybe we'll end up entering into a more formal coaching arrangement, or maybe our time together will feel complete.It's a win-win either way. 🎉Super Stressed? I got you! 💖Accessing Calm is my ebook of super simple, fun mindfulness life hacks I use every day to calm down quickly when stress is high. These are the tools that help me release tension from my body and keep my mind from spinning out of control with worry and frustration. 😭 ➡️ ☺️ They help me get through the morning rush, calm down before a big audition, and deal with all the stress of the world in general.It’s a quick read that includes video demonstrations of all tools and some bonus mindfulness meditations — all for just $7!Upcoming Workshops!I’m hosting online mindfulness workshops in October and November for members of the SAG-AFTRA LA Conservatory!Mindfulness 101: Empower Your Craft and Your Career With Your PresenceCome learn about mindfulness and the many advantages it offers performers. Experience a guided mindfulness meditation, explore the benefits of developing a daily mindfulness practice, and learn some quick centering tools to use in auditions and on set.If you are a member of the SAG-AFTRA LA Conservatory, head to the calendar on the website to sign up. If you’re not a member, I encourage you to join, it’s $45 for a full year of workshops and classes. Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

How well do you know your breath?Have you ever REALLY studied it with wonder and awe?That’s what we’re going to do today.So settle in and prepare to observe your experience of breathing with mindful curiosity.Join me for weekly mindfulness!In addition to Monday Mindful Moments, I also host a mindfulness group called Mindful Creators every Wednesday on Zoom. The practices are recorded and emailed out the same day, so even if you can’t make it live, you can still enjoy some guided mindfulness.Audio TranscriptionWelcome to your mindful moment.As always, please find a comfortable position for your body.And go ahead and bring your attention to the contact between your body and whatever surface is supporting you today.Whether it's a couch or a chair or a bed or the floor, really notice the contact between your body and that surface, and see if you can let your body relax even more into that surface.Let that surface fully support you and hold you today.And as you let your body relax, bring your attention to your breath and just notice what your experience of breathing is like right here in this present moment.Noticing each inhale as it comes.Noticing each exhale as it goes.You don't have to change anything about your breathing.You don't have to force it or manipulate it in any way.See if you can just observe your breath.Watch it with mindful curiosity.Just allow it to happen.Just notice what it feels like to breathe.Notice what sensations you experience as you breathe.Notice how your body moves with each inhale and each exhale.See if you can almost study your breath like a scientist, or like a curious child.Watch your breath with wonder.Maybe you can notice, “Oh, this is a long breath.”And maybe you can notice when your breath is a little shorter.Just noticing that each breath is different and unique.Each breath is beautiful in its own way.So just notice each breath.And now I'm going to bring this mindful moment to a close, but please feel free to remain in mindful meditation, witnessing the experience of breathing for as long as you like.Have a great day.I’m Amy Schloerb, The Aligned Actor 👋I’m a life coach and mindfulness practitioner helping people align with their true selves and take inspired action to create a life they love. With my background in acting, I bring presence, connection, and playfulness to transformation.Let’s align, create, and make amazing things happen—together! Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

What are you putting up with in your life? 😒 The burned out light bulb in the kitchen. 🤪 All the clutter on the dining room table. 😩 The sink that never drains.How much better would you feel if those things were no longer present in your life?You will be amazed at the amount of renewed energy and relief you will get by getting “that thing” taken care of.Give it a try!Video TranscriptI just started my walk. There's something in my shoe.So I'm going to stop my walk and I'm going to get that thing out of my shoe.[30 seconds later]So much better!Now, I probably could have just powered through that.It wasn't that annoying and I could kind of like feel that it would move to places in my shoe where it like wasn't as annoying and it wasn't bothering me as much.But there were a couple of times where I would step and I'd be like, “Oooo! Ugh!” and that kept happening.And then I kept anticipating it and thinking it was going to happen again.And that was kind of a buzzkill for my nice walk here.So as slightly annoying as it was to have to sit down for a second, take off my shoe, find the tiny little pebble that was in my shoe and get rid of it it was totally worth it.Because, yeah, as humans we're pretty adaptable. We can put up with a lot. We can adjust how we live our lives to tolerate a lot of things. We did it for like three or four years in a global pandemic, right?We're still kind of doing it, which is a really good skill to have.AND it can get us into trouble when we're continuing to tolerate things that we could just very easily take care of.So my question to you is, What's your pebble in your shoe?What's the thing that you're tolerating that it would be slightly annoying to have to sit down on the curb and get it out of your shoe, but it would so be worth it to get it out of your shoe what's the thing in your shoe? Go take care of it. It's worth it. You're worth it. 💖I’m Amy Schloerb, The Aligned Actor 👋I’m a life coach and mindfulness practitioner helping people align with their true selves and take inspired action to create a life they love. With my background in acting, I bring presence, connection, and playfulness to transformation.Let’s align, create, and make amazing things happen—together! Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

When we practice mindfulness meditation we choose to place our attention and focus on our breath. Other things may be present in the moment around us and within us (thoughts, sensations, sounds, etc), but we choose to keep our focus on our breath.We don’t have to fight with those “distractions.” We can just allow them, notice them, witness them.And then choose to bring our focus back to our breath.How might selective focus help you in other areas of your life?Join me for weekly mindfulness!In addition to these Mindful Moments, I also host a mindfulness group called Mindful Creators every Wednesday on Zoom. The practices are recorded and emailed out the same day, so even if you can’t make it live, you can still enjoy some guided mindfulness.Audio TranscriptWelcome to your mindful moment.Go ahead and find a comfortable position for your body, and start to focus on the sensations that you experience as you breathe in and as you breathe out.And as you start to focus on your breath and whatever that experience is like for you today, go ahead and allow your body to relax further and further, more and more with each breath.And as you witness each inhale and each exhale, see if you can notice what it feels like in your body when you breathe.So notice how your body moves as you take an inhale.And notice how your body moves as you release an exhale.Just noticing your unique breath cycle and the impact that it has on your unique body.And as you notice the sensations that you experience as you breathe, also start to notice the overall general effect of breathing on your body.Because maybe you're starting to feel more relaxed.Maybe you're starting to feel just a little bit more calm in body and mind.And it's nice to notice what your breath is capable of doing for your body.And of course, as you witness your breath and focus on that experience, there may be other things present in your present moment.There may be sounds.There may be thoughts or moods happening in your mind.And you don't need to fight with any of those.You can just notice them, and gently choose to bring your focus back to your breath.Anything that you notice within you and around you is just part of your present moment experience.And it's good to notice what's happening in the present moment.That's mindfulness.And the practice of mindfulness that we're doing here today is just about noticing any distracting thoughts or sounds around you, and then choosing to just let those be there while you bring your attention and your focus back to your breath.Right now, you're choosing where to place your focus.You're practicing selective focus.And that practice is going to serve you in the rest of your life.You're going to be able to notice and witness and become aware of thoughts in your mind, distracting things around you maybe, and then choose whether you want to stay engaged with those things or if you want to lovingly and gently shift your focus to something that serves you better.That's the practice of mindfulness.Just noticing and witnessing and practicing your awareness and your focus.And now I'm going to bring this mindful moment to a close, but as always, please feel free to remain in mindful meditation for as long as you like.Have a great day.I’m Amy Schloerb, The Aligned Actor 👋I’m a life coach and mindfulness practitioner helping people align with their true selves and take inspired action to create a life they love. With my background in acting, I bring presence, connection, and playfulness to transformation.Let’s align, create, and make amazing things happen—together! Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

Today I wanted to share something I’ve really been enjoying in my life recently. A quiet, mindful walk. But I don’t want to just tell you about it, but really share it with you by guiding you through the experience of a mindful walk for yourself.And if you enjoy this mindful walk experience, you should really check out my weekly mindfulness group, Mindful Creators. I guide two mindfulness practices for the group, and then email out the recordings of those practices if you can’t make it live. It’s all free! Truly a great deal if you want to experience more mindfulness in your life.Audio TranscriptHello there and welcome.I just wanted to let you know right up top that this is a different kind of podcast-y audio experience.It's going to be half podcast-y type stuff, me talking about a recent experience and how it's benefiting me. And then I'm actually going to guide you in experiencing the same thing for yourself.And the thing is a mindful walk.So if you would like to take the full experience of what I'm offering today, I suggest listening to this while you're out on a walk or or getting ready for a walk, and then making sure that you're on a walk or something, we'll get into that a little bit later, that you can adjust this to fit your needs, you know, when we get to that actual part, I'm going to guide you in that experience.So, you know, you should be out doing that. But obviously, you know, make this work for you. But that's just my suggestion. If you want the full experience, go ahead and start preparing yourself for that now.So as I just said, so lately I've been enjoying quiet, mindful walks around my neighborhood.And I actually did a video about this recently where I talked about taking a dog walk.Walk around your neighborhood with or without your dog and experience your neighborhood, experience your walk like a dog does.Because the dog doesn't listen to any doggy podcasts or doggy playlists.The doggy just sniffs the world, and looks at the world, and barks at the world, and all of that kind of stuff, and just experiences the world and totally loves it.It's a very sensory experience for the dog. He's enjoying everything, my dog is at least.Why not do that for ourselves as humans?When I'm on these quiet walks, I'm not listening to music. I'm not listening to a podcast. I'm just listening to and experiencing my neighborhood.I listen to the birds and the bees and the dogs and construction that's going on in my neighborhood and cars going to and fro.And it's really nice.And it actually becomes a full sensory experience, much like a dog experiences.I also smell my neighborhood, not in the same way I'd say as my dog where I'm like actively sniffing everything, but I certainly notice and observe the general smells as I walk. If I see a particularly interesting flower or plant, I smell that.I also obviously look at stuff in my neighborhood, observing things and taking in things through my eyes.And I can feel the air. I can feel my clothes on my body. I can feel the sunlight when it's present. Sometimes I can feel the texture of a plant or a rock or something like that.And I usually have my coffee beverage with me, so I'm usually tasting something delicious as well as I walk.So it really does become a full sensory experience.It's a way to do a mindful walk, but it's not necessarily mindfulness of walking per se, because I'm not intentionally holding my awareness and attention on my feet and the experience and movement of walking, but I'm staying present to what's around me on my walk and present to the thoughts that come up as I walk.And just staying present to my present experience.And that, in and of itself, is mindfulness.And sometimes I get really great creative ideas while I'm walking, which is also nice.But mostly, it's just a peaceful, quiet experience. And the world honestly feels slower, certainly slower than it ever does online or on TV.I just see people walking their dogs.I see people going to work.I see people working.It feels like an easy, calm pace.The world feels slower.And I find that very, very calming.Especially when so much of our world and our experience of the world right now feels so chaotic.So because I've been enjoying this way of walking and being mindfully in the world so much and finding it so calming, I decided to share a guided experience of that with you.That's what we're going to be doing for the rest of this podcast-y audio experience.I'm going to start guiding you on a quiet, mindful walk and then when the audio ends, you can keep practicing on your own.If you want to experience this mindful walk in all of its glory, this is the time to lace up your walking shoes and head out the door.And honestly when I say “walk” you can make that work for you.So you could also just go sit outside, you could sit inside and do this. You can use a wheelchair to do this. You could be on a bike or a scooter. You can take a run. Good for you.You could probably even be driving. Because I'm just going to be guiding you to be fully present to your experience, but use your best judgment on that one, so take care of you, but basically at the end of the day, make this work for you feel free to adjust it to suit your needs. Even if my words reference examples of things that are not part of your present moment experience, you're smart. You can make this fit your needs.If you need a moment to get ready just go ahead and pause this recording and start it back up again when you're ready.Okay, so I'm assuming now that you're ready.And to start off your mindful experience, I just want you to find your breath and just tune into that sensation.So just see what your breath is doing right now in this present moment.What does it feel like to breathe in?What does it feel like to breathe out?Just experience breathing right now.And as you continue to experience your breath, I now invite you to tune in to the experience of your body.And even though you may be moving, I want you to make your body as relaxed and as comfortable as possible.So just go ahead and set the intention of relaxation and let that settle into your body in whatever way it does for you.And now as you're walking comfortably and experiencing your breath in this present moment, start to notice the world around you.Go ahead and take in whatever you see, observing it with curiosity, and maybe even observing it with wonder.Go ahead and let your world delight you.And now as you're taking in the world around you, what do you hear?How many different sounds can you notice as you continue to walk and breathe in this present moment?And now go ahead and take a whiff of the air and see what smells you notice in your world.And if a plant or flower has caught your eye, you could go ahead and smell that.Just go ahead and experience whatever the world has to offer you in the way of smells in this present moment.And now can you feel the air around you?What does that feel like? Or even can you feel the clothes on your body as you move and breathe in this moment?Maybe there's even an interesting plant or other textured surface that you want to experience.Just walking and breathing in this present moment, mindfully experiencing the world around you with all your senses.Look and listen. Smell and feel and taste, as works best for you.Again, just mindfully experiencing yourself and the world around you as you move through it.I'm going to sign off for now, but I encourage you to continue your quiet, mindful walk on your own and just see what you experience as the present moment continues to unfold around you today.Enjoy!I’m Amy Schloerb, The Aligned Actor 👋I’m a life coach and mindfulness practitioner helping people align with their true selves and take inspired action to create a life they love. With my background in acting, I bring presence, connection, and playfulness to transformation.Let’s align, create, and make amazing things happen—together! Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

The only way to get better at anything is to practice.Practice.Practice.Practice.That’s what we do in these mindful moments.We practice.We practice focusing.We practice noticing.And practicing here makes it easier and easier for us to focus and notice in the rest of our lives.And speaking of practicing…In addition to these Mindful Moments, I also host a mindfulness group called Mindful Creators every Wednesday on Zoom. The practices are recorded and emailed out the same day, so even if you can’t make it live, you can still enjoy some guided mindfulness.Audio TranscriptionWelcome to this mindful moment.Go ahead and find a comfortable position for your body.Allow your body to relax into whatever surface is supporting you today.As you allow your body to relax, start to bring your attention and your focus to the experience of your breath.Just noticing your inhales and your exhales.Just seeing what it feels like to breathe, right here in this present moment.And as you focus on your breath, noticing that experience, being really curious about that experience, of course, other things may come up in your present moment.There may be thoughts that try to steal your attention.There may be sounds around you that want your focus.And you can just acknowledge those, witness them as part of your present moment, and then mindfully choose to bring your attention and your focus back to the experience of your breath.As we practice mindful meditation, we're in control and we get to choose where our attention goes.And the more we practice mindful meditation and choosing to keep our attention and our focus on our breath, and let everything else, all the other distractions be there, but choosing not to engage with them in the same way we might ordinarily, the easier and easier it becomes to be selective about our focus and be mindful about different distractions and things that come up in the rest of our life. Mindfulness is a wonderful calming practice of self-care and it also gives us a chance to practice our focus and practice noticing the things around us.The thoughts in our mind.Noticing whatever we want to witness.But noticing it with curiosity, and not just reacting to it in impulse.But noticing it mindfully, witnessing it, acknowledging it.And then, right now, in meditation, choosing to let it be there while we bring our attention back to our breath.This is just a practice.It's something that we do over and over and over again.And as we continue to practice, it becomes easier and easier to notice things but not engage with them in the same way we used to.To instead engage with them mindfully, and know when it is that we want to take our attention off of them and put our attention and focus elsewhere.So just staying with our breath, noticing whatever we notice in our mind, our body, or around us, and then choosing to gently bring our attention back to our breath.I'm going to bring this mindful moment to a close today, but please feel free to remain in mindful meditation for as long as you like.Have a great day.I’m Amy Schloerb, The Aligned Actor 👋I’m a life coach and mindfulness practitioner helping people align with their true selves and take inspired action to create a life they love. With my background in acting, I bring presence, connection, and playfulness to transformation.Let’s align, create, and make amazing things happen—together! Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

Mindful meditation is a beautiful cycle.Focus on your breath.Notice whatever you notice (without attaching to it).If you notice that your mind has wandered away from your breath and is focused on something else, gently guide your focus back to your breath.The full cycle is mindfulness, not just the part where you’re focused on your breath.You’re not “getting it right” when you’re focused on your breath and “getting it wrong” when your mind wanders.You’re getting it right the whole time.Yes. The WHOLE TIME.Join me for weekly mindfulness!If you want even more mindfulness, I also host a mindfulness group called Mindful Creators every Wednesday on Zoom. The practices are recorded and emailed out the same day, so even if you can’t make it live, you can still enjoy some guided mindfulness.Audio TranscriptWelcome to your mindful moment.Go ahead and settle your body.Find a comfortable position for yourself today.And as you start to allow your body to relax into the surface that's supporting you, go ahead and find your breath.Just starting to notice what it feels like to breathe in and breathe out in this moment, focusing on the experience of breathing.Just noticing your inhales and your exhales.Whatever your breath is doing right here right now, focus on that.And then, of course, there are other things probably present in this moment with you.Maybe there are thoughts or sounds around you.And as those come up, you can just notice them, acknowledge them, and then gently choose to bring your attention and your focus back to your breath.Back to the experience of breathing.Just noticing what it feels like to breathe today, and witnessing your unique experience of this present moment, acknowledging and noticing whatever comes up in your mind, sensations in the body, things you become aware of around you.You can notice all of that.That's all part of your present moment.And then you can gently and lovingly guide yourself back to your breath.Noticing once again the inhales and the exhales, practicing this cycle over and over and over again.Focusing on your breath, noticing what comes up, gently guiding yourself back to your breath, focusing on that cycle with curiosity and non-judgment.That cycle is mindfulness. You are practicing mindfulness right now and you're doing a wonderful job just stay with your breath, focusing on that experience, and guiding yourself lovingly and gently back to that experience anytime your mind wanders off.That's mindfulness.And now I'm going to bring this mindful moment to a close, but please feel free to remain in mindful meditation for as long as you like.Have a great day.I’m Amy Schloerb, The Aligned Actor 👋I’m a life coach and mindfulness practitioner helping people align with their true selves and take inspired action to create a life they love. With my background in acting, I bring presence, connection, and playfulness to transformation.Let’s align, create, and make amazing things happen—together! Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

It’s so easy to get caught up in our thoughts and miss the present moment. The process of thinking is of course part of our present moment experience, but today, we’re going to open ourselves up to our whole experience.And if you’re enjoying these weekly mindful moments, you should really check out my weekly mindfulness group, Mindful Creators. I guide two mindfulness practices for the group, and then email out the recordings of those practices if you can’t make it live. And it’s all free! Truly a great deal if you want to experience more mindfulness in your life.Audio TranscriptionWelcome to your mindful moment.Go ahead and settle your body somewhere comfortable.Start to tune into your breath and just notice what it's doing right now in this moment.Feeling the delicious inhales as they come.Feeling the relieving exhales as those happen.Just mindfully noticing the experience of the breath, however it exists in this present moment.And now bringing mindful awareness to your body and the experience of your body in this moment.And if you notice any areas of tension or dis-ease, go ahead and lovingly send your breath to those areas with the intention of allowing those areas to further release and relax.And as you continue to breathe and experience your breath and experience your continually relaxing body, see what's present in your mind today.Is your mind very active, full of thoughts? That's okay, and for now, you can choose to gently release those thoughts.Let go of your awareness and focus intently on those thoughts. Let go of that.And choose to bring your awareness and your focus fully to your breath and your experience of the present moment.And truthfully, any activity in your mind is just part of your present moment experience.But I think we tend to hold so much focus and awareness on our thoughts that we lose out on the rest of our present moment experience.And so for now, let's just practice letting that mind stuff be with us, be a part of our experience, but not our whole experience.Your breath is part of your present moment experience.Your body is part of your present moment experience.So just lovingly observe your present moment experience.I'm going to bring this mindful moment to a close, but feel free to remain in mindful meditation, focusing on your breath, enjoying your experience, observing your experience for as long as you like.Have a great day.I’m Amy Schloerb, The Aligned Actor 👋I’m a life coach and mindfulness practitioner helping people align with their true selves and take inspired action to create a life they love. With my background in acting, I bring presence, connection, and playfulness to transformation.Let’s align, create, and make amazing things happen—together! Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

Gratitude is a great practice to cultivate in life. The more we pause to appreciate the good things in life, the more good things we tend to find.Let’s practice gratitude today in our mindful moment.Join me for weekly mindfulness!In addition to these mindful moments, I also host a mindfulness group called Mindful Creators every Wednesday on Zoom. The practices are recorded and emailed out the same day, so even if you can’t make it live, you can still enjoy some guided mindfulness.Audio TranscriptWelcome to your mindful moment.For today's meditation, we're going to practice gratitude.Practicing gratitude is a great way to focus your mind on the good things in life.And the more we practice looking for and finding and acknowledging all the good things that we have and that we love in our life, the more good things, the more things to love, we tend to find in general.So this is a chance for you to connect to your breath.Find presence right here in this moment and connect to your life with gratitude.So go ahead and get comfortable.Start to focus on your breath, noticing how it feels to have air moving in and out of your body, noticing what it feels like to breathe today.And to start our gratitude practice, can you feel grateful for your breath?Can you find appreciation and enjoyment right here in this moment as you experience your body breathing?And now as you continue to focus on your breath, go ahead and let your mind show you all the beautiful moments in your day-to-day life.What's enjoyable in your day?What do you love in your life?If it helps, you can even think the phrase, “I love…” and then fill in the blank with all the things, all the creatures, all the people that you love, all the moments from lattes to laughing with friends.What do you love?What do you feel grateful for today?Just let your mind play with that idea play and express gratitude in your mind in whatever way works for you best today. Big things, small things, love up on all of itAnd now I'm going to bring this mindful moment to a close, but please feel free to remain in mindful meditation, practicing gratitude, expressing love and appreciation for anything and everything that you want for as long as you like.Have a great day.I’m Amy Schloerb, The Aligned Actor 👋I’m a life coach and mindfulness practitioner helping people align with their true selves and take inspired action to create a life they love. With my background in acting, I bring presence, connection, and playfulness to transformation.Let’s align, create, and make amazing things happen—together! Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

This one goes out to all my actor pals. 🎭But even if you’re not an actor, this video still applies to you. 🤗I read a Martha Graham quote that at its heart speaks to the unique self expression that we were each born into this world to fulfill.And if you’re curious what the heck “Self Tape May” is, it is a free challenge created by Audrey Moore, host of the podcast Audrey Helps Actors. Each May, actors attempt to complete 16 mock self tape auditions as a way to practice their audition skills.Video TranscriptOkay, so I'm not doing Self Tape May.But I admire every actor that is doing Self Tape May. You are all awesome, and you are crushing it, and I'm so proud of you. And also, I just admire and love actors in general because what we do is not easy.The acting part isn't easy. There's a lot of skill that goes into that. And then the dealing with the roller coaster of being an actor is really hard.And so if you've chosen this crazy-making profession, you are brave and you are awesome and you are amazing. And what I would like to offer you is a Martha Graham quote.This is my offering for Self Tape May and I love you. I love you actors.There is a vitality, a life force, an energy, a quickening that is translated through you into action.And because there is only one of you in all of time, this expression is unique.And if you block it, it will never exist through any other medium and it will be lost. The world will not have it.It is not your business to determine how good it is, nor how valuable, nor how it compares with other expressions.It is your business to keep it yours clearly and directly.To keep the channel open.You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work.You have to keep yourself open and aware to the urges that motivate you.Keep the channel open.No artist is pleased.There is no satisfaction whatever at any time.There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction.A blessed unrest that keeps us marching and makes us more alive than the others.Happy Self Tape May!I’m Amy Schloerb, The Aligned Actor 👋I’m a life coach and mindfulness practitioner helping people align with their true selves and take inspired action to create a life they love. With my background in acting, I bring presence, connection, and playfulness to transformation.Let’s align, create, and make amazing things happen—together! Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe

When you distill mindfulness down to its most basic elements, it’s just breathing and noticing. Noticing the breath, noticing the mind, noticing the body, noticing whatever is happening around you.Noticing your present moment experience.That’s what we’re doing in our mindful moment today. Enjoy!Join me for weekly mindfulness!In addition to these mindful moments, I also host a mindfulness group called Mindful Creators every Wednesday on Zoom. The practices are recorded and emailed out the same day, so even if you can’t make it live, you can still enjoy some guided mindfulness.Audio TranscriptWelcome to your mindful moment.This is a chance for you to practice connecting to your breath, finding stillness in your body, bringing awareness to whatever is happening within you and around you.Just practicing general mindful meditation.So I invite you now to just find a comfortable position for your body.Start to tune into the sensation of your breath.Notice what it feels like to take air into your body and then to release air out of your body.Just notice what breathing feels like for you right now in this present moment.You may notice that your breath deepens as you focus on it.You may notice that each breath is unique.Some breaths are more shallow.Some breaths are longer and deeper.Each breath is like a snowflake.And so you can bring your mindful curiosity to this act of breathing as you observe what it feels like to be in your body breathing.And then as you focus on your breathing and notice each breath, there are other things present in this moment.You may hear sounds.You may notice activity in the mind.There may be thoughts that are trying to get your attention.And all of that is fine.All of that is just part of your present moment experience.And so to practice mindfulness, you can just notice those things.You can notice the thoughts without pushing them away, without attaching to them and following them where they want to go.You can just notice, “Ah, thinking. Lots of thinking is happening.Or, “Hmm, sounds. Sounds are happening around me. I acknowledge those things as part of my present moment experience, and I choose to bring my attention and my focus back to the experience of breathing.”So in mindful meditation, we're just observing our present moment experience and choosing as our anchor to keep our focus on our breath.So maybe we can think to ourselves, “As I breathe in, I notice activity in my mind.”“As I breathe, I notice the sounds of cars going by.”Just noticing and breathing.Breathing and noticing.So now I'm going to bring this mindful moment to a close, but as always, feel free to continue your mindful meditation, breathing and noticing for as long as you like.Have a great day.I’m Amy Schloerb, The Aligned Actor 👋I’m a life coach and mindfulness practitioner helping people align with their true selves and take inspired action to create a life they love. With my background in acting, I bring presence, connection, and playfulness to transformation.Let’s align, create, and make amazing things happen—together! Get full access to The Aligned Actor at thealignedactor.substack.com/subscribe