aligned distractions + the work I was avoiding..

Mark this as another Substack post that started as a journal entry…

I’m pretty sure that’s just my vibe now.

A few days ago, while I was driving up to LA for another film shoot, I was hit by the thought, “what if sometimes even the things that feel aligned can really be distractions from the actual work that would move us forward that we’re avoiding?”

I think it’s really easy to see, at least at certain points in your journey, when you’re doing some thing that is egregiously unaligned with what you want to manifest or the direction you want your life to go.

However, I couldn’t help but wonder if sometimes (ahem..like the very moment I was living in) some of the things that could easily be seen as aligned to the untrained observer are actually very clever distractions from us actually doing the action or the work that would have us really take a massive leap towards our desired outcome.

Specifically, as I was driving to my shoot, I was thinking about a few items that have lingered on my to-do list around my acting career for a few months now.

Especially since I am currently working with an acting business coach on getting my career set up for success in all the strategic ways that go above and beyond my actual craft and talent for acting!

I am ashamed to say that I actually have logged these actions as something that..

I said I was going to do..

knew would be a great thing to do for my career..

but then week after week, I have not done them.

Now for me, this is a pretty out of character thing because none of the action items on my list were particularly difficult or time-consuming. I would say they were all well within my grasp to accomplish. It made zero sense!!

So that, of course, got my spider senses tingling..

What have I been doing with my time if I have felt like I’m too busy to get these things done that I know would on some level move the ball forward and help me make more progress towards what I am creating for my acting career?

And the answer was that I had been auditioning a lot, going to callbacks and filming, which on the surface level, sounds very, “check! check! check! super aligned!”

However..

*and I also think I am simultaneously reaching a new level towards my manifestation — more details on this later *

I was beginning to see that some of the things that I was filming, auditioning for, and going in for callbacks … specifically the student films and no budget/low budget shorts… and while I absolutely don’t think that there is anything wrong with doing student films especially when you have some of the best film schools in the world in LA.. I realized I hadn’t done an alignment check around what I was putting my hat in the ring for in over a year.

When I started getting back into things postpartum, about a year and a half or so ago, I really just wanted to be on set as much as possible. I LOVE being on set, I adore acting and embodying a new character and when I think about the future version of me that is regularly on a TV show or is in an award-winning independent film, I always see and feel and hear myself being on set.

So logically, of course, when I was thinking of what do I want to do to bring that energy into my life..

I knew I wanted to get on set and I knew I wanted to have being on set and being in the practice of auditioning and going to callbacks be a regular part of my week.

So from that aligned place, I took any and every opportunity as long as it was SAG, so I was still honoring my commitment to my (actor’s) union.

I took any opportunity to get on set, to film, work on a character, and other than it being an interesting character or story, I really didn’t have a ton of standards around what to say yes or no to.

So I think it was really TWO things hitting me at once as I was meditatively driving up to LA that day, both :

• one, the realization that what once had been the most aligned action for me, had now become more of a distraction from this next most aligned action.

• and two, the awareness that I had graduated from that frequency or timeline of needing to just take whatever to immerse myself and be on set and now was at the place where I was ready to raise my standards to match my next level.