Before my Gratiludes this evening, I thought that I would start with a quote: “The only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven’t found it yet, keep looking. Don’t settle. As with all matters of the heart, you will know it when you find it.” ~ Steve Jobs
Gratiludes:
- My yoga-a-day til Christmas journey…56 more days to go (56 when I first started writing this post, now it is 42 more days)
- Doing yoga 2x today 🙂 it makes up for a day that I missed last week
- the love in my relationships
- as much as I want to go and get it all the time in my acting career, I am thankful that I haven’t been running around crazy this week so that I have been able to catch up on regular life things (like cleaning my toilet) and making sure I take care of myself
- A couple more auditions, a callback.
- Starting my writing workshop!
- Audition for the La Jolla Playhouse this Sat!
- My friend Marie
When I first started writing this post I was sitting at this very coffee shop, in between a 2-a-day yoga classes. I had consented to be on a webinar call for one of my best friends to learn about Isagenix. I was eating a delicious sandwich and drinking a delicious coffee, wondering how I would be able to complete another yoga class with a full belly, but I had been overcome with hunger that I had to eat.
I checked my voicemail. My friend Marie had called earlier and something in her voice didn’t sound right. I gave her a call back. We did our usual banter and catching up. I was waiting for her to tell me that she had lost her job or that she had broken up with her girlfriend…but instead she tells me that had been hit by a car the previous week. Hit and run.
She was in the hospital, had a surgery on her ankle, not sure when she would be able to walk and wasn’t sure if more surgery would be needed. She was alive and okay. I started crying.
Of course, being the awesome person she is, she said, “I should have asked where you were before I told you.”
“I’m just at a coffee shop…crying.” We laughed.
Yes, I was disgusted that someone could hit a person and then not stop, and that no one saw anything even though this incident happened right in front of a police station. Yes, I was/am upset that she was hurt. That someone had hurt her. I don’t know if it’s all the yoga and my practice is going deeper and all that hippie stuff, but through my crying at the coffee shop, I noticed that I didn’t dwell on the negative, the bad, for too long. She was alive. She would recover. I will see her again. I wanted to dwell on the bad, to self-medicate in the woe. It was easier to see the good, bright side. That made me happy.
Therefore, my post was never completed that evening and I did go back to yoga and set my intention for Marie’s recovery. I hope I put good juju out there.
So, it got me thinking…If it was easier to see the better, brighter side of things with Marie’s situation, then it has to bleeding over to my small acting career. (Yes, I am sick and always relating everything to acting.) What are my bright spots amid the dreariness of rejection and traffic? Since, coming out of my quarter-life crisis earlier this year, I have been working diligently to overcome my negative tongue biting my brain and heart. To paraphrase a friend of mine: I have those voices in my head too, but they aren’t as violent.
I battle my violent head daily, but I have learned to work with myself better. I sincerely feel that it’s opened me up in my passion and creativity. I have learned to trust myself more. More hippie talk.
Now I have to keep plowing away, I have a pile of notes scribbled on my the first few pages of my play from the playwriting workshop– I am looking forward and dreading tackling them. But, I can finally see how I can make it better. I received so many intelligent, helpful notes that I am beyond grateful.
Yesterday, one of the contractors working on flipping the house across the street from my house suffered a fatal accident trying to remove a huge tree. There were news vans, police, OSHA outside of our house for the whole day. I greeted to the small chaos when I returned home and my neighbor filled me in on what had happened. Tragedy. I felt bad and numb. It doesn’t directly affect my life but I have compassion.
The reason I am bringing this up, besides the fact that is fresh on my mind, is that life is so freakishly short and can change in a split second. I am not the first one nor the last one to point this out, but it takes constant reminders for us to put our all out there. To find something to be grateful about as we wade through all the shit…I had just seen that man working the day before, and as I got in my car yesterday morning to go to work…not a half an hour later the lives of his loved ones had changed.
Be responsible, everyone, find your passion and live it.
Dana Does... 