HEY, ACTOR. Â YOU ARE SEEN. Â
The Actor's Mental Health Playbook Freebie
I have observed that there are TWO MAJOR FACTORS leading to experiences of hiding and isolation in our acting careers. Â
#1 CONFUSION: Do you ever feel confused about why your acting career is (or isn’t) going the way you hoped? Side note, did you know that it is very  emotionally taxing to experience a delay in what we hope for, i.e. our acting careers?
#2 SHAME: Do you feel ashamed or embarrassed regarding a lack of success? What about GETTING success only to have it suddenly taken away (a-hem ... ending up on the cutting room floor)?  More on that later. Â
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Do you ever wish you could break free from actor hiding, isolation, and shame?
- Do you ever wish that you could replace feeling DISCONNECTED with feeling CONNECTED to your actor community?
- Do you ever wish that you could go through something really tough in your acting career (a-hem ... getting cut from a huge franchise film) and not feel embarrassed about it?
- Do you ever wish that when you are hit with disappointments in your acting career that your self-esteem could stay intact?
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Are you ready to have such a handle on how an acting career  functions that when you are hit with the inevitable ups and downs, you are not thrown and don’t take it personally?
- You're in the right place! Â The Actor's Mental Health Playbook Freebie is for you.
Your desire to feel SO VALIDATED in your ACTOR EXPERIENCES is possible. Â It's not only possible, it's crucial if you're going to stay in the game and THRIVE.
You’re about to learn one of the MAJOR PILLARS in The Actor’s Mental Health Playbook is learning how to VALIDATE the crap out of your actor experiences so that you can officially stop taking the inevitable ups and downs of an acting career personally and start reclaiming your joy in the pursuit of an acting career.
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WITH THE ACTOR'S MENTAL HEALTH PLAYBOOK FREEBIE, YOU WILL:
Feel less alone.
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Feel seen.
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Feel super validated in your actor experiences.Â
Take the inevitable chaos of an acting career less personally.
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Discover increased joy and freedom in your acting career because you finally realize, "Hey, it's not me. That's just the way an acting career functions." Â Â
Watch Janelle's video story in which she opens up about getting cut from The Twilight Saga days before the premiere. Â
I'm Janelle
IT'S NICE TO MEET YOU. Â Â
Since we're just meeting, I should also let you know that I'm a licensed therapist and working actor. Â
So what is this FREEBIE all about today?
In a video story, I’m going to share a little bit about a really brutal thing that I went through in my acting career.
Am I doing this to be complain-y? Absolutely not. It was a wonderful experience. I will always be incredibly grateful for the opportunity. In fact, if I had a do-over, even knowing the painful ending, I would still do it all again.Â
Here's a little teaser for ya. When I was “cut” from this huge film franchise, I didn’t know how to handle it. I was embarrassed. I was ashamed. Self-doubt was a constant companion.Â
And then something magical happened.Â
I had a friend share with me her story about ending up on the cutting room floor of a HUGE FEATURE FILM. Of course, I was devastated for my friend. Â
And then something else happened. I felt better. I felt less alone. I felt seen. I felt validated. Â
I was RELIEVED. For the first time, I realized that it wasn’t just me.  "Getting cut" is part of an acting career and unfortunately it happens to a lot of actors.
I felt more MOTIVATED to keep going after my acting dreams. My joy in pursuing an acting career actually INCREASED because of her willingness to share her vulnerable story.Â
Her story helped reframe my actor experiences in more helpful ways. If you’ve ever been to therapy, you know that therapists are big on REFRAMES. They can be total game-changers.
What’s a reframe? Looking at an experience, relationship, or event from a different angle.  The thing is the same. However, the stories that we tell ourselves about that experience, event, or relationship are what really count.   Â
I want to introduce one more therapist-y educational concept. It is important to NORMALIZE our experience, especially as actors. So, Janelle, what does that even mean? Let’s take a look at a silly example.
If you were learning to ride a bike and this new skill was extremely difficult for you, you might feel embarrassed. You might even think, “Wow, I really suck at this.” And then along comes your best friend who says, “Hey, it was really hard for me to learn to ride a bike too!” Your experience has now been NORMALIZED. What you are going through is NORMAL.  Â
Did you know that normalizing our acting experiences actually increases our resiliency and stamina?
Isolation, shame, and hiding cause burnout. I have seen far too many actors overpersonalize their experiences, which in turn leads to a problematic narrative in which they assume they (or their acting pursuits) are flawed.Â
I told you this FREEBIE is a sneak peek of the online course, remember? The Actor’s Mental Health Playbook is all about bringing AWARENESS to the dynamics at play in an acting career, VALIDATING the crap out of your actor experiences, and discovering what TO DO so that you can relate to your acting career in completely new ways. This secret sauce is HOW we move from emotionally surviving to THRIVING in the pursuit of our acting dreams.
