My Story
I’ve been a creative for as long as I can remember…
As a kid I would draw, paint, write fiction and poetry, take ballet lessons, sing and act on stage.
I followed my life long dream of becoming a theater artist to college and spent four years studying, breathing, and living musical theater. I would spend 14 hours on campus every day in class and in rehearsals and I loved every minute of it.
When I graduated school, the familiar routines and creative community that had surrounded me were gone and I was thrust in the real world hoping to “make it” as an artist.
I got an internship at a theater and suddenly found myself working 9-5 in an office.
My days went from working on my voice technique or exploring characters and playing in rehearsals and on stage to staring at a computer screen for 8 hours a day and filing paperwork.
After work, I would feel too exhausted to create and didn’t feel like I had permission to follow my creative impulses.
I slowly felt myself becoming creatively blocked and my life becoming dull. Is this what the rest of my life would look like?
I felt like I couldn’t even call myself an artist anymore. I felt like a fraud. I felt like an imposter.
How could I call myself an actor if I wasn’t actually acting? How could I call myself a writer when I haven’t even written anything?
I felt like I had lost a huge piece of myself and didn’t even know who I was anymore.
I had all these creative ideas in my head but had no idea how to start, or how to bring them to fruition. I was completely and utterly lost and blocked.
Then, I read a book that changed my life.
The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron.
Suddenly all the fears and self-doubt and anxieties I had in my head were confirmed and validated. I realized I wasn’t alone. I realized that this is something that all creatives go through.
I started creating again. I made a blog and started writing. I gave up on trying to be a perfectionist and just created for the sake of creating, without hoping to book a role.
I re-discovered parts of my artistic side that I had been neglecting for so long like poetry and painting just for fun (even though I’m not very good at it) and started doing things I always wanted to do like learn the guitar.
In a matter of months, I wrote and published my own poetry book (which you can check out here) and wrote and produced my own one woman show in New York City.
I fell back in love with my creativity. I felt alive again. I felt like I had purpose.
I was obsessed with learning how to navigate the ups and downs of the creative process and knew that this was what I wanted to dedicate my life to because it made me feel unstoppable when I had tools I could fall back on when I felt the resistance, when I felt “not good enough”, when I felt uninspired and felt like I was never going to accomplish anything.
I started talking to fellow creative artists and realized that so many of my friends were feeling the same way but had nobody to talk about it with. Or that they had brilliant ideas but didn’t believe anyone would care. Or they had brilliant ideas, would start and then stop, because they had nobody but themselves to keep them accountable.
I realized I had a gift in listening and supporting others. I had a passion for helping them see their worth and giving them clear steps on how to make their dreams come true.
The truth is, when you feel called to create, it’s not just a hobby. It’s your lifeline.
You need to create in order to feel valued. To feel seen.
You need to create in order to feel like you’re living a life worth living.
Your art is your interpretation of this crazy and magical thing we call life.
The world needs your stories. The world needs your art. The world needs your creativity.
The world needs you.