Realizing Your Potential

By freddielaraThoughts

Realizing Your Potential

Have you been struggling to book that show or commercial or play and had minimal to no success? Are you struggling trying to become a working actor but find you are working as a waiter or a temp more often than not? What’s holding you back?

For many years out of high school and acting school in New York my career was propelling itself forward very quickly. I was booking show after show without much effort. I wasn’t thinking about it, I was just doing it.

Then came some very dry years where it seemed like I was just struggling to get a callback. But why ? What changed ? My training and experience were further along, so what was the problem?

It’s true that when we focus on what we don’t have we are actually affirming our lack of it. If my thoughts go something like this “I want this show , please help me get it” what I’m actually saying is “I don’t have it” and the Universe responds with “ok, you want this show” actually saying “ok, you don’t have it”.

The reason I was booking so easily all those years was because of something we call beginners luck, or as Buddhism calls it, a Zen mind, an empty rice bowl. That’s what happens the first time you show up without expectation, or desire or the perception that you’re lacking anything. Because your mind is like an empty rice bowl it can now be filled. As opposed to a mind filled with expectation and craving and attachment it is clear and free to take in a new realm of possibility that there was no room for before. And in my experience , if I show up empty like that, the manifestation and what actually shows up is bigger, better, more enjoyable than anything I could have conjured up.

But what about those people that book show after show but are still exhibiting that old pattern of thinking? They speak I want , and they seem to get it. The challenge for these actors is that even when they “get” it they end up sabotaging it in the end. They have figured out one part of the equation but not a very important part-want is still want. That’s why Wall Street is dealing with the financial devastation of our last recession. Because even after they got a million dollars, it wasn’t enough, ten million wasn’t enough..want is still want.

The easiest way then to getting is to stop wanting. To realize you already have plenty and then clear your mind so you can show up clean and clear of attachment.
Gratitude is the key. Look around , see and be happy on a daily basis for what u have, make lists. I even have a grati-text partner I text a list of things I’m grateful for on a daily basis. See how quickly you start shifting what comes into your life, and even more see and be much happier with what you are already surrounded with.