lionskeleton:

Pride

I am so confused with the person I think I need to be vs the woman I am. The funniest part of all is the woman I am is actually cool. When I find humility and appreciation I enjoy all people and experiences so much more. I love and value each interaction because I see people as something other than objects to confirm my image.

Funny, I think because I grew up thinking the image I play is the best and most important thing in the world, I am so afraid to be something other than that, but because of this fear I confirm this belief and perpetuate the issue. Vicious cycle, no?

I am working on a movie that I will be filming in June and I am seeing my limitations as an actress and it is only since the last few days I have been able to admit to the challenge and ask for help. I am very excited now, as opposed to the “freaked-the-fuck-out” I was before, because I feel like I am learning how to learn. Similar to the directing, maybe this will help me to build myself into the actress I want to be.

Maybe I can get better? Grow? That’s exciting. Am I alone in this enslavement to the image?

xo
a

I think I am only now beginning to understand the joy in self-empowerment. The intense value in owning your own shit, and then making the necessary choices and steps in overcoming whatever struggle you are having in the moment.

It is incredible how quickly we can grow and evolve when we remove all our lies (including pride and ego) and actually put effort into building an honest sense of ourselves vs. clinging so tightly to the masks we wear that we can’t even see through the peep holes.

Wow, the result of honesty? Deeper and better everything. Who would have thought?
xo
a

I have recently been reflecting on the beauty of humility and the amazing things that come with letting go of your own expectations and pride. It’s almost feels like you are able to experience more of your life. I never saw how much pride I carried with me until I came up against my own image and saw how obvious it was that I wasn’t who I was claiming to be. Now for me, this was a huge deal.

Being an actress for most of my life, I have always been very comfortable doing what I was doing. I almost had an air of cocky-ness about the way I worked and behaved. This cocky-ness resulted in some humor and confidence, but also frustration and entitlement. I often chose to relate to people in a way that was very volatile and unpredictable. The weirdest part about this is that I really didn’t know any other option in which to operate. I had been so used to doing it the same way for so long that I completely shut down the option of there being another way. It’s like that story about the fleas in a jar; put a bunch of fleas in a jar and stick a glass lid on it and the fleas will jump and hit the lid a few times and eventually stop jumping so high. Remove the lid and the fleas will continue to stay in the jar. They don’t know the option of jumping out exists until one of them finally does it. This changes everything for all of them. We are like that, us humans, jumping just below the non-existent lid we once came up against.

I think the purpose of life is to grow, inspire, create, relate and love. The only way we truly do these things is by being in the experience of life, looking for your failures in regards to how you are being in your life and seek to evolve, or as my friend says “transcend”.

If we have an idea of where we are going in regards to who we want to be, then we steer the ship in this direction. When we fall off course, we find the best way to adjust the wheel, turn back on course.

It is my belief that this is what sets us apart from animals, or fleas . I also believe it is one of the most beautiful qualities we have as a species, abstract thought and the ability to inspire and be inspired.

So I encourage each of you to take a good long look at your pride in who you think you are, design who you would ideally like to be, and check in with who you practice every day. If we look at life as an experiment, the hypothesis being your ideal self and the process of experimenting being your every-moment life-choices, wouldn’t it feel a lot easier to challenge your pride? Come up against who you think you need to be? Make the top priority becoming who you want to be, and enjoying the ride?

It’s like the ultimate science fair. With people all around you on the same journey. I’m thinking there wouldn’t be as much violence and oppression. But again, maybe I am naive.

Just some thoughts on this fantastic Sunday evening.
ox
allison

A request of pride

allison, i would like you, if you can and dont mind, is do a session on pride. you may have already done it because ive only started doing comments for like a month but anyway i mean like ask people what makes them proud and stuff please. if you read this i would appreciate a chat about it please.

JONNY

So this was a message requesting a post on pride. Here it goes.  When I think of pride, several things come to mind. One is my ego, that damn image I have of myself that I always seem to bring up when I need an excuse not to do things that scare or intimidate me.

Actually, let’s focus on that pride for this posting, then tomorrow we can explore further!

As some of you may know, I am directing this season. I was let off the hook last season due to the writer’s strike, but now this season it is back on again. And now I have no excuses. This is an opportunity I can’t pass up and yet every time I think about the process I feel as though I am going to throw up.

It’s that image, that pride, rearing it’s head and I feel like thwarting that character I believe I am in my day to day life is a fate worse than death. Facing failure and testing my pride– hell, even proving my believe in myself wrong, is like the scariest thing in the world to me. But if this is something I never test, if I walk through my life believing that I can do things I have never in fact tried or tested, how strong and confident will that pride really be.

One slip and the whole thing is torn apart.

It is my belief that the only way to build a foundation of self that is substantial, that won’t crumble at the first sight of questioning or failure, is to, in fact, fail. And then learn how to put the pieces back together from beginning to end. Then you truly understand how the curves and crevices fit and you have no fear of it falling to pieces again, cause you know it is no big thing to re-lay the concrete.

But man getting over that initial sense of fake self-confidence is a doozy.

More on this tomorrow

xo
allison

oh and by the way, my sites gonna be down for a few hours tonight and tomorrow due to some reconstruction! I’m redecorating! Fun!