Uplevel: Shining Audition Confidence, Film-making Success, & Great Rep

Hi again! It's been a lot of deep healing and receiving great blessings since my last blog post. I have grown and matured a lot. A big uplevel is happening now for me. Hope you are well. :)

Since I decided I wanted to be an actor, I have had big career goals and an inner knowing I could achieve these dreams, but have had some major self-worth, low confidence, low self-esteem, and powerlessness programming and conditioning creating insecurities in my subconscious that brought about a lot of resistance in the physical world to these desired manifestations. I mention a lot of these hurdles in my previous blog posts. I have wanted to finally attain great supportive representation and be cast in meaningful roles that really get me into the industry as a successful working actor with clout. I finally got in SAG-AFTRA and finally figured out and felt confident with my branding which were huge steps! During all of these years, I have increasingly been acknowledging the value of creating my own breakthrough acting roles, but I still want to be cast in other people's projects too. There have been many auditions and a few callbacks I have done since my last blog post where I mentioned this, but no bookings for a very long time. For the last few years, there have been only 3 roles from all I have auditioned for that I felt in my soul were perfect for me, I was aligned to them, and for sure they would cast me and they would certainly be a breakthrough. Each of these I self-submitted for, as I didn't have any representation.

The first was in 2019 for the lead in a romance/adventure feature film Nomad by Taron Lexton. I sent in my self-tape audition, prayed, did white magick spellwork, and manifesting visualizations on the daily. I waited months with so much faith and hope, then I saw on social media the casting announcement of another actor. I was devastated for a long while. Then I realized I will one day make a spiritual Indiana Jones-like adventure film starring myself, filming on different continents and in temples like this one. I kept moving forward. The next was in 2021 for the sci-fi series Space Command by Marc and Elaine Zicree. The role was so me! She was a spiritual prophet dealing with her own personal emotional issues and past. She was ethereal and passionate at the same time. The concept art of her character was beautiful. And it was in space - how cool! I admired the self-made success of the show and wanted to be a part of it. I again waited months after sending in my self-tape audition, daydreaming of how wonderful it would be if I got cast, and I confidently believed I would. After inquiring, I was told I had not moved up to callbacks. This was a surprise for me. I would have at least gotten called back for something so obviously in my branding niche, right? I was confused but took the disappointment pretty well compared to Nomad. Perhaps I would create my own space show one day myself where I can act as a character like that, I thought. I moved on again. Then in 2022 I had a resonant self-tape audition for the lead in a coming-of-age magical-realist short film called Into the Thicket by Cosmica Productions. I loved the writer and director Devany Greenwood's artistic approach and that she had a female filmmaking crew. My stomach fluttered like I was a kid again dreaming of being in big films when I auditioned for this character. I was so happy! I was sent a kind rejection email not too long after sending in my self-tape. It was a blow, not only to the adult me as an actor, but to my inner child who really desired being cast as the coming-of-age character in a magickal film ever since before she could remember. I allowed myself to feel the sadness. When would I ever get an external breakthrough? I questioned if I was ever going to get cast in anything ever again. I integrated my shadow aspects one by one, clearing my resistance to my desire. No unhealthy attachment of my self-worth to being cast anymore. I picked myself up and knew I would keep auditioning. Other people may have thought I was crazy for still auditioning after not being cast in anything in so long, literally for multiple years, but I didn't care. I knew I would create and star in my own projects, and I felt a calling to still submit and audition, so I wasn't going to quit, even when everything seemed a bit bleak. I looked back at being able to be in the feature YOU, the web series Mercredi's Monde, and the play Constantinople, and remembered how bleak it was for me before being cast in those projects too. I was grateful for these meaningful breakthroughs in my career. The worst that could happen moving forward is that I would only be cast in my own stuff. That wasn't that bad. I knew my success was inevitable no matter how it manifested, and I didn't need external validation in order to consider myself a successful actor. I healed so much through each of these rejections. It was painful, but in hindsight, I see how there was a benefit to each rejection bringing me clarity to clear more resistance I had held in my subconscious. And what is it they say? ... Rejection is actually re-direction! Each time it happens is because there is something even better on it's way to you.

Then, covid restrictions let up in the industry and I had even more auditions. I put no pressure on myself and didn't even think of the outcome for each. I had gotten too hurt to hope anymore, and this allowed me to enjoy auditioning more; looking at it as an acting class each time instead of a job interview. I was absolutely sick of waiting to be cast in something and decided to focus more on my Cherry Blossom Spirituality spiritual business and book, starting my new spiritual business The Elven Temple, screenwriting, and editing my own stuff, and still auditioning when it came up, but not focusing on it too much. I started the Awakening Film & TV Podcast available on Spotify and Youtube, just for fun.

I discovered the musician Fia, whose beautiful songs activated me to be more autonomous with my own success. I thought of more detailed ideas for my own future filmmaking projects. I healed and grew in my self-worth so much so that I knew I would never give my power away in any audition ever again. No outcome of any audition could ever lower my self-worth ever again. I then got an in-person audition for the lead in a feature as an interesting role, and was so happy to have this level of opportunity not usually available by self-submitting. I experienced having less nerves than I had ever had before in an audition. I knew I wasn't perfect for the role, but hoped to still be considered for the project. The filmmakers mass-sent a message to all who submitted that they will only cast actors that want to work hard and are dedicated, etc. I messaged back that I was, with examples lined up. I got called-back. I intuitively knew I was being looked at for a supporting role. My higher self and spirit guides activated me the day before my audition and in a very physical sense I could feel it - it was a surge of extreme ultra potent confidence energy. I was told by them that I had a chance to be offered a role the day of my callback audition if I flowed with this confidence. I did and had the most authentic and joyful audition with absolutely no anxiety or insecurity. Right after, I was congratulating myself on coming so far with auditioning and finally getting to this point of being able to easily and strongly audition, but I figured they decided not to offer me a role, and that was fine. I suddenly got an instagram message asking me to call the filmmakers. I did, and guess what? I was offered a powerful supporting role which I of course accepted gratefully and excitedly! It is for award-winning Saltwater Films and Networks' Lauren A. Benjamin and Benjamin Jeff's feature film to be entered into festivals and to be available for streaming through a major network when completed. The title and filming dates and location are still to be determined. What a wonderful experience! Finally I was able to shine confidently and fully which led to me finally being cast again! Below is the first fan art I have received from "an.y.9.7" on instagram of the headshot I had used to get that audition in mid-2022:

Here is an article of a Voyage LA Magazine interview I did shortly after this experience. This relief of a win for me allowed me to finally have the pep in my step to complete my new acting materials with the branding mentioned in the last blog post, and also to put more focus into my own projects. I submitted to agents and managers more confidently than I ever had my whole career. I got 3 Corner's Productions films Sewn and The Bargain that I helped co-create with Donovan Merrill out of years of incubation and finally finished editing them, along with my own first Adventurine Entertainment film called Passage. I started entering them into festivals and they started being accepted and winning awards!!! More shining confidence of independence and autonomy as an artist was growing even more.

By the time winter in the end of 2022 was coming around, I had more clarity on my next filmmaking projects, and a great meeting with a wonderful manager, and signed! Finally some aligned, resonant, kind, respectful, communicative, and supportive representation! I had healed and cleared the resistance to energetically attracting great representation that actually saw and understood me by doing lots of shadow work every time I had a negative emotion come up around it. I gave my acting career a lot of Reiki energy healing. I also did a powerful candle spell I would meditate in front of, basking in the energy of already having my desire every time I did so. I was in the Friends in Film A-List Prep program led by Janet Urban for a couple of months working on my mindset as well. I asked my guides to help to point out who to submit to. It took quite a few months, but I finally achieved this huge accomplishment! I had specifically been wanting to manifest rep that also had headquarters and connections in the UK, as I have been feeling this pull to do acting work in the UK for the last couple of years, and that is what I received! I am so very grateful and so excited. This is a HUGE UPLEVEL in my acting career. Now the doors of finally auditioning for big network projects are open for me. No more only having only mostly scraps available to audition for by self-submitting. Now some big opportunities can actually come in.

I feel like my career is actually beginning now. This goal of tangibly signing with great rep took even longer than my union goal. It started in the spring of 2013 and I did not reach it until the winter of 2022. The filmmaking success took even longer - from 2010 to 2022. It was all worth it and everything has happened in divine timing. It took decades of unrelenting belief in myself and determination to get to this point. I didn't get here by myself. I have distanced and let go of unsupportive people in my life (which was super difficult to do), I have healed a lot of dynamics in my close relationships and have begun to allow myself to receive genuine support from them that I am so grateful for, and I have definitely had mini breakthroughs from the works of Madeleine Corliss of The Energy Studio, Wendy Braun of Actor Inspiration, Erica Wernick the Hollywood Success Coach, Christine Horn the Booking Magnet, Ajarae Coleman the Acting Resource Guru, and so many more, including spiritual teachers like Teal Swan, Dr. Bradley Nelson, Abraham Hicks, and Matias de Stefano. I would like to thank all I have encountered on my journey. Every positive and negative experience has assisted in my growth. I also just had a dream in which David Bowie encouraged me, and after waking I asked my higher self, spirit guides, and a trusted friend who is a gifted psychic channel if it really way him and they said yes, that he is now a guide for my acting career. Wow! So magical and amazing, and I am so thankful, as David Bowie is one my my biggest artistic inspirations and I feel I have the same "aesthetic promiscuity" as him. I desire to be an actor chameleon that inspires others the way he was such a wonderfully inspiring musician chameleon.

I am so grateful for all of the support from everyone - thank you! I wish to encourage and support all reading to keep wishing and keep dreaming, and know that dreams really do come true. Best wishes to all of you and a wonderful end of 2022 and beginning of 2023!!!

-Kristin