Who Am I?
I always struggle when trying to define myself. I feel like at any given moment I am a different person.
Sometimes I’m happy, other times, sad. Sometimes I’m fully empowered, and sometimes I’m self-deprecating.
I have an eclectic background with a plethora of interests and experience. From acting, to music, to writing, to teaching, to cleaning toilets (although this was less of an interest and more of a need to pay bills), I have explored many different facets of my personality and my capabilities.
My Story Isn't Pretty... But It's Real.
My Story
I was raised in a conservative and religious household. With criticism around every corner, I was compared to those around me. Always feeling unworthy and not good enough, I had a hard time expressing myself. Every time I emoted with intensity or in "overdramatics" I was shamed. I grew up feeling that my emotions weren't valid and that expressing myself fully or showing up authentically would leave me alone and unloved.
In high school I reached a breaking point. I had so much pain and trauma inside of me that it had to be released. I found solace in cutting and self-harm.
The darkness grew around me every passing day and I further went inward in a downward spiral of self-loathing and shame. Desperate for help, and yet, finding none. No one knew of the immense pain I was in.
When I entered college and fell in love, my whole world changed. I found a reprieve from my painful daily existence in another person. A boy who made me feel alive and whole, who without I was lost. I fell into a pit of addiction and partying. I became a slave to alcohol, drugs, and male approval. The impenetrable ache and blackhole that I felt inside were covered up by blackouts and misaligned choices. I had no boundaries and threw my body around like it wasn't beautiful or sacred. I was slowly committing suicide and every day felt like torture and punishment for who I was.
Theatre was my catharsis
The tears I cried on stage were my real tears. I learned to love the depth of the characters I was playing and how to understand their inner world.
I was fascinated with how the characters dealt with their emotions and their problems and I wanted to portray that on stage.
It took many years before
I learned to respect myself and my body
But I eventually got sober and turned my life around.
While recovery hasn't been easy, I have put in endless hours and work to love myself and develop my spirituality. And I have hope for the future.
Through the years of tumultuous storms, I always came back to theatre. My heart and my passion remain with acting and I dedicate my life to becoming better in my craft.
I believe theatre can heal and open hearts and I want to help alchemize life's pain into beauty through art.
Larry Moss, "The Intent to Live"We remind people that things can change, that wounds can heal, that people can be forgiven, and that closed hearts can open again.
So who am I?
To say I’m an artist would be the easiest way to describe me.
And the ambiguity of that frustrates and excites me. I can encompass all my artistic passions under one umbrella term that leaves people (and myself) wondering:
What does that actually mean?
I believe to be an artist means you look at the world in a different way.
Every single thing in the daily existence intrinsically holds the key to my freedom or imprisonment.
To me, being an artist is to find the beauty in the suffering. To find the light in the darkness. To transmute pain into hope.
So call me an artist.
Watch the emotional video
of me shaving my head and
releasing trauma and negative energy
Shaving my head was the moment everything changed. I stepped into a more empowered role as a woman and as a human being. I let go of my attachment to the physical so that I could dive deeper into the spiritual.