EPISODE DESCRIPTION: Each of us expresses, creates, and gives our absolute all for different reasons and at different times in our respective lives. What would our lives and the world be like if we could live from that full expression at all times?

TRANSCRIPT

Hey, welcome back.

I love that when I ask writers, authors, and filmmakers the reason behind why they're telling their stories—and they respond, “I’m telling them for me.”  

[I love that]

Early on in my career, I was surprised by that answer—to realize that so many creatives are telling their stories not for an audience, but for themselves. 

And recently it's gotten me thinking about things like my podcast and the different productions that I'm doing, well—for myself.

It's not necessarily about an audience, although I will have to admit, I do love an audience. 

On some podcast, be it Daughter-Father Dance or possibly this one, I cited the fact that being the lead female role in our high school musical of Fiddler on the Roof as Golde, to this day the feeling of acting and singing—two things that I love as well as knowing that I'm providing entertainment for people I love and strangers alike—that all felt like some of the most amazing feelings and the best memories of my life. 

And if I'm being a hundred percent honest, it's probably the best memory, the best moment I've ever had.

Now, I don’t blame you if you are saying, “Get a life.” 

I know resting on the laurel of a private Catholic high school musical is seemingly pathetic.

But I think I bring it up because it's a great example of, well, one, it’s true. I really do ultimately consider that the best night of my life. But for now I bring it up because it’s a great example of being fully present and fully engaged. 

Every single God-given talent was being expressed in that two-hour play for those two nights it ran. And I think that's what the amazing feeling was. It's not just about the audience, though I won’t forget the standing ovation for as long as I live.

t's about expressing, it's about being in the moment. It’s about showing up fully and, as I mentioned before, living in the full expression of who I was in that moment. (Again, I did not author that saying. My dear friend Barb did). “Living in the full expression of who we are.”

Just want to make sure we give credit where credit is due. 

But think about that. IN that moment I fully alive. So much so that decades later it’s one of, if not THE best memories of my life. 

Sure. Knowing my lines and having rehearsed them over and over again was part of that entire experience. But the magic of any actor, any athlete, anyone who is performing, is when they show up in the moment and are just living in real-time. It makes better performances athletically, we know this for fact. 

It's better performances in being in character for acting because the moment of now is all we really have, as we've said before. The past is a past. The future hasn't happened. Right now is all I have. 

And so I believe that that production and all the beautiful people that helped make that production allowed me the opportunity and shared with me the opportunity to fully express my God-given talents, was amazingly magical. And so it was a microcosm, really. 

A microcosm of people living at 100%. I know I was. That memory is as visceral in recall to as the first time I was kissed and knew more fully in that moment who I am from that very kiss.  

So I hang on to this memory, and the reception my acting, my expression received felt so very affirming. It was me showing up in the moment and giving everything I had. That standing ovation was everyone experiencing that full expression, sharing in that moment of truth, that moment of raw realness and authenticity. I kind of make cry just like I did that night on the stage because we all felt it right in that moment. 

That audience shared in the inexplicable power of someone being fully, authentically who they were. Me. And many of us on that stage. My stage husband Frank Penyock brought down the house with his magnificent performance as Tevye. It. Was. Magical.  

And I don't know this, but maybe in that, those people that were standing and clapping with tears running down their own faces, even ones I didn't even know, maybe they were in that moment inspired and remembering their favorite moment when they showed up fully.

I don’t know, but I like to think of it that way. I like to think that for a fleeting moment everyone in that theater was present and authentic and shared in the heightened awareness of the power behind simply showing up raw, uninhibited and giving everything one has. We all felt it. And I bet every one of us remembers it. 

So why do I tell stories? I don't think I fully know. I've done it all my life. I did it with no audience in my own bedroom, sometimes in front of a mirror, sometimes directed to my stuffed animals. I even had conversations when I was a little girl with an imaginary Vatican. I would scold the Vatican for getting Jesus’s message wrong.

Seriously. I mean, it's about as vivid a memory as the one I described about being in the high school musical. 

I was giving the cardinals in Rome what for, and I was conveying to them the sadness and the disappointment that I think Jesus probably felt at how they twisted his message for their own gain. 

I was little girl. No one was feeding that to me. But somehow I would play that out. And it felt real. And you know, that desire to shake my finger at the Vatican hasn't necessarily gotten any better.

But my point is, telling your stories is important. 

Tell your story; whether it be to hundreds of people, thousands of people, maybe even millions of people, or to a bunch of stuffed animals or the trees because expression, regardless of the audience, is a lifeline to that limitless creative intelligence that fuels all of our souls and calls us, in a myriad of ways, to live in the full expression of who we are.

And by the way, express, and don’t forget to take your bow. Because your acceptance of your audience’s acknowledgment is affirming and affecting and it ripples out to places unknown, and possibly someday it will come right back to you. 

Thank you for being an audience to my stories. 

I’ll see you tomorrow.

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The podcast is hosted, produced, and edited by Jenée Arthur.
Cover art by Jenée Arthur
The songs used in the individual episodes have been licensed for use.