Category: self-esteem

confidence · courage · fear · love · self-esteem

You Must Be This Tall…

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

I still haven’t submitted my photos to the “real people”
modeling agencies that my friend suggested to me after seeing some of my photos
from my October photo shoot with a friend. Or sent the hard copy photos to the
modeling scout who saw me while I was busking in Union Square on Black Friday.
This morning, I was querying why I haven’t done these
simple, low risk tasks, though they’ve been on my internal and external to-do
lists for months. The answer was simple: I’m afraid I’m not good enough.
When I first stopped drinking, I read this memoir by a guy
who’d also stopped drinking. In explaining why he drank the way he did, he writes,
and in explaining why I drank the way I did, I quote: “I always felt one
drink behind—One drink behind being funny enough; one drink behind being smart
enough, cool enough, attractive enough.” One drink behind being good enough, in
essence. So there always had to be one more drink, then; and after that,
oblivion.
It’s ridiculous, however, to think that I’m not “good enough”
somehow to submit photos to professional agencies of myself, I wrote to myself
this morning, because that’s like saying, I’m not tall enough to ride a roller
coaster. That I walk up to the measuring stick in front of the ride, and the
sign with the painted finger points to five feet tall. … I am 6 feet tall. But I tell myself, I
convince myself, that I’m not tall enough. I’m not yet enough to ride this
ride.
It’s absurd. But it’s the truth of how I (sometimes) interpret myself in
the world.
Many years ago, I wrote a poem that included the line: [Fear],
you Nancy Kerrigan my knees before I even stand up. (Or something like that.)
That fear takes me out before I even have a chance to try. I wrote that so many
years ago. And fear continues to pull a Tanya Harding on me.
I am pretty sure that the only cure for this, let’s
call it, personality dysmorphia (like anorexics have body dysmorphia – seeing
flaws and fat that aren’t at all there) – the only cure for this is
self-esteem, self-care, and just walking through the fears anyway.
To walk up to the measuring stick at the roller coaster, see
that this ride is actually accepting me,
and walk onto it. – The ride is Life, if you haven’t figured that out.
I am enough. I am healed enough, sane enough, funny enough, smart
enough, pretty enough, engaging enough, lovable enough to participate in life,
to have relationships, to have valuable friendships, to throw my photos into
the hat, to show up to auditions, to even show up to musical auditions. I am
enough to have this, to be this.
Because, I am six feet tall, by god! – And I want to ride. 

abundance · adventure · performance · self-esteem

Fortune cookie wisdom: Action is the key to success.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

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I didn’t actually set my alarm last night, so you get an
abridged blog. I have an audition tonight in Marin, and I wanna make sure I
shower!
I spent some time last night after I got home from rehearsal
culling through the near 200 photos that the headshot photographer put in her
gallery from our shoot a few days ago –they look AMAZING. Not “me” per se,
though I don’t look half bad, but the style, the lighting, the cropping, the
angles, everything, I am SO glad I paid
for a professional shoot finally. As I’ve said, I love and appreciate how my
friends helped me with some before, but this woman shot Rainn Wilson from “The
Office,” and he got work… so…! Off to perfect my snarky, sarcasm then.
I can’t wait to write her a Yelp review, which is how I
found her anyway. She used to work in LA, then was commuting to work here and
in LA, and now is just here – to be close to her man, Aw…
Out of 200 photos, I get to chose two that I want her to “basic
retouch,” and then I get all the rest by disc. Oh, the choices! But I’ve narrowed it down to half a dozen, with one
being my stand-out – like, wow, Molly you look like someone who actually does
this.
It’s again how I felt walking out of rehearsal at SF State
last night – I said aloud in my car, “I’m so proud of you, Molly.” It’s such a nice feeling to have about yourself.
I also, last minute, a.k.a. Monday, signed up for an audition
that’s being held this Thursday, and both tonight’s and tomorrow’s have very different
needs for audition pieces.
Luckily, for tomorrow’s I’ve reached back into what I’d
done when I was auditioning while I was a student at Mills, the piece I was
using in the Winter of 2011/2012. I didn’t know if I’d still remember it, and I
fell FLAT when I used it once then (“I’m
sorry, can I start again; I’m so sorry, can I try it one more time”) – oh the
poor auditors! I didn’t have it memorized.
But, as I went over it yesterday while driving to rehearsal,
I realized, I do actually remember it mostly, and I can hope to get it by
tomorrow evening (or just admit I don’t, and use a notes) – Luckily, tonight’s is a cold-read audition, which means I
don’t have to have anything memorized, I’ve just gone over the “sides” (the
pieces of the play) that they want us to read from. It’s going to be a group
audition, since all of the scenes have multiple characters in them. If I— I
was going to say, If I get this role… 
but I won’t, not from fear of jinxing it, but simply because I want to
remain true to my intention, which is to show up for myself to the best of my
ability, and leave the results up to whatever they will be.
I’ll still be using my old headshot that I got a year ago,
when I had like an inch of hair, but, I’m already in the door, the rest is up
to the “me in person.”
Break a leg, Moll. Break a leg. (OH! And BREATHE!) 

abundance · clarity · connection · pride · prosperity · self-esteem · vision

If you glue it, they will come.

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

At my meditation retreat in January, we made a collage of
our “intention” for ourselves for the year, as we do each year.
As I do each year, I tear out probably over 50 images and
phrases at the sewing-circle tables, and then walk over to a corner of
the floor, plop down, and, in solitude, spread out everything I’ve got for editing and
culling.
This year, a few specific messages came out of my collage, all of which are in process of fruition.
The first of the images to note is a pair of immense, daring eyes.
Just eyes, some mascara ad surely. But, the single-minded clarity and focus on
one thing, this is what I cut that image out for. Whatever this image was meant
to convey, to me it spelled, Clarity of Vision—Focus. Which, if you’ve been
reading, is something I’ve been aiming toward, especially with my whittling
down of my creative endeavors toward theater alone.
Next of note, is an image from an old 1964 Life magazine. It’s a large black-and-white photo of a woman in a tennis
outfit mid-air, jumping, with her fists curved tight, elbows up, her face
scrunched in emotion—she’d just won Wimbleton, after a
bout with a fatal illness. The caption quotes her: “I made it.”
This, for me, does not speak only to my own triumph over
cancer, but also the image of someone celebrating their victory. She is unabashedly celebrating herself, and her
accomplishment. She is proud of
herself, and acknowledging it.
How many of us do that, regularly? Not me. It is not an ingrained habit to feel
proud over things I’ve done.
And, again, if you’ve been reading, you know that each time
I’ve shown up to a theater audition recently, the emotion I feel most afterward is pride. Is a
clap-on-the-back feeling of, Damn straight, Molly, you did it. You showed up
for yourself. You made it.
Another strong image in the collage I created caused me the
most difficulty.
I’d cut out a photo of two people, who happened to be in ski
gear walking away from the camera into the snow town, holding hands. With this
couple, I’d placed the words, “Let’s Connect.”
I sat the longest with these images. Placing them on, taking
them off. Placing them on, Yes, Molly, Let’s Connect. Shit, no, I don’t know if
I want to commit to this idea. – Even on a stupid collage.
“Let’s Connect.” I don’t know about this. That sounds
hardest of them all. Do I really want this? Do I really want to connect with someone else? Well, yes… But I’m
scared.
In the end, I’m pleased (and proud) to say, I took my glue
stick and fixed the image of the couple and the intention to connect onto my
collage. … In the corner, tucked away. But still, There. And as you have seen, I have been attempting to connect, however inexpertly, with another human being.
Lastly, and this is what prompted me to write this today,
the last images I’ll describe to you are of a fancy dinner party. An event. At this event, a man and woman dressed to kill–a couple–are
looking at a case housing artful jewelry. The party has soft colored lights, fancy
centerpieces–whatever you think of when you think fancy, like Hollywood fancy,
dinner party.
I pasted this on, because I want to be a fancy person who does
fancy things. That’s how I described it to my peers on the retreat as we all
shared our collages and their meanings to us. I have been a little ashamed to
say I want fancy things, I want to be a fancy person, I want to wear fancy
clothes, because I’ve been afraid that makes me superficial. That others will think this “want fancy things” means I think money buys happiness, but that’s not what my meaning is.
Because, another thing you’ve seen me write about here is the
ownership of my true self, including the externals. That has meant upgrading my
wardrobe, buying gold shoes, having a cleaning company come to help upgrade the
aesthetics of my apartment.
I have always been a woman of externals, too. I have an
internal landscape that rivals Ansel Adams, and I have a desire to express on
the outside how I feel on the inside.
And I would like to feel fancy.
Sure, not all the time—I sit here in cotton pajamas, an
Oakland sweatshirt, fuzzy socks, with a well-worn (second hand) Vera Wang
knitted robe knotted tight around me.
But I want to not feel ashamed of wanting to be a fancy
person. Who does fancy things and goes fancy places. Who needs to have fancy things in my closet, because it is not
unheard of that I get invited to fancy events.
THUS. This evening, I am attending a fancy event. A gala.
And I will be wearing a fancy dress suitable for the evening.
However, I will be attending the gala for my job–our annual fundraiser–and thus I
am not a guest, as much as an employee, put to work, for sure.
So, this morning, I was more specific in my morning pages
about my intention to be a fancy person – I would like to be an invited
guest to fancy things.
Because, apparently the Universe is listening: all the
things I’d pasted on my collage are happening. Therefore, I’d better be intentional with
my intentions. 

abundance · acting · self-esteem · self-love · self-support · vision

…And all the men and women merely players

Molly Daniels HayesLeave a comment

Audition Over. I feel exhausted. I am hoping that some day
soon, I can stop reporting my exhaustion to you, because I won’t be.
However, if I get into this play, which I realize is an SF
State Production, I think, then there are rehearsals there every evening and weekend
for 4 weeks. But, cart, horse, one bite at a time. (And, although that sounds
exhausting, I know it’s part of “building a resume” and a body of work; so, worth it.) I
won’t talk too much about this play, until I know I’ve gotten into it. To
paraphrase my new go-to book, It’s Just a F***ing Audition. So, now, I go back onto Theater Bay Area website,
follow-up on another message board the 25 y.o. told me about, and get another
audition lined up. And another monologue into my brain.
You know, this memorizing thing is work. It’s amazing to be able to keep so much information
in our heads. I remember words from plays I did years ago, when I click into
that gear.
And that’s the other thing I realized as I walked out of the
audition last night into the Sunset streets: I’ve done this before. I know how to do this, if still gelding-like. But this isn’t as foreign to me as I like to let my brain tell me
it is. I’ve stood in small rooms in front of strangers and performed words to them before. I’ve conversed awkwardly with auditors, having rehearsed so many lines for them, I forget how to just have a normal conversation. I’ve filled out audition sheets, and printed headshots, and doctored a resume. I’ve stood in hallways waiting my turn before. 
I left last night – just as I’d left the CCSF audition last month –
thrilled that I showed up. THAT’S the result that is most important to me. I
was just so glad that I let myself try. And I did “not bad,” in my own
estimation, which is like high, throwing-flowers-at-myself praise in my own
scale. “Not bad.” Ha. In fact, really, I think I did well. They’re students, it
seems, the auditors, and they gave some feedback that skewed positively.
I remember when my friend Melissa came to see me in The Vagina
Monologues at Mills about 2 or 3 years ago,
now. She said afterward, and her sister is a director, so she’s seen her share
of plays and players—she said, I feel like I’ve finally seen you do what you
were born to do.
It was the best compliment I’ve ever received. Because I
knew she wasn’t a bullshitter, and because it resonated with me. And because it made
my insides do a happy dance. Like, SEE, MOLL! We told you you could do this!!
On Tuesday night, the 25 y.o. came over to help me practice
my monologue. He’s a director and an artistic director, so he’s seen his share
of actors. So, very nervously, I did my piece for him. And I begged him
afterward to be honest with me: if I was wasting my time, and someone just
really needed to be honest with me, tell me to move on to something else. I don’t want to be like that person on the American Idol audition tapes who no one ever told was horrible because they didn’t want to hurt their feelings, and so now all of America laughs at their idiocy. 
He told me, no, he wouldn’t say that at all. But, he also
told me that, like the bell-curve, I fall somewhere in the middle of the curve,
“if a little to the right of center,” he said.
I could be crushed by that. I could say, well, forget it, if
I’m not excellent, f*ck it. But, HELLO, even though I’ve done this somewhat,
I’m a TOTAL NEWBIE. And if as an untrained, total newbie, I’m average, then that’s AWESOME!
I mean, come on, man.
My bass teacher said the same thing to me when I was working
with him. That noting my incredible lack of training and beginner status, I was
much farther along than he’d seen.
I’m good at picking
things up. And I haven’t ever put concerted effort behind this acting vision before. So… seems to me…
leads me to believe… it follows that… logic says…
I better keep doing it. Because I’ll only get better.
*INSERT CHEESY THIS-IS-AWESOME GRIN*
P.S. The 25 y.o. also told me there’s plenty of work in this
town for a start-of-career non-equity actor. And I told him, Tell your friends
– I’m happy to be in their crappy plays. 😉