The Day I Almost Quit Acting...

...and the one thought that saved me.

Apr 02, 2026

It was the middle of the pandemic. Everyone’s stressed out.

My child, who was a preschooler/toddler at the time, had a meltdown right before I was going to start recording on a self-tape.

It got me all up in my own feelings and very sort of activated and stressed within my body. And then I tried to just go right into this self-tape, which was not a good idea at all and I recognize that now.

I was having a really hard time focusing and getting the work done.

I decided to take a break and I put it all away for a while, but the entire time that I had it, like, “Okay, I’ll go back to that later” I couldn’t put it down.

There was something that was just so off.

Every time I thought about going back in to do the self-tape, I would be on the verge of tears.

I had all these gremlin voices that kept telling me things like, “If you were a real actor, you’d be able to get this done. Guess you’re not really an actress.”

That mental garbage floating around in my brain while I’m already feeling stressed about the pandemic, and stressed about getting a self-tape in, and stressed about how my child is handling their emotions and what I can do to help them as a mom.

It was a complete disaster shit show.

In the end, I passed on the audition.

I emailed my agent and I said, “Guys, I’m really sorry. This is just not happening.”

And, of course, as soon as I passed on the audition, I felt relieved that I wasn’t going to have to do that now, but the gremlin voices got louder.

All of a sudden it was like, “Well, if you can’t get that one audition done, why are you doing any auditions? Why don’t you just quit acting all together? What’s wrong with you? Are you an actress or not?”

Oh, I was beating myself up to no end and it was a nightmare.

Thankfully, another voice started to come forward. And I believe that that was the voice of my inner guidance, my intuition.

That voice said, “This doesn’t mean anything about you as an actor.”

And I kind of went, “Wait, what? I don’t understand.”

And it was like, “No. This doesn’t mean anything about you as an actor.”

Listening to that voice, starting to kind of guide my thoughts in that direction, that’s what really helped to bring me back around and realize that I’m the one who makes the meaning here of all of this stuff.

I can choose to make passing on an audition and not being able to get a self-tape done mean I’m a horrible actor and I don’t even deserve to be in this profession.

Or I can make it mean I’m having an off day, I’m a human being, everybody has off days, and this just wasn’t meant to be, and that’s okay.

Choosing to follow my inner guidance, my own heart, that calm, steady voice — instead of all the gremlin, monkey mind, bleh voices — The voice of “This doesn’t mean anything about you as an actor” really helped.

It brought me back from almost quitting acting.

That’s the power of that voice and how helpful it was.

The bigger story and lesson here is we make the meaning. Human beings are meaning making machines. We make meaning about everything in our lives so that we can understand it better.

But when we start making meanings that make us feel bad about ourselves, that’s not so helpful.

“My kid has too much screen time, that means I’m a bad mom.”

“I can’t make my living as an actor, I have to have a day job, that means I’m not really an actor.”

“I don’t look like the Photoshopped model on the magazine cover, so therefore, that means I will never find a partner.”

None of those have to mean any of those things.

They can mean what we choose to make them mean.

So my question to you is: What are you making _______________ mean about you?

And if it’s making you feel bad I would encourage you to look at the situation in a new way. Can you find a more empowering meaning from that situation?

Let’s make sure we’re finding empowering meanings in our lives.