In this episode, we are talking about Choosing without Condemning, so that you have the ability to be really clear about what you do want without creating any unnecessary resistance, shame, blame or wrongness about what you don't want. You ready? Let's do it.

Hello, you are listening to the Love Your Life as a Performer podcast. I'm Kelli Youngman and I am the Life Coach for Performers. I help actors, singers, and dancers love themselves and their lives way more, so keep listening to learn how you can love your life, both on and off the stage.

Hello and welcome back to the podcast. I feel like even in the last week, so much has happened, including the fact that I took an amazing three day on camera acting class and I gained so much value from that experience. And if you're on my email list, I did send an email out about this, but before we dive into today's episode, I will just offer that this is your sign. If you have been feeling like something is for you, that there's something you desire and you know that a class, a book, a relationship with someone specific, taking their class, dance class, voice class, whatever it is. If there's something that you feel like has been calling you and that it's for you. Again, if you need a sign, this is it. Use this as your permission slip to go and do the thing that you've been talking about.

And honestly, I feel like this could be a whole podcast in itself, but if you're on my email list, I was just talking about how many takeaways I had from the experience. And if you're here listening to this podcast, I feel like you're already ahead of the curve, but when you really do take the time to master your inner world, you become fully available not only for your scene partners, but for your life and to actively respond to what you desire.

And so in summary, in summation, what's the word? To summarize, the class itself was incredible. I learned so much about myself as an actor. I learned that I'm amazing and had multiple people reflect that back to me, and it was so fun again, to just be available, to receive it, and to step into deeper embodiment of my self concept that's already being reflected back. And I had a coffee with a friend this morning, we were talking about how powerful it is when you really are just available to learn and when you're not overthinking about other people or you're not criticizing yourself or you're not feeling really anxious, if you really, truly have cleared out the clutter of your mind, if you've cleared out all the Inner Static, you're just available to be present. Available to learn, to grow, to engage, to hear really clearly, and I feel like all of that was just solidified in this experience. When you develop self-trust, when you develop really clear authenticity of only trying to be you. Right. That is what shines.

And I'm just gonna say this out loud, if you are an actor, singer, or dancer, and you have not joined us inside of Momentum yet, this is your sign. Come join us. You don't have to do this work alone. And you can plug into a community where other performers are choosing to do the inner work that makes them more available, not only for their lives, but for their careers, and for the work that we all wanna really do. Okay. So that is just a little bit about my on camera class and my takeaways and what I learned. I'm so excited to do more and to keep expanding my vision of what I want for my career, which I think is the perfect segue into today's episode.

Now, back in, oh my gosh, I looked it up. Back in 2023, I did a podcast about Wanted versus Unwanted, and the benefit of really deciding, but also understanding and becoming aware of when you're focused on the Wanted versus the Unwanted. And I feel like I wanna expand upon this idea. Because so often we don't realize that we're creating unnecessary resistance. And when we're creating unnecessary resistance, we're also creating more work. We're creating limitation, and we're creating judgment for others, which in turn is always creating heightened internal judgment of ourselves.

So when we're talking about Wanted versus Unwanted, there's a couple of important points. The first one being that we don't have to judge the unwanted to be really clear about what we do want, right? Like this analogy has been coming up for my clients, but it's like if you happen to be at an amazing party, you don't have to spend your time at the party that's fun for you, if they're playing your favorite music, the vibe, the mood, everything's aligned. You don't have to be at that party like shit talking, the other party happening across the street. Right. Even if it's 10 times better, infinitely better. We don't have to create a hierarchy or a judgment or even like moral superiority that you're at the party you're at, right?

You're allowed to be at your party and enjoy your party. And we don't have to be like, Ew, I can't believe those people are over there. Like, oh my gosh, I used to go to that party years ago and like now I just can't stand it. Like we don't have to be in the ick, right? We can actually just be in love with where we're at and love our reasons for being there.

When we remove the ick about what we don't want, what happens is that it just gets to exist as another possibility for people, for ourselves, for our past selves, and there's just no good, bad, right or wrongness about the choice we're making. Right? Again, we can love our choices and build ourselves up and be fully available to where we're at without condemning or shaming or rejecting the unwanted. You feel me?

Because I feel like what happens as well is that when we're doing this, we're creating this unintentional rigidity about what we don't want. And sometimes that judgment or that belief system or that choice is coming from a place that's attached to the past. Right, and so what's interesting about when we do this is that we're not really holding space for things to just be. Right. Because again, if we're like telling ourselves like, oh my God, I can't believe our past self used to go to that party, that was such a horrible thing that we did. Like why do we need to be criticizing, judging, shaming, blaming our past selves in that way, and who's to say that that party over there that we air quote, used to go to, couldn't be of value or beneficial or even like of interest to us in the future.

It might be, right? Especially if the experience we had at that party was gonna be totally different based on who we're being now. So again, I think it opens up this space where we can use the unwanted to help us clarify what we do want. And again, we just have the freedom to choose that without creating a metric of good, bad, right, or wrongness.

Okay. I'm gonna try to give you another example, but it's like even as I'm saying, like, oh, I'm excited to put myself out there for more film and TV things, it's so interesting how our brain immediately wants to go to, well, does that mean you're not gonna audition for theater anymore? Right? It's like, no, actually. Because one, it's not this or that. It's always this and this. But also like we can be in the expansion of welcoming in new things without even saying like, yeah, now that I'm focused on film and tv, I'm not gonna focus on theater. I think this is actually where a lot of people, and again, whether you're an actor, a performer or not, think about where you kind of put things on the opposite sides of the spectrum versus really seeing that you can have it all.

Right. And. I don't know. That can look like a lot of different things. It doesn't mean we're gonna be booked on all of these things at all of the same time. But if we're not creating a timeline or like a binary of, it's either film and TV or live theater, like if there's no rule for that, but it's just like, Hey, I'm expanding how I think of myself. I'm expanding what's possible. Then we're fully available for whatever comes. It's like, I love this experience and I love that. When we don't close the door to something and say, that's unwanted, I'm not doing that anymore. If I had started feeling salty because I wasn't getting callbacks for theater, and I'm like, well, I'm just like, I'm over the theater scene right now because I'm not getting called back and I wanna go where I'm wanted. I don't know. Like that brings along an energy, a frequency of the unwanted instead of saying, yeah, I'm really excited by this thing over here. I really love this new party I'm at. And there's lots of parties all around the world, right? Like I can opt into any party that feels fun for me when I wanna be there.

Right. The other thing about Wanted versus Unwanted is I think, again, in the spirit of getting it right or trying to get it right, we oftentimes create more work for ourselves when we're really afraid of being in the Unwanted. It's like you took a wrong turn and you walked into the air, quote, Unwanted Party. We're like, oh my God, how did I get here? I can't believe it. No, I'm not supposed to be here. And we like really freak out about what we make it mean about ourselves that we're experiencing the unwanted, instead of just allowing it to be neutral data, letting it be information of like, oh, okay.

Like I see what's happening here. And that's again, just like not quite what I want right now. Imagine if you walked into, again, like a clothing store that is just not your vibe, but the store you wanted to go in was next door. You wouldn't like, I don't know why this phrase keeps coming up, but you wouldn't make a meal out of it. Did your dance teachers ever say that? Like, don't make a meal out of it. It's just a moment, right? But it's like if you walked into the wrong store, you wouldn't be like, oh my God, why am I at the store again? I don't wanna shop here anymore. Stop making me come here. Like we literally would just be like, oh, whoops. I must have walked in the wrong door. I didn't notice. And then we just go to the next store, where we really wanna shop that aligns with who we're being that has the clothes, the vibes, the frequency of that which we desire, right?

So again, I think at the heart of this episode, it's really letting go of the wrongness and like, I don't know, the word that keeps coming up is just like condemning, like rejecting like, Ugh, this is terrible. I don't want this. Instead of just being able to witness like, Hmm, this isn't quite the result that I wanted.

The other thing that I think is really interesting about, when we are viewing the Wanted versus Unwanted. Just as a tool versus like a metric of whether we get an A++ or not. We don't close the doors to possibilities, right? Imagine a world in which you like, well, actually I'm really into film and tv, so I'm just not gonna do theater anymore. Right. And usually when people like have an energy like that and then they surrender, of course, that's when theater opportunities come in. Because they're not obsessing and they're not focused on the fact that it's not there. They're in the energy of allowance. So it drops in. And it's like if we haven't closed the door to that air quote party, we're just like fun. Here's this opportunity. It feels great that it just showed up and like, yeah, I can make a pit stop at that party. I can hang out all the parties. Right? But if we are like actively deciding and excluding things from our identity of like, oh no, I no longer do that. Which again, I don't think is like good, bad, right or wrong, but when we do go through the trouble of making our identity clear to the place of exclusion, right, of like cutting things out. I do think that sometimes we are closing doors where maybe those doors don't need to be closed.

Now, I'm not talking about going back to a terrible relationship dynamic or starting to date people that really don't align with your values. Like we're not talking about reopening doors that can stay closed. But even still, if there's not a "wrongness" about it where we're shaming ourselves or belittling ourselves, even if you did end up hooking up with someone, that wasn't quite it. It's like, alright, that happened. And I can see that's still not the choice I wanna make. Right? But I think either way, it eliminates all of the internal drama and what we make it mean about ourselves as a metric of like whether we're good people or bad people. And again, I guarantee if you're listening to this podcast, you're a good human being. But we have this like intense grading system that's happening when we're experiencing Unwanted versus Wanted.

So if we could stay in neutrality and in love and understanding and compassion, even when we're experiencing Unwanted circumstances, situations, people, relationships, and we could just really fine tune and decipher what we do want. And if we could quickly give our attention and focus to what we desire versus what we're experiencing right now, knowing that what we're experiencing now is a result of our past thinking, feeling, and actions, right? Like everything we're experiencing right now is a result of our past. And knowing that what's Wanted doesn't have to be rooted in evidence or air quote facts based on what we've seen and witnessed historically in our lives; when we know that the Wanted just gets to be pure desire, I think that there's a lot of freedom to just be at the party you wanna be at without rejecting anything else. Without creating lots of walls, without creating lots of barriers, without creating lots of obstacles. And we could say and be where we are and say, what is here for me? How is this for me? How is this contributing to what I really, really want. And want in the essence of having; not being in the frequency of Unwanted, which oftentimes aligns with when we don't have what we want yet. Right? So it's bringing back the frequency of having and desire and pleasure into the goals, dreams, vision that we have for ourselves.

So that's what I got for you this week. How can you be at the party you wanna be at without constantly bringing your awareness to all the things you don't want? Again, even in that example, it's just so great because if you are at the party you wanna be at, and you're still thinking about over there, across the street, where all that shit is happening that you don't want... are you really fully available to enjoy the party you're at? Are you really fully committed to ending up at the party you wanna be at, if all you're talking about is the party you don't wanna go to, right?

Like this is where we just commit to the practice of alignment and really choosing with intention where we wanna give our focus, where we wanna shine our light, what we wanna call in more of. And that all starts with loving where you are, knowing that you're ending up with everything you desire. That actually is available and you can train your mind to go in that direction more of the time. All right, that's what I got for you this week. I'll meet you back here for another episode. Bye.

Hey, I wanna invite you to get started, because if this is blowing your mind, imagine the impact of when we actually work together. You get to love your life as an actor, singer, or dancer, even including auditions. And if that sounds amazing, come join us inside of Momentum. You get lifetime access to The Performers Plan, coaching, community and more. And I will be supporting you the entire way. Go to kelliyoungmansingh.com/momentum to join us now.