My mom made me cry last night. I was on my way to screen a film I shot here in LA a few weeks ago and feeling generally pretty good. I decided to call my mom. She asked me how the week was going. I shared a few tales from my week of auditions and being a reader and working in a Vod Box of a Beverly Hills martini lounge. (it is a 28 degree tasting freezer for Vodka, where I take people in give them coats and put on a 15 min show while dampening their consciousness, which is decidedly opposed to the work I do with the rest of my life but that is a blog for a different day) I told her about a job that I booked. It is technically the first "official" paying job that will be in TV since I moved here 14 months ago. For any "reasonable" person, 14 months of unemployment looks and feels like abject failure. And sometimes it does for me too, specifically on those few days before I am reminded by nature of my failure to procreate that month. The job BTW is a small role on a new Comedy Central show, "Jon Benjamin Has a Van." My management was really upset that I even auditioned, felt that the role was beneath me. But here I am so excited about booking anything at all that will actually be on TV. Am I settling? Is this me planting seeds or not trusting that bigger and better jobs are on the way? This "measly" gig certainly pays more than my hostessing gig, and feels better than waiting on your old friends from high school who are now making enough money to be patrons at the restaurant where you are working for little more than minimum wage.

And then my mom shared something with me. something that I'm pretty sure will be one of those small sturdy milestones you have in your life where everything quietly changes.

She used me as an example. She used me as a teaching tool for the loan officers in her bank. See, my mom is real fancy. She is the VP of a bank and she is in charge of everyone there. It is the loan officers job to go out and drum up business. They are feeling decidedly frustrated as any "reasonable" person would see that this is a tricky time for the economy especially for real estate in Florida. Morale was low and my mom had had it with the "complaining." So she gave them a talking to. She said very simply, "if you think bad things then bad things will happen to you, if you think about good things then good things will happen to you" Thousands of books on quantum physics, religion, self help psychology reduced to one simple sentence. Yes Momma!

My mom shared with them that ever since I was in third grade I have been competing for roles and more often than not... not getting them. Well third grade was over twenty years ago, and here I am still auditioning for and usually not getting the roles I audition for. If I were to take each one as a failure, I would surely have quit by now. And that would be the real failure. Choosing the positive isn't always easy. It takes discipline and reminders and help, but it pays off, just like going to the gym pays off. I have been consciously choosing what thoughts I will entertain more and more these days. And it seems to be making a big difference. but that is not the point of this particular entry.

The point of this entry is how very much it meant to me that my mom.... the person I have looked up to and respected most in my life actually used me as a teaching tool for her employees. To have anyone use you as an positive example feels great. When it is your mom and you are an unemployed actor secretly looking for approval from everyone, it feels amazing. The point is that our outlook on life matters. The thoughts we think impact every decision we make and how others react to us, and therefore our reality. During the meeting one of her employees pulled up my Facebook page and quoted it to everyone in the meeting. I had no idea any of this was happening, but in this day and age of instant information transfer the thoughts we think can impact the consciousness of even more people even more quickly. There is power in that and we can use it to complain about traffic and the weather or we can use it to share the things that make us human and spread some joy and encouragement.

I share this not to 'brag' but because it meant so very much to me and I do see it as a huge accomplishment that even through one of the most challenging phases of my life to date I was able to be an example of positive thinking to a small group of loan officers in Tallahassee Fl.

'We have a serious responsibility not to be serious" - Maharishi

I have had some serious help and industrial strength tools. One of which is meditation. Releasing stress from the body naturally allows you to expand your consciousness and therefore not sweat the proverbial small stuff. I am now training to become a teacher of Vedic Meditation. I love sharing this tool with people because I know first hand what a difference it makes in your outlook on life. I even got my Momma to learn ;-)

Thanks Mom for being the one who taught me how to choose the positive and for supporting me in every way possible through this "unstable" and oh so rewarding career path that has chosen me.