Status 1-19-15*

HOORAY FOR ME! I hiked up the mountain and got Day 98 published.

I think I may be literally ‘climbing out’ of my depression. I faced two big hurdles during the weekend.

1. Pressure and corrective feedback in the sound booth
2. Climbing up a mountain, in HEAT, when it was hard to just roll out of bed

It was HOT hiking!

My first instinct was just to go do a bonus show with no prep (probably the most reasonable choice in the middle of depression), but my list of new BCs to greet and the things I wanted to cover were piling up. I also REALLY wanted to use Suz’s brave commentary about show 97 during show 98. What’s a depressed, perfectionistic-trying-to-be-all-about-progess podcaster to do?

Well, I took it one step at a time. I made morning coffee and thought, ‘How about I write the segment where I greet Lisa?” Then, ‘How about I listen to my voice acting to see if I have a story I can be brave enough to tell there?”.

So step by step I wrote this really long show. It took about twice as long as usual, and by the time the show was prepped it was late in the day for hiking.

So I thought, “How about I drive up to the mountain park and just enjoy the outside weather?”
Then, “How about I send a photo to Sophie on IG and tell her my music?” (I usually do this and like it)
Then, “How about I just walk as far as I can and enjoy my music?”
And so forth all the way up the mountain.

It took twice as long as usual.

Same for recording the show. I had a LOT to record, and so my voice acting training helped, and most of my takes were clean enough to use as is without tons of editing. BUT I hadn’t brought enough water for recording 90 minutes on a hot day, so it was an act of will that I finished. (you can hear that I read the blog post segment at the end of the show as if my pants were on fire, because I was literally running out of spit and knew I would not have the chance to re-record it in the same place with the same sound if I made a mistake).

Then one step at a time for hours to edit all of the parts together for this long, long show. AND I had to try and tell my voice acting story by choosing the moments to share, and this had to be edited several times with Mark’s advice to make it run as I wished.

Luckily for me, Mark made me a sandwich at this point.

Smooch to you Mark, my love!

The show was published just before midnight. So I wrote, hiked, recorded, edited AND published a complex, long show – even though I AM still in the middle of depression. SO TAKE THAT YOU STUPID DEPRESSION! I can feel you, but I can find a way to do the best I can anyway. You are real, but I can still live my life. (Victory for me, and it isn’t every day that I could have managed it. I’m giving myself props because this was a large workload even when I feel my best, and it was a miracle that I did this yesterday).

AND it is great the show is up as we are taking a few days of R & R at the beach.

*Daily statuses are not part of the blog’s email notification. When you enter your email under where it says SUBSCRIBE TO POSTS VIA EMAIL, you will be notified of regular blog posts and when podcast episodes are released. I didn’t want to clog your inbox with my daily statuses. However, the automatic publicize feature will inform you on my show FB page, my AdventureLaurie twitter account, google+ on its show page, and Tumblr.

Body Balance

BB (Body Balance) number 8. Sleep: 8 hours divided (good both sets, yay!). Tummy/Gut: balanced and playing nice. Hungry within one hour of waking, regular breakfast satisfied. Energy: Moderate. Mood: proud of myself.

BB is my personal criteria, and I don’t think too hard about it. I ask myself at the keyboard, what is my BB? A number between 1-10, including halves, pops into my head. I write it in my post Then I figure out why it is higher or lower and gently make note.

If you are interested these are my measures.

1. Sleep. Quality and Amount.
2. Tummy/Gut – If I ate what my body asked for, usually above and below the belly button feel balanced. Ate too much, below the belly button feels more full. Ate too little, the reverse.
3. Am I hungry within 1 hour of waking? I have found that I feel best if I am hungry within 1 hour of waking. This tends to make my eating day even and not heavy on food in the evening. But I don’t eat if not hungry unless I’m about to ride or hike. I’ve learned I need to fuel these morning activities, or I’ll bonk.
4. What is my energy level? Subjective, but telling.
5. A quick look at my mood.

The Bravery Coach

TheBraveryCoach daily tweet is a morning mediation on how I either did, or can incorporate an aspect of bravery into my day. It is cheerful. It is esteem building. Those who want to follow these on Twitter may, by searching for the hashtag #bravery or by seeing my profile:

Daily Bravery Tweets via TheBraveryCoach on Twitter

Status 1-18-15*

HIKING DAY – I didn’t get the most sleep, but good enough to try and get up the mountain to record Day 98. It will be a hybrid bonus episode I think. I don’t have energy for a full show prep, but I want to say hi to some new BCs and Suz sent me some brave audio I think is quite powerful about the origins of feeling alone and why we may learn distrust of self and others.

Gentle exercise will make me feel better. The outdoors is great for lifting mood. Might be the sunlight, or just the connection we feel as part of nature. Talking may also help. We’ll just have to see if I can whip up the energy to tell stories on the mic today.

Yesterday’s voice acting was mixed in my mind. I truly enjoyed my sessions with my coach, David Babich, and came away feeling more confident. Coach David gave me great advice, “Stop thinking of yourself as a student in a class, think of yourself as a voice actor increasing your skill level.” We worked on the dreaded piggy bank voice that so floored me in beginning VO class and I felt good about our progress. We also worked on a couple of monologues. If the sound is good enough, I’ll play part of that for you on day 98. Though my coach, David, has a sound booth in his home, we weren’t recording that way, so the sound will be bouncing and have more ambient noise etc.

Right after my session with David, off I went to regular class in the recording studio. “I’m a voice actor, I can do this,” I kept telling myself. However, between start of class and my turn in the booth, nerves got me. My takes weren’t god awful, but I had several minutes of uncomfortable feedback to live through after them, and besides feeling that I hadn’t lived up to my own expectations, I felt I had let David down. I had wanted to do really well, so I could tell everyone how great David had prepped me.

Now I admit that lots of this EXTREMELY critical feeling and dread is generated by me. The style of our regular class feedback is very much ‘call a spade a spade and don’t pull the mocking punches’ as well as praise when you nail it. It is good to toughen up because, Voice Acting, like all acting, is so competitive, you can’t let this get to you. However, dealing with this style of feedback when you are already going through depression is very challenging.

I’m proud though, because I was extremely stressed during my monologue and still I didn’t stutter or have an actual brain freeze, I just kept telling myself,”I’m a voice actor increasing my skill with this feedback,” and tolerated it, I won’t lie though, I was GLAD to escape that booth and felt much better when we got to dialogues with scene partners.

*Daily statuses are not part of the blog’s email notification. When you enter your email under where it says SUBSCRIBE TO POSTS VIA EMAIL, you will be notified of regular blog posts and when podcast episodes are released. I didn’t want to clog your inbox with my daily statuses. However, the automatic publicize feature will inform you on my show FB page, my AdventureLaurie twitter account, google+ on its show page, and Tumblr.

Body Balance

BB (Body Balance) 6.5. Sleep 5 hours undivided. Tummy/Gut balanced and playing nice. Not hungry within one hour of waking, but I’m also up early. Will eat hiking breakfast. Energy Moderate. Mood mildly hopeful.

BB is my personal criteria, and I don’t think too hard about it. I ask myself at the keyboard, what is my BB? A number between 1-10, including halves, pops into my head. I write it in my post Then I figure out why it is higher or lower and gently make note.

If you are interested these are my measures.

1. Sleep. Quality and Amount.
2. Tummy/Gut – If I ate what my body asked for, usually above and below the belly button feel balanced. Ate too much, below the belly button feels more full. Ate too little, the reverse.
3. Am I hungry within 1 hour of waking? I have found that I feel best if I am hungry within 1 hour of waking. This tends to make my eating day even and not heavy on food in the evening. But I don’t eat if not hungry unless I’m about to ride or hike. I’ve learned I need to fuel these morning activities, or I’ll bonk.
4. What is my energy level? Subjective, but telling.
5. A quick look at my mood.

The Bravery Coach

TheBraveryCoach daily tweet is a morning mediation on how I either did, or can incorporate an aspect of bravery into my day. It is cheerful. It is esteem building. Those who want to follow these on Twitter may, by searching for the hashtag #bravery or by seeing my profile:

Daily Bravery Tweets via TheBraveryCoach on Twitter

Status 1-17-15*

VOICE ACTING DAY – HooBoy, this will be challenging today. I go to my acting coach and then directly to my regular class for my mic work and critique. Critique is not easy for me on any day, though I have been making strides at thickening my hide and growing my balls to take in lessons and not get as wound up in failure, and ‘I AM so damn bad’ feelings.

No matter how badly I fail, *I* am NOT a failure. Maybe what I did was a failed attempt. This is a critical distinction for all artists to make. My passion makes me an artist in many realms, but my thin skin makes art a bad combo with depression. Depression urges me to cuddle on the couch with Tiger and make excuses why I can’t go do voice work today.

HOWEVER, life is change. We are never the same, not from nano-second to nano-second. Might as well try something different. I was smart to get a coach to help me and support me. I was smart to try voice acting and many days it brings me joy. If I were hired for a voice gig, I wouldn’t call in depressed! So it’s a great chance to learn how to deal and use this in some way.

Today is bravery day, and I need to gird on all I’ve learned thus far.

*Daily statuses are not part of the blog’s email notification. When you enter your email under where it says SUBSCRIBE TO POSTS VIA EMAIL, you will be notified of regular blog posts and when podcast episodes are released. I didn’t want to clog your inbox with my daily statuses. However, the automatic publicize feature will inform you on my show FB page, my AdventureLaurie twitter account, google+ on its show page, and Tumblr.

Body Balance

BB (Body Balance) 7.5. Sleep 7 hours divided, pretty good first 4 hours. Tummy/Gut balanced and playing nice. Not hungry within one hour of waking. Will eat soon as I can’t do voice work on full tummy. Energy Moderate. Mood Calm.

BB is my personal criteria, and I don’t think too hard about it. I ask myself at the keyboard, what is my BB? A number between 1-10, including halves, pops into my head. I write it in my post Then I figure out why it is higher or lower and gently make note.

If you are interested these are my measures.

1. Sleep. Quality and Amount.
2. Tummy/Gut – If I ate what my body asked for, usually above and below the belly button feel balanced. Ate too much, below the belly button feels more full. Ate too little, the reverse.
3. Am I hungry within 1 hour of waking? I have found that I feel best if I am hungry within 1 hour of waking. This tends to make my eating day even and not heavy on food in the evening. But I don’t eat if not hungry unless I’m about to ride or hike. I’ve learned I need to fuel these morning activities, or I’ll bonk.
4. What is my energy level? Subjective, but telling.
5. A quick look at my mood.

The Bravery Coach

TheBraveryCoach daily tweet is a morning mediation on how I either did, or can incorporate an aspect of bravery into my day. It is cheerful. It is esteem building. Those who want to follow these on Twitter may, by searching for the hashtag #bravery or by seeing my profile:

Daily Bravery Tweets via TheBraveryCoach on Twitter