This I Believe

This I believe was a homework assignment very much along the lines of what I normally post on here, so I figured I would just put it up, so that you can learn more about me on my adventure. :)

“This I Believe is an international organization engaging people in writing and sharing essays describing the core values that guide their daily lives.”

“We invite you to contribute to this project by writing and submitting your own statement of personal belief. We understand how challenging this is—it requires such intimacy that no one else can do it for you. To guide you through this process, we offer these suggestions. thisibelieve.org

Actors are the students of humanity, the embodiment of empathy, and the vehicle of catharsis. As an actor I must learn to be everyone. I must learn to understand who they are, who they’ve been, and who they want to be; and in coming to fully understand someone it is impossible to feel anything but love. In short, as an actor, I must learn to love. In learning to love, I have come to believe that there is nothing but love.

I believe the power of love, the beauty of love, the passion of love, the hope of love. Love is what gives us the inspiration to achieve.\There is a defining love that drives me forward and it is only my fears that hold me back. These two sides of a coin, this yin and yang, that have left me balancing on the precipice between hope and despair.

For myself it is the love of admiration that drives me. Quite simply, I love to be adored and with that love I have an equally unique fear the shames me. A fear that can drive me to a standstill, that halts any possible remembrance of love.In my fear, my anxiety which in truth is nothing but fear, I run, I hide, I despair in all that might ever be because there is nothing but fear here inside. The only possible solution and answer for this fear is love.

It can be any kind of love from any source. The love of a father, a friend, brother, mother, sister, wife, or even myself. Yes, the most powerful and meaningful love I have found in my life is that of the power of accepting and understanding myself, and therefore loving myself. However, I have no greater fear than myself. The fear of my potential, my success, and the maddening fear that I am not good enough to stand on this earth - and so, facing that fear, I choose love. A love that springs hope eternal, a love that allows success in my life, a love that allows me to be free. A love that disperses fear like the lantern dispels darkness. A love that abides. I believe there is nothing but love.

Showing off

Sometimes I talk about the fact that I do theater and such. It's an important thing on my journey, so I thought I share some videos I'd made of me singing. (It's a play list of 3 songs, lasting about 7 minutes)

I went to see the Vagina Monologues.

I went to see the Vagina Monologues. I went with a lot of trepidation. My friend had described it to me as stories about women's *surprise!* vagina. From sex, to rape, to masturbation. Being a nice Mormon kid from Orem,.Utah. The idea freaked me out, but I said I would go and it was a famous piece of theater that I wanted to see for the sake of seeing once.


It was beautiful. It was exactly what I was told it was going to be and it was SO MUCH MORE. I went in with my brain saying, "Oh, the sex organs are vulgar. Penises are vulgar, but since I have one it doesn't seem so vulgar, but the vagina? EWWW GROOOOSSS." I'm a really mature person, I know.Yes, they use the f word and even the c word and I was like... I'm supposed to be feeling uncomfortable... but I was enraptured. Women were talking about their vagina, yes - but they were speaking about themselves and who they were and that their vagina was, in fact, a part of them and THAT'S HOW IT'S SUPPOSED TO BE!

They spoke of their "down there" as imagined as an entirely different part of them, something foreign. A disease, or parasite. People treat sex and their sexual organs with so much disdain and horror. There is no shame.It's a part of you, an essential part of you. I'm a Mormon, I believe in intelligent design. That GOD created us, and guess what? He made those a part of us for a specific reason. It is us as humans and society that have shunned them, created sex into a terrible monster. Yes, there is a beautiful reason to wait till marriage for this, but that reason isn't because it's disgusting, or harmful. It's because it's beautiful and powerful. It's a power that I believe is best found with someone you've committed to for an eternity, something that can unite two people into one.

My entire life I've have been taught that women are queens and princesses and deserve to be treated so. Which is true, I just never knew why. I thought I did, but I didn't. There was a story of a girl that hated her vagina. She felt only scorn and disgust and wondered why anyone would go near it, but she started speaking of this one man who was nothing special. He was plain and boring, until they touched and yada yada yada, they were in her bedroom and he just says, "I wanna see you." I'm right here, duh. "No, I really wanna see you." She describes him as a vagina connoisseur. A true lover of the vagina. Including hers, this woman who feels disgust at the thought of a part of her OWN body, and he's just sitting there. Admiring her, not "it," not a separate entity, designed for pleasure, or child bearing, he was staring at her. Telling her she's beautiful, not that she has a pretty vagina(is that a thing?) Telling HER she's beautiful. She began become aroused, by his attraction to her. Recognizing that this is part of her and she's beautiful. You might think that this is a weird story to prove the divinity of women, but it's not. The divinity of women comes from within. There is NO outward force that qualifies or disqualifies a woman of her divinity. Not rape, not a man, it's her and only her. Sometimes external forces can help one appreciate that divinity, but it comes from within. The abolition of fear and shame will help women find themselves and divinity.

Three quarters of the way through the piece. A little 6 year old girl came out and was asked some questions about her vagina. My brain immediately screamed,"HOLY CRAP THIS IS SO INAPPROPRIATE FOR A LITTLE GIRL!" Then they asked her what her vagina would say, what it would wear, and some other questions that were a part of the interviews that all sorts of women had given. I realized that, yes, some grown up words have been used(Like the "C" word and "F" word) but if my daughter grew up knowing that her vagina is a part of her and that it's a good part of her. It's nothing to be ashamed of, and that it's HER's and her's alone. That yes, there will be pain, pleasure, and spirituality associated with it her entire life and that it's her's to control. She is not her vagina, but her vagina is still her.

I went into the show, and my immediate reaction as these women came out, was a judgement on their looks. That disgusts me now. I thought it was normal 6 hours ago. I thought it was OKAY. I made judgments on how attracted I was to them. Do you realize how wrong that is? To assume that I have any power, any place or right to make that judgment? It's okay to not be attracted to a person, but I made judgments on their character, I literally had the thought of, "Oh, that girls not very attractive why is she talking about her vagina," and, "Oh, that girl is really attractive. Crap, now all I'll be able to think about is her vagina." I disgust myself sometimes, and that's not cool. I should know better, but I let myself slip. My higher standard became one of physical attributes, I have let physical attractiveness dictate my life before. I watched those women walk off stage at the end of the show and I was in awe of all of their beauties. Their strength and courage.

One woman told a story of watching her daughter give birth to her granddaughter. Once again, my initial reaction was, "EWWW GROSS!" She goes on to describe looking into her daughter, at the power and majesty that comes within her. The magic and beauty that is child birth. She described the birth vividly, so vividly that my immature self that says the vagina is vulgar was immensely uncomfortable, at first; but as she described it..it became beautiful. I was amazed.

The most amazing thing to me was after the show. I recognized that the girl sitting next to me had a vagina. It wasn't weird. It wasn't vulgar, it wasn't wrong or shameful. It wasn't anything about sex, it wasn't anything about impure or non-chaste thoughts. It was, hey, you have a vagina. I have a penis. That's all folks. This shouldn't be news or anything, but even though I knew what a vagina was...it was almost shameful. Neither a man nor a woman should be ashamed of any parts of their body or the other's body. It's just amazing to me that an hour of vagina monologues can make women less "sexy" and far more attractive. It amazes me that despite everything I've been taught I failed to see where their beauty comes from. In short, the Vagina Monologues were beautiful, amazing ,wonderful, charming, heartbreaking, and moving. 

Frozen and my life philosophy.

If you haven't seen Frozen you should. Not because it's the best movie in the world, it wasn't. I didn't even like it as much as Tangled and definitely as much as the Disney movies I grew up with, but it also spoke to something that was very much on my mind. You might not have seen these things in the movie that I saw because I was already contemplating writing a blog very much like I hope this one will turn out before I saw it, but Frozen reaffirmed so much of what was already in my brain that it made me so happy.

Here's my latest thoughts on life and my choices in it. In my anxiety my world view often feels very black and white, but it kind of is for everybody. The way I've come to see the world is through two choices. Move with faith or move with fear.

*Spoiler Alert for Frozen*

Here's the basic plot of Frozen, a girl is born with magic powers allowing her to make snow appear whenever she wants and when she's upset when she doesn't want. She is taught conceal, don't feel in regards to this power. Teaching her to believe all emotion is dangerous(This feels familiar..) This leads to fear, fear leads to anger, anger leads to hate and hate leads to suffering. In fearing all emotion and therefore contact with people(If you don't believe those are correlated we can definitely have a discussion on the matter, that's a post/essay all by itself) She is afraid of hurting those around her because of past experiences, her fears are reinforced by her father, following what he believes the nice trolls told him. He chose to act out of fear, reinforcing fear in his daughter Elsa's life. Causing her to be a recluse, sure that any knowledge of her magic will cause the people of her land to fear her. (An important note I think I missed is that as a child she injured Auna, her parents took her to trolls to be healed, this is when they said that fear will be Elsa's downfall, or bane, or something like that. setting her on a course of fear throughout her life. Very Oedipus Rexish, right? (side note in a side note, I'm reading that for class right now had to put it in there))

Auna(That's her name, right?) Elsa's little sister, emboldened by her imagination, taught to her from Elsa as a child sees a world through a lens of hope. Never swaying from that path, from believing in love at first meeting, to following her sister through a blizzard(caused by her sister) fighting through being struck down by her sister, both physically(Okay, magically) and emotionally by her sister. She never gives in to fear, and continues to act out of hope. The ice in her heart from being struck by her sisters heart continues to freeze her body, but never her soul. Her one true hope is an act of pure love, so she goes home believing in her true love at first sight. He's a jerk, Olaf(The snowman) Is awesome and helps her recognize what love is. She realizes she's in love with the peasant who's been guiding her through the mountains, goes to find him so she doesn't die. After watching him walk away into mountains he's lived his whole life, while the only thing keeping her alive is the fire that the snowman started for her she walks out into a blizzard in the hope that she would find him.

Elsa, who was found and imprisoned by jerkface. (I don't remember his name, and it's an accurate description though there's a part of me that feels it's necessary to point out that he is a ginger) Escapes, but continues to be hunted by jerkface, but now his intent is to kill her after claiming Auna is dead and that they got married so he is the rightful king. After Elsa dies, but she killed her sister, so she deserves the death penalty, which he will gladly inflict upon her. He meets Elsa on the frozen fjord, tells him of Auna's death while not so far away she continues to seek for real lover boy. At the news of Auna's death Elsa is so distraught that the blizzard ceases, allowing Auna to witness jerkface attempting to kill Elsa. She runs puts herself in the way, freezes and shatters his sword. She continues to act in the hope for her sister's redemption and goodness of heart.

However, she also happened to act on her true love for her sister. Therefore breaking the spell of her doom. Elsa sees that through love and hope, there's a chance to calm the storm of fear inside of her. Allowing her to finally take control of the storm she has caused which has doomed her kingdom. Rather than being afraid of her, her people now see her ability as a miracle, a miracle that can create beauty(I believe Elsa starts to believe this in the song Let it Go, which is why I'm absolutely in love with that song)

If her father had realized that rather raising her in a mire of fear, allowing it to breed and fester, he had fostered it as a strength, of something to be proud of, as something that can bring hope and beauty to the world, then perhaps all their lives could have been saved from such heart aches? With my anxiety I choose every day to believe in hope or fear. Those are the two spirits residing within my soul, the storm rages within soul, I can find the good and beautiful or I can succumb to fears within. Some days I choose hope and some days I do not. I continue to fight that fight as I believe everyone does in some form or another.

 I pray hope will find its way to your heart.