“True desire, in the heart, for anything good is God’s proof to you, sent beforehand to indicate, that it’s yours already… That itch that you have to be whatever you want to be… You already have it. Claim it… Understand this also: you have these dreams… Dreams without goals remain dreams and ultimately fuel disappointment… Goals on the road to achievement cannot be achieved without discipline and consistency.”

– Denzel Washington

For the first time in life, I hear these words in regards to myself as a human and not as an actor. All of the energy I was putting toward characters, learning craft, practicing, pushing my limits, challenging myself, and believing I deserved the success I wanted and fulfillment I needed as an artist… there were times when all of that came naturally for me as an actor, but I have never allowed them for myself as a person. So I didn’t think of healthy relationships and a healthy mind, body, and spirit as dreams and therefore never made goals to reach them.

I’ve recently started to apply (when I have the strength, or sometimes when I am encouraged by someone else to be honest even if it might hurt them) the same passion, curiosity and fearlessness, that I used to apply to my career, to my life. While it is uncomfortable, the bursts of change release into moments of living in truth which is vibrant, simple and priceless. With consistency and discipline, the bursts will become one consistent moment of truth that will become life.