journal.
The ability to have fun and play in all that we do. I am constantly reminded that we have to maintain our child like spirit. Its essential to do this from yoga to working out to just walking down the street. Play like your six year old self that would forever and you wouldn't get tired. Oh to be young again. Maintain the youth in your heart and let your fun spirit shine. Until next one...keep playing.
There is constant noise around us and we have to find times to find a moment of peace and silence. Living in the silence will connect us away from all of the other distractions and back to our true self, our being, and our spiritual self. How do I find my true self and how do I find my ultimate being? For myself, I find silence in moments of meditation and staying with my breathe. I find the breathe brings me to a state of being calm and back in my body, but I learn to achieve this skill during times of silence and coming back to my true self. For all, come back to your true self and let your breathe take you back to your ultimate being. Stay with your breathe and always let your moments of silence guide you. I'll see all of you on the journey. Stay focused and stay humbled.
Are we willing? This is a question that continues to come up in my life. Are we willing to be open? Are we willing to let go? Are we willing to forgive? Are we willing to love more? Are we willing to laugh? Are we willing to explore our boundaries? Are we willing to be vulnerable? Are we willing to live in the silence? Are we willing to be patient? These are the questions that we can consider in life. What are you willing to do? What am I willing to do? Food for thought. See ya on the journey!
With all of the up and rising news in the world, I felt the need to write this post with deep thoughts and a heavy heart. This post is specifically targeted towards the events in Minnesota & Baton Rouge. There needs to be a conversation and I know there is a lot of discussion, but here are some talking points that I would like to wrap my head around.
1. Anytime an event occurs toward African-Americans it must be acknowledged with every other event that has built up to this point. I mean we have to consider history, looking back to Rodney King and thinking as far back as slavery. Blacks have felt oppressed over the years and would like to feel like they are equal as well. This brings me to point #2.
2. #Blacklivesmatter is very relevant. The statement means that black lives are just as equal as any other life in this world. It does not mean that black lives are the only ones that are important. All lives are important, but when people feel oppressed they want to have their voices heard. They don't want to be another statistic on social media due to local law enforcement. This brings me to point 3.
3. Law enforcement is an important part of our society. I was pulled over recently and the cop and myself spoke very well to each other and we both moved on. There are good cops and there are bad cops. I watched the video from the recent event and the cops in those moments made those decisions. I can say that if two men are on a man and end up shooting the man in back that doesn't seem right to me. Everything must be done with escalating force and even if the final decision is to shoot then as the trained law enforcement figure you have to be aware of the red, yellow, and green zones to slow down the suspect. In both cases, I can't speak on what the suspects did prior to the event, but if they aren't being cooperative then it's not helping the situation. This brings me to point 4.
4. With the level of anger, frustration, confusion, and constant escalating events in the world, people must be mindful when a police officer approaches them. Specifically, a black man must be mindful when having conversations in today's day and age with the authority. I'm not saying belittle yourself, but we must speak articulately and deliberately or we too could end up in a similar situation. Our voices and bodies reflect who we are, therefore if we come off aggressive then we will get an aggressive response. If we respond in a calm and humble matter then we have a greater chance of receiving calm and humble feedback. This brings me to point 5...our presentation.
5. When events like this occur, the protests are powerful ways to get our voices heard. We have to look at other avenues to express the situation. Many of the people we want to reach sometimes don't take it seriously and treat it like any other time a black man is killed. We have to be mindful about our response during these events. We have to find the most articulate way to get our message across. Once the message is received then we can volley an open conversation. We are brilliant people. As I say we, I speak in terms of all people, but we lack our ability to love each other. We must all push for the meaning of love behind these events. We have to understand the facts and we have to keep working towards peace because if we don't, well it will lead to more division.
Light and love to everyone reading this. See ya on the journey.
I could start this blog with a very intelligent way to define yoga and make it sound very official, but I have come to find that the true intellect arises through ones own ability to bring their own identity into any work that they do. Yoga is the ability to find your love and enlightenment and bring that enlightenment to others. Yoga is the ability to spread love to others whether it is philia, agape, or an eros type of love. By finding love with oneself then you can truly find love in another person.
I found that yoga is a means to discovery and exploration. Most importantly, it has been a discovery for myself to constantly explore my boundaries. We are all vessels and we have so many aspects, opinions, views, experiences, and life adventures that make us each who we are in this interesting world. I found through yoga it brings me to a place that I could ground my thoughts and the madness of my life by simply coming to a grounded space. In this space, I discovered mindfulness and the ability to become aware of my thoughts as well as just being. I spend so much time always on the move that through yoga, you find a means to JUST BE. Through the being it takes me to a place of relaxation, light, and love. In my experience, the light and love are the basic means for life. Our lives are truly brought together through this connection of light and love between each other. Once, you find your own light, you are able to bring the light out in others.
The journey of our lives actually begins when we are present and living moment to moment in love and with an open heart. I used to have this deceived idea that there was always something to work towards, I have come to learn that everything we need is right here within all of us and we are all good enough and we can find that by identifying each persons light and love.
I sat down with a friend the other day and we spoke about expression of art. The chance to do art and what success means when you do art. I find the idea of art beyond interesting. Our role as artists is to express the world as we see it through our eyes and beliefs. There are stories that we want to tell and feel the world should have the opportunity to experience. Art speaks to everyone in the creative process. I truly believe we are all artists and find ourselves in the happiest moments when we get to express. Sometimes we express with other artists and other times with our kids, family, girlfriends, friends, brothers, sisters, coworkers, just name it and ALL of us love that place of creativity. Regardless, of where you are on your journey, the chance to express art is beyond a gift for not just yourself, but always for others. Tell stories, through singing, instruments, painting, acting, photography, fashion, modeling, and any other creative avenue that you want to do. Keep creating on your journey. Much love.
I had a great talk the other day about growth in life. We have to always feel a sense of development in our physical, mental, and spiritual parts of our life without asking for permission. Let's not ask for permission and explore the journey of our lives. See ya on the journey.
"The master has failed more times than the beginner has tried"
- Stephen McCranie
What is this fear that we have regarding failure? Is it our ego? Is it embarrassment of not being perfect? Is it the shame of not having "success"? Whatever success means to each person. I'm growing to learn that failure is one of the best parts of life. When you get the chance to fail, you get a chance to grow and explore something you never would've tried. I think once we stop failing and trying new events, activities, and life experiences we find ourselves in a stagnant place. This place is the death of creativity and being fearless. If we can try anything regardless of the consequence of feeling embarrassed or a jab at our ego, would you fail a lot more? Over time, we fail so many times that we eventually become amateurs then intermediate and one day we become masters at our craft. So I think we should always look to do an event and take risks to fail. It's the only way we can truly live life freely. See you on the journey and keep exploring.
As people, we have dreams and desires of achieving success. I truly believe in each person there is so much greatness and unlimited potential, but many of us don't tap into all of our limits. I listened to a great conversation the other day called the 40% Rule. Essentially, once we get tired whether it's physically or mentally that means we have really only used 40% of our entire potential. As people, we are so much stronger than our actual belief. This quote truly impacts my life and I hope it does the same for anyone reading this post,
- Marianne Williamson
When do we stop anything in life? Do we hear it from friends? Do we hear it from family? Do we hear it from our inner self? I don't think anyone really knows the truth to that question, but I think if we truly love something then we should always keep doing it. I had a profound conversation with a friend earlier this evening and he's in a dilemma with his journey in life. Some of the people closest to him don't support his journey and his passion. The question is should he quit his desire or keep pursuing it even if it hurts the people closest to him. I think it's a question that we all ask ourselves at some point in our lives. I think if we fight through the initial difficulty then success will come with consistency and discipline. I guess, we shouldn't ever give up on our passions and sometimes if the people closest to us don't give us the support we need then we need to bring ourselves to be around the right people. Just some food for thought. See you guys on the journey!
The theme is love...always through everything we do. I've been coming across a reoccurring theme the past few days and it seems to be love. Whether, it's from friends, artists, teachers, and basically everyone that I get the chance to interact with day in and day out. Love is the common denominator in all of our lives, but for some reason we don't give enough love to each other. I mean in the smallest ways, i.e., letting someone in front of you in traffic, illustrating patience, giving a snack to someone need (we don't know their story, so we must empathize and love each other), or anything else along those lines. Especially, with all of the events in the world, we truly need love now more than ever. Towards our family, friends, world, animals, and more than ever we must love ourselves. We must remain vessels of love to the world. It makes me smile to know that we as people can do that for each other. We just have to always do it for all. Keep loving and I'll see you guys on the journey.
The constant ability to listen and stay aware has made a huge change in my life. The calm feeling of learning more about your being is such an interesting part of my life. I constantly find my ego and my desire to just BE playing opposites. I love just calming my mind and training my breath to control my thoughts. It has helped me to calm the thousand of thoughts that race through my mind daily. There is still much more to keep diving into in my practice, but the process has taught me so much about myself. More to learn, see ya on the journey!
The month is flying by and it's one week away from February. Days go by so quickly and you try to enjoy each moment, but things quickly pick up. Time really doesn't wait for any man.
I had a chance to watch the UCB 101 improv class show. It was extremely entertaining and reminded me of being in the moment and listening. Life is about being in the moment and listening to BE present during each day. Sometimes, days go by so fast that we lose sight of it, but we need moments to pause and get out of the fog. The pause helps us to reset and see the light again instead of moving at the speed of light. Days keep going, but we need to hold off on ourselves sometimes and just pause in the moment. See you on the journey, let's keep being in the moment!
The pace never slows down and things get more exciting everyday. The nerves can play a huge part when you dive into something new and you have no idea what to expect. The thought of not knowing and the nerves cause a huge panic. In those moments, it's so important to breathe into the new changes and the experience you are about to embark upon. I jumped on a new experience recently and the outcome came out much more productive than the fear and nerves. I think every adventure opens new doors and if we let the nerves and fear take a hold of us then we miss a whole realm of new doors that we can look into. Simply by finding our breath, we go further into those changes and we feel the growth. I guess, I'm going to keep digging into those moments of change and fear, and we will see what path that takes me. As always see you on the journey.
The days are already flying by before all of our eyes. It's already the middle of the week, where is the time going? The level of talent that I was able to experience at Anthony Meindl Actor's Workshop was amazing. It's always exciting going into a safe, fun, and risky space for artists especially a place to give yourself over to your scene partner and fellow artists.
Its funny because with a new year, we feel that everything has to be new. Honestly, it's the little changes that happen and when we look back everything has changed drastically. My homework for the week is to take life a little bit slower. I have a habit of going from place to place, but this can cause you to miss all of the beauty in life. I have noticed more beauty in this world by slowing everything down. The silence and taking your time to put out your message is our right as people and there is a lot to learn from the slower moments.
I'm grateful to continue growing with amazing people and beautiful spirits at the studio and throughout my journey. I'll see you guys on the journey.
As the first weekend of the new year draws to a close, it's a reminder of the new birth that will soon follow. In the next few hours, the industry will be back in full force from classes to auditions to emails and networking events, and you can't forget about the constant shoots happening in so many cities. It's pretty exciting to imagine, but will be here before we even know it. It makes me smile to know that I am working with others that love the grind as much as you. I think of one of my buddies, Kolten Horner who is embarking in a new location for his modeling career in Mexico City. @koltenh is a great man and I am very excited for his next chapter. I'm really inspired by all of the art that will soon flourish all over the world in full effect. Smile to whomever reads this because you too can always create beautiful art and use it as a forum and voice for others. Have a great week and I'll see you guys on the journey!
Wow...2016 is finally here and it's a breath of fresh air for me. Hopefully, for everyone reading this as well. 2015 was a great year of growth, development, and learning. The year finished with an amazing play, "Big Apple Christmas" at the Community Actors Theater and an awesome shoot that I did with the amazing Wander Aguiar and Andrey Bahia (http://wanderaguiar.com), check out his amazing work here. One of the best photographers that I had the chance to work with in my life.
I had a privilege of working with the extremely talented Michelle LaRue. She's not only an amazing stylist, but without her I wouldn't have this site right now. The rest of her creativity can be found on her site, http://www.larueandlabelle.com. I'm very grateful I met her and her amazing significant other, Andy. A real power couple that is filled with such brilliant ideas.
As I put my initial thoughts down for 2016, I want to move forward with a focus and mantra throughout the year.
1. We are all good enough in everything that we do.
2. This life is about being able to connect with each other. There is so much excitement when you have the chance to BE with other people and tell beautiful stories.
3. Always commit!! Don't just try, but truly and passionately commit with everything that you do.
4. Spread LOVE in everything that you do.
I'm excited for this next chapter in my life. I look forward to crossing paths with everyone that comes across these blogs. Peace up and let the journey begin!
