When we use certain thoughts and beliefs as our “go-to” thoughts, we make them stronger and other muscle groups (and thoughts) weaker.
I work to collaborate with you, examining what thoughts and behaviors are no longer working for you and explore creative solutions to finding a better way. I have specific experience with issues pertaining to entertainment (touring, managing, feeling “stuck”, working from home, collaborating with difficult people, managing relationships through it all), however all walks of life are welcome.
I offer a non-judgmental space to unpack emotions and sort through blocks that are affecting your ability to access your best self.
I also work with couples using a sex-positive and directive approach. I offer simple assignments to create and secure closeness and communication. We work to define goals together and find ways to work toward them.
Bands
Bands have unique challenges that many therapists just don’t understand.
Not only is there an understanding that you should be able to access creativity at all times, but there’s also your own inner critic and high expectations for yourself that you have to grapple with.
Another problem I see so often is that most people in bands are often introverts who are expected to be extroverts. It’s like you’re on this rollercoaster: For one, there’s this expectation for you to be out late at parties or clubs, surrounded by drugs, alcohol, and so many people that you get overwhelmed. But then during the day you end up isolating yourself, hiding from the world and dreading going back out at night.
Sometimes being in a band is like being in a family.
You each have your roles and responsibilities. You also spend so much time together, but everyone has a different personality, which can lead members to feel unheard, disrespected, and bitter. Naturally, emotions run high when you care so much about the end-result of what you’re creating together.
It’s no wonder why bands also have the same struggles that families have. No one can hit you where it hurts the way a family member or a bandmate can. When we work so closely with other people, it’s easy to push the wrong buttons and create rifts in the relationship that make working together feel like a dysfunctional family dinner.
Collaboration can sometimes feel like a land mine, fraught with tension and a sense of “walking on eggshells.”
What sometimes makes things even more difficult is when your actual family – the one you grew up with – didn’t give you a good example of how to handle conflict.
The band members that I work with tend to come from two distinct camps.
For some, they were raised in families where they had to take on the role of “parent” early on. If you grew up in a family where you had to take care of those who were supposed to take care of you, then putting others needs before yours is second nature. You’re able to be supportive to your band mates about ideas they have, but you don’t trust or believe in your own ideas. You find yourself second-guessing your ideas and resent yourself and your band for it. Your voice is lost in the group.
If you came from a family where you felt so out of control in the chaos, you probably discovered that the only way to survive was to find ways to control your environment. In order to get something you needed, you had to fight for it. Now as a band mate, you find it really difficult to deal with unexpected changes to set times, touring, or having to cancel a show-last minute. You feel letdown by those around you and you sometimes wonder if you and your band should just go your own way.
How I can help
Being able to sit down with someone who gets it and can help you and your band members clarify your needs and expectations is so important. Together, we’ll take a look at what’s working in your band, along with the challenges that are standing in your way to success. This will not only relieve anxiety, but it will also allow for more creative and meaningful collaboration. By providing that space for everyone to feel heard, I’ll help your band so that you can get back to doing what you do best: making something meaningful to share with the world.
So lets get started. Click below to set up your free phone consultation.
Artist Management, Behind the Scenes, Tv/Film
Being in music management and film production can leave you in a world that feels unstable and confusing.
People who work behind the scenes have some similar experiences around what it’s like to pull the strings and set the stage for success. Even so, your experience as an agent, manager or executive producer is unique to that position which is why explaining yourself to a new person can feel pointless. You want to get help but it feels like you have to spend all this time teaching someone how to understand your world because, its actually pretty nuanced and complicated.
One of the complications you might face is that this behind-the-scenes role often has you feeling pulled in two different directions, from feeling proud of your work to feeling invisible.
ARTIST MANAGEMENT
If you’re an artist manager, there’s this expectation that you’ll be available for your artist at all times, which often means late nights and early mornings. Sometimes it feels like you’re just living for everyone else, and you always have to be “on.”
Managers tread a fine line between keeping their artists happy while also trying to keep them safe – you see them doing things that could damage their career, but you find yourself torn since they can fire you at any time (and you’ve see how they do it with other people).
And it’s not just keeping your artist happy, at some point they also are your friend. You find yourself being there in a way that feels intimate and close, you trust them and they trust you. You meet for drinks and generally enjoy hanging out with each other which makes the boundaries that you have to set feel really uncomfortable or virtually impossible.
You’re wearing so many hats: Friend, boss, parent, therapist, and you feel sometimes like those roles make you bad at ALL of those jobs. And if you set a boundary- you could lose all of that. You could be left without a job, a loss of a friend and a new found resentment for the industry that you once wanted to thrive in.
This feeling of having to cater to other people causes so much stress that you end up neglecting your own health and feeling doubt in your career choices.
Managers in Relationships
To add to the stress of your already packed schedule, the pressure to work late hours and be emotionally available to your work makes it hard to maintain healthy, normal relationships. You want to give your attention to relationships, but you get caught in the cycle of wanting to meet professional goals first – goals that never seem to feel like enough once you reach them.
Sometimes it feels like you have to choose, and this second guessing at work has also bled into your relationships.
TV/FILM PRODUCTION
If you’re in tv/film production, you take responsibility when your show/film seems to be failing, yet when it’s successful you doubt how much you actually contributed. Turn around is quick in your industry and you can lose your position, not get hired back or just need to move on; you feel the loss of the pride and accomplishment that you once felt. One day you feel like you can’t believe you’ve made it here and then next you feel like you have lost everything and everyone knows that you didn’t deserve to be here in the first place. You begin to feel like you can never win.
Producers In Relationships
The pressure to work late hours and prioritize your work above all else makes it hard to maintain healthy, normal relationships. You want to give your attention to relationships, but you get caught in the cycle of wanting to meet professional goals first – goals that continue to get pushed onto the horizon while other ones pile on top. Sometimes it feels like the only way to have a relationship would be to choose it entirely over work, and you fear that you would not be happy or healthy making that decision.
WOMEN IN THE INDUSTRY
It’s so hard for women managers and producers because they have to fight to get a seat at the table. The only way to survive this industry is to have a certain amount of grit and determination; yet, if you push too hard at the wrong time, you’re ostracized or referred to as a “bitch.”
You’re expected to be both aggressive and a people-pleaser, and you just can’t win. You often feel like someone is going to find out that you have no idea what you’re doing or that you don’t deserve the achievements you have gotten. Oppositely there are times when you feel like you have worked yourself to the bone with little to no acknowledgment.
Another problem is that the same assertiveness that helped you get to where you are doesn’t translate well into your relationships. You learn from work that in order to get anything done you have to battle or you have to “suck it up and let go”- except you never really do. Battling puts you in “fight-mode” to potential partners and sucking it up wears on you. In relationships you feel impatient and irritable. But adding a new style of communicating to your already exhausting work feels like balancing plates.
All you want is balance and loving relationships in a world of chaos, and instead of looking at the precarious lifestyle around you, you begin to wonder : IS IT ME? You want stability and a solid relationship but your lifestyle of over working, late nights, and exposure to substances may send a different message.
What now?
When you’ve invested so much of your time and energy into a show or an artist, the idea of walking away is almost unbearable. But now you’ve become resentful of your work, the people holding you back, and you can help but compare to the success of those around you. You don’t know what your next steps should be.
Simply put: You’re starting to feel burned-out.
It’s hard to make a plan when you’re unsure and beginning to question your path. You find yourself wondering if you’re still in love with this work, but you’re afraid to admit that to anyone. After all, you’ve sacrificed so much to get here.
I can help.
Click here to email me and set up a phone consultation today.
Artists & Performers
Artists and performers face a unique set of challenges that many people just don’t understand.
As an artist, you crack yourself open so that you can access the best parts of you, which also happen to be the most vulnerable parts too. You put your “inside world” onto the page/screen or into the music.
You regularly have to show the canvas of your most vulnerable self to create your art, and while those parts are sometimes beautiful and serene, they can also be shameful and embarrassing.
You didn’t realize that, by cracking yourself open to the world, you’re also left exposed, raw, and sometimes subjected to criticism. You try to stay open to your creativity and vision for projects, but you often find yourself stifling ideas out of fear that others will reject them.
Part of the artist’s ability to tap into the depth and heart of what they do is also what left them vulnerable as children to pain.
Many artists grew up using their imagination to manage feelings of loneliness, boredom, and disappointment in those who should have been there for them.
For example, if you were the kid who felt lonely and different, you may have used your imagination and creativity to create a wall between you and other people. You learned to be completely self-reliant.
The problem is that this pattern that once made you cool and helped protect you against feeling disappointed in others now drives a wedge between you and the people who want to be close to you.
You never needed anyone, and you’ve learned to value your independence. But doing everything on your own isn’t realistic, and you realize that others are getting ahead because everyone else seems to make connections easier than you do.
Everyone else seems to play the networking game right, and you despise it.
Maybe you’re an artist who grew up as a people pleaser, learning to entertain or be the overachiever.
Instead of feeling cared for, you did all the caring for those people in your life. You learned to take the temperature of the room and are always aware of others emotions.
Now this pattern gets in the way of your personal and professional life. You think so much about what others think and feel that you neglect yourself and your needs. You struggle to set boundaries with people because you hate disappointing them.
A lack of social media engagement and unbooked gigs makes you question your relevancy. It’s like you’re playing a constant game of being yourself while also grasping at straws to network in a way that doesn’t feel natural or authentic.
Imagine what kinds of art you could create if you could let go of being who you think you’re supposed to be for everyone else…
So now you’re here.
You find yourself feeling 12 years old again, only now you understand how you got here. You know your patterns, and you know what the books tell you to do to get your 10,000 hours to be great at something. So you try to do your hours for your art and your hours for your self-growth, but you keep coming back to the same place.
You know you need help and you’re ready to finally get relief, but you’re scared and uncomfortable and maybe a little skeptical. I get it.
You feel stuck.
You’re ready to take the step and work through all these complicated feelings.