Mint

A gentleman said something to me a few weeks ago that resonated in my soul. I was working background for what I thought was The Client List, but in turn was actually this show called Entry Level, and while waiting in the holding area, reading The Picture of Dorian Grey on my phone, this giant red headed man sitting across the table from me asked me a question.

"This is going to sound kind of strange but... Do you write?"

I looked up at him, kind of laughed, and said:

"Umm sure. Well, I have a blog, but I don't WRITE write. Not, like, books or scripts or anything... "

"Oh. Okay. What do you do?"

"Well, I would like to say that I'm an actress, but right now I roll burritos at Chipotle and do background work on the side. So technically I'm a starving artist, but not really. Livin the dream."

"Hmm."

"Why do you ask?"

"Well, this is going to sound strange again, but you just seem like someone who... Who searches for truth. A person who searches, and writes, for and about truth."

My world shattered in that very moment. My eyes opened a little wider, my shoulders relaxed a little more and my lungs expanded. Truth. What a word.

"Well, don't we all? I mean, if we are artists, don't we all search for truth?"

"Yeah, I guess we do. But you seem like a person who makes it a mission to find it."

This kind, giant, red-headed gentleman who attends CSU Fullerton, who's name has escaped my memory, did not know it at the time, but he changed my world. Flipped it around and made it look straight into the mirror that we are all afraid of. Ever since that moment, there has been zero bullshit. I have worried less, thought less, held less, expressed more, expanded more and felt more.

Since the bullshit I have been using to fill some void is passing, I am happier. Listening to my heart more and just living my life day to day. And breathing.

I was talking on the phone to my wonderful and beautiful mother and we were weighing the pros and cons of me working two jobs and if it is truly necessary. Let's get real, I work four jobs, but two of them pay me regularly with money. The third is my internship with iO West, which is FABULOUS, and the fourth is being an actress, working whenever I can get it. My fourth is not my job, but my priority, which is getting me into trouble, but trouble is necessary for your passion. My mom said some very important things to me, as she always does, and we were discussing planning and scheduling of some kind. I said to her "It is so hard for me to try to plan out what I am gong to be doing in two weeks, let alone tomorrow."

The only constant things in my life at the moment are my three jobs, which is wonderful, but having been in school for the past 18 years of my life and not having a schedule when so much around me is happening is hard.

BREATH.

In times of struggle, breath. In times of laughter, breath. In times of triumph, defeat, heat and ice, you must always breath. It is what makes us living. It is what turns the world. It is what keeps is ALIVE.

A very special woman introduced this concept to me in the summer of 2011. Now, in my years at Chico State, breathing was essential, as it is in every day life, and I am so very grateful that it was pounded into my head just how necessary it is, but this specific beautiful soul made it so much more apparent to me just how much your universe depends on it, and all others universe depends on it as well.

If you are feeling down, sad, low, disappointed, angry, upset, wrong, frustrated or like you're about the explode, simply look up. Look up into to sky and breath. BREATH. Take in the universe on a ginormous breath through your nose, hold onto it, let it fill you up like a carafe of freshly squeezed lemonade, feel it fill your lungs, pass through your body all the way to your fingernails... Then, let it go. Let it release out of your mouth, with a sound if you like, relaxed, nonpushed and natural. It is so simple. You are exactly where you need to be right now. You are enough, and so much more. Do not shy away from others or yourself. ESPECIALLY yourself. Do not tone yourself down because you're scared of how it will be received by others. The second you release that breath, you liberate yourself, and others.

BREATH.

An exhausting amount of times during the day I can feel my shoulders hike up in anxiety, I take shallow, short breaths, I notice my posture is awful, and in those moments, I breath. I take on hell of an amount of air in and just as easily let one hell of an amount of air out. From the millisecond after the last drop of air is released, I know anything and everything is possible. It's magic, really.

Who knew, we were actually all beautiful magicians.

Happy 50th birthday Alexandra Billings.

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