Communication

Honest Communication in a Season of Becoming

Life has a way of speeding up right when you least expect it. My schedule is fuller than it has been in years — auditions, rehearsals, clients, teaching — and none of it is bad. In fact, most of it feels like a gift. Just… unexpected. And with all of it happening at once, honest communication keeps showing up as the thread that holds everything together.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the honor of performing at the Colorado Theatre Guild Unified Auditions. I’d been preparing for months — the DCPA audition course, new material, hours of rehearsal, research, and refining. I walked in more prepared than I’ve felt in a long time. And somehow, the universe responded. I’ve already received five callbacks for wildly different roles, each one surprising in its own way. Now I’m deep in the work of exploring those characters, learning their rhythms, and letting them teach me something new.

At the same time, I’m in full‑blown rehearsal for Phenomenomoly at Meow Wolf. This process is unlike anything I’ve done. It’s playful, strange, intimate, and deeply personal. We’re building characters from the inside out — thoughts, impulses, physicality, interactions. Yesterday the cast was laughing so hard we had to stop and breathe. Someone said, “How did we get so lucky to have this life?” And they were right. But the laughter only lands because we’re also doing the harder work: opening up, sharing fears, exposing the parts of ourselves we usually keep tucked away.

One exercise asked, “Who are you, right now?” Simple question. Not a simple answer.

Listening to others share their truths cracked something open in me. If you want to know yourself more honestly, listen to someone else tell the truth about themselves. It rearranges your own inner landscape.

Outside the theatre, I’m continuing to build relationships with new personal training clients, yoga teachers, and students. Each connection requires presence, listening, and honest response. Every conversation is its own little practice in clarity and care.

Becoming Personal

And then there’s the hardest communication of all — the one at home.

I’m so proud of my partner and everything he’s doing. But when I see him wrestling with self‑doubt or insecurity while I’m chasing all these new opportunities, my instinct is to jump in and fix it. To smooth it over. To make it better. Turns out… that’s not helpful.

This week I realized something obvious but necessary: The same communication skills I’m practicing everywhere else — in rehearsal, in auditions, with clients, with colleagues — are required in my personal life too.

I kept trying to separate them, as if “professional communication” and “personal communication” lived in different universes. They don’t. Honesty is honesty. Presence is presence. Listening is listening. And if I’m not being honest with myself first, none of the rest of it works.

So here’s a small practice for the week:

🧭 A Practice in Real Honesty

Before you reach out to your partner, your family, your coworkers, or the stranger you meet today, pause and ask:

How honest am I being with myself right now?

Not dramatic honesty. Not performative honesty. Just the quiet kind — the kind that lets you see your own thoughts clearly before you speak them aloud.

Because you never know who you’re going to influence, or how a single moment of real communication might change the course of your life… and theirs.