EVERYTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE! by Cassidy Layton
(Tricks to Keep Your Backseat Driver Quiet)
Your backseat driver isn’t your mom, gripping her seatbelt and screaming “RED LIGHT!” as you slowly pull up to a stoplight you saw 500 feet ago. It's a little voice that reminds you of every single thing you’re doing wrong, every minute of every day.
Mine came about two and a half years into being an actress in NYC. I was suddenly, after two years of here-and-there work, completely un-hire-able. I had gone from feeling like I was on the brink of real success to being no one.
More accurately, I was self-conscious about my every move, exhausted from working two survival jobs, and artistically dead. I was crying at the hostess stand of the fancy restaurant where I worked while watching the Tony Awards on our Seating iPad. I was waiting for table 52 to go home so I could curl up and die somewhere. That night I wrote a story about setting the world on fire. I knew I needed help, so I started therapy.
About three weeks in, I no longer wanted to light things and people on fire. Also, as a totally unintended consequence, I was acting better and booking way more. It took months of work with my therapist to start figuring out why.
Like many in this career, and most days in my life, I’m a storyteller. I actively let my creativity run wild. But under constant pressure, with huge rejections flying at me every which way, I lost access to a healthy release valve for my creativity and it emerged as a new voice that screamed at me about my life and my abilities. “You’re the worst. You’ll never book anything ever again. The only thing you’ll ever be known for are those two stupid lines in that stupid TV show that nobody even likes anyways. You’re a fraud. The system is rigged. This is so unfair. I hate myself.” It was like this terrible backseat driver that kept yelling wrong directions and criticisms at me no matter how high I turned up the radio.
That was the worst, so my therapist and I started to compile a list of reminders that help keep my creativity from working against me, that keep that very developed voice from attacking me. Wouldn’t you know, when I suddenly didn’t have this weird voice in my passenger seat screaming obscenities, casting liked me way better? Bonus.
#1: DON’T COAST. EXPRESS YOURSELF.
“Coast” meaning, letting your muscles atrophy. Letting your artistic voice go unexpressed. I had tricked myself into thinking I couldn’t or shouldn’t make art unless I was hired to do it. WHAT? A few months after my rock bottom I directed a full musical in my apartment. We seated people at the dining table for three nights of haphazard performances. It was a critical lifeline for me, a game-changer in my relationship with myself. It gave me back some control over the “you suck” voice because it proved to me that I was in control, I was the driver here, not some scared, self-conscious, whisper.
If you’re feeling stuck and frustrated, I challenge you to abandon shame and embarrassment and self-sabotage and start something. Write a book, learn your dream role, take a challenging acting class and do terrifying scenes, put up a show -- do something that’s a meaningful time and energy commitment to prove to yourself and your demons that you’re serious and you’re in control.
DISCLAIMER: It’s really scary to start something really affirming when fear and shame seem like the only things that have allowed you to survive this long! It helps me to think of those negative feelings like that one old terrible piece of clothing you still have from high school. In my life, it’s an old church cardigan. It served you once, but not anymore. It’s not vintage, it’s old. And it smells. Throw it out.
#2: YOUR WILD IMAGINATION IS AWESOME, BUT LET'S EXAMINE THE FACTS
If you’re having a hard time, don’t punish yourself! That’s where that manipulative voice loves to sneak in and tell you terrible things. When we fail is a perfect opportunity for that backseat driver to jump into the front seat and slam you into a cliff.
You wouldn’t kick an injured animal for not being able to run a race. Everything about being a creative is hard enough. Try to be an advocate for yourself. Let other people give you feedback. Your job is to be your cheerleader, and celebrate growth in whatever form that takes.
I like to examine what is most likely a story (usually a product of that destructive voice) and what is a fact. For example:
Story: You really shit the bed at that ECC. You’re so untalented. No one will ever cast you. Your hair looked greasy, too, by the way. Greasy-haired garbage monster.
FACT: I am an artist and that means I am always growing. Growth is messy. I’m going to give myself permission to learn. I am not going to punish myself.
#3: YOU’RE TOO HOT TO MAKE GLUTEN-FREE CUPCAKES
I’m talking about prioritizing. Another sneaky move the backseat driver loves is to tell you that you are invaluable by devaluing your time. You do things that feel productive but when nothing changes and you’re no better than you were an hour ago, a week ago, or a month ago, you feel shitty and you don’t know why. It’s because that sneaky voice has weaseled its way back in. “What, you can’t do anything? Why haven’t you been to more auditions this week? Wow, you’re lazy. I guess nothing is ever going to change for you”.
So don’t make really hard gluten-free cupcakes for some girl you barely know, do endless song charts and acting “homework” but never actually act out loud, volunteer too much time for things you don’t care about, help a random coworker move when you have a self-tape due, go to a lame party the night before an audition, etc. Those are just mundane ways of devaluing yourself, your time, and telling yourself that you’re bad.
DISCLAIMER: By all means, do the things you care about outside of your career! But do those nice things for your friends, take interesting classes, do necessary chores. Think of yourself as the hottest, most interesting, smartest, coolest person you know. What are those persons' time commitments like? Your time is valuable! Invest it in the things that you actually enjoy and help you grow, because you deserve better. Better parties, better acting, better cupcakes.
#4 EVERYTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE!
“Well, everything is impossible anyways!”. When nothing else works, your backseat driver says: “It’s impossible! Acting, relationships, happiness, a peaceful state of the world! Why try?”. So I dare you to make these words into an affirmation of hope. “Everything is impossible! But I’m still working at it anyway!” That’s all anyone is asking for. The goal is progress, not perfection.
So as you sit and stare at your wall out of sheer boredom during this pandemic (or otherwise), I urge you to tilt your head to look out the window instead, and find a little bit of hope in the hopelessness. A little bit of “now” in a world that’s spinning out of control with a thousand terrible endings. Because now isn’t impossible. You’re already doing it. Tell your critical voice to buckle up or get out, because, despite everything, you’re gonna go for a drive.
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(And don’t watch the Tonys at your survival job!)
CASSIDY LAYTON is a writer, actress, comedian, and dog mom located in Brooklyn, NY. You can find her most recently in Hunters (Amazon Prime), New Amsterdam (NBC) or as the voice of Burger King commercials. When she isn’t journaling, screaming into the vast and eternal void, or baking, she is performing with the children’s literacy group “Story Pirates” and writing a book of dark-humored scary stories for millennials. @casadilla67