A Month of Rest & A Year of Go

Feb 01, 2023

Editor's Note: I'm launching a labor of love: the Stories by Shiv YouTube Channel. It's been one of my goals for years, and I've finally decided to give it a shot! I’m focusing on building out three playlists for now: Expat Life, Actor Life, and Getting Started.

Please check it out, subscribe, and share the channel with your friends! Also, let me know if you have any feedback (*new to this*)!

A Month of Rest

I spent a month at home over the holidays. Being back in Chicago, surrounded by love and familiarity, I had the time and comfort to reflect on the whirlwind that's been life these past few months. I had the chance to check in with myself without the pressure of running to another class or prepping for another scene.

Without knowing it, I was giving myself the gift of rest.

If you're anything like me, putting yourself in a state of rest is far more difficult than putting yourself in a state of motion. But I remembered in this last month that rest is productive (and necessary). Coming off of this time of rest and reflection, I'm excited about what I have planned for the coming few months.

But first, let me back up a bit.

I started my training in Method Acting when I moved to Mumbai in September. At the end of the three-month course, we put on a showcase where I performed two scenes and one monologue (which you all can now see here on my YouTube channel).

The show ended at 8:30pm. After celebratory drinks and dinner with a few friends, I arrived back at my apartment three hours later. I then hurriedly packed my two massive suitcases and headed to the airport for my 4:30am flight to Chicago — giving myself exactly no time to enjoy the post-performance high or reflect on my stage time. 🙃

Thank God I had a month of nothing waiting for me on the other end of the flight, right? I thought I’d start my reflecting once I reached home and got over my jet lag. But all I could think about during my flight was my showcase.

Performing on stage felt electric. Not like a sudden zap or a bolt of lightning, but like a reassuring steady pulse that comes back on after flatlining. Like a wave crashing onto a shore that's been quiet for too long. A sigh of relief when you finally find something you'd lost.

I wish there was a word for this. Or maybe there is, and I just don't know it. But what I felt on stage that night was a sense that I was exactly where I was meant to be.

For those who have taken a sabbatical or tried something totally new, you know that such a feeling is remarkably rare. During periods of transition, most of your time is spent in a dark state of unknown.

It feels like falling backward and forward at the same time, not knowing how long you'll fall for. You almost pray to hit the ground because at least then you'll know your status in the definite: the comforting knowing of failure ("I have fallen") rather than the indefinite black hole of a journey to potential failure ("I am falling").

Since leaving my job, I haven't had a sense of how I'm doing.

If there is any progress being made, if progress is even the variable to measure or if it's something else, or how long this feeling of unknowing might last.

But when I was on stage, I felt like I wasn't in a freefall state anymore. Like my feet were planted on the ground. And the comfort of escaping the state of indefinite unknown – however brief – gave way to a little voice in my head that whispered, keep going.

The power of that feeling is incomparable.

A Year of Go

So this year, when I was setting my one-word intention for 2023, I decided to double down on that feeling and use it to propel my Year of Go.

But before committing to “go” as an intention, I felt I had to justify this shift in tone for myself. For the past few years, I’ve been writing about the value of slowing down, how we’re often too eager to feel forward momentum, and moving away from productivity (even when it’s uncomfortable).

By hitting pause on the path I was on six months ago, I’ve realized that it’s not productivity or motion itself that should be avoided. But rather, thoughtless motion.

Thoughtful motion is completely different.

You feel it deep inside you. Like the things you’re doing are aligned with some core part of your being. It can be on a conscious or even intuitive level. I haven’t had this feeling many times in my life. And when I have, I’ve ignored it.

I’m learning that when you do feel this energy tugging at you, you’ve got to grab the reins and ride into the sunset, paying little attention to the destination or directions.

I’ve always felt a calling from the performing arts. But for reasons related to money, status, and social acceptance, I left that piece of myself behind somewhere along the way. I thought it was just play. It could only be a side thing.

But having felt great dissonance from ignoring this major part of my identity, I finally built up the courage to tap the mic and ask "is this thing still on?" My goal from the beginning of my sabbatical was to answer that question, or find out if it was just a blurry dream of an unrealistic alter ego.

Going on stage and feeling that sense of knowing gave me my answer: undeniably, yes.

There is a list of things I don't know. But they stand no chance in the face of the one bullet point on my list of what I do know: I’m onto something.