I’m so incredibly excited to share this news with you. I’m going to be teaching a 5-day workshop called Performing as a Path to Presence during Arts Week at the renowned Omega Institute this summer (July 8th-13th). The course description JUST landed on their website. Check it out here:

I would be so honored to have you join me. Performing experience is NOT required! It’s going to be a blast-I promise!

Click here to get the hot-off-the-presses scoop

I’ve taken many workshops at Omega over the years and have always come away enriched, rejuvenated, and inspired.  I’m going to work my tushie off to make sure the same is true for you should you decide to spend the week with me.

See you there!

xoxo,

-Sandra

I’m so honored to be guest blogging for my girl Kris Carr over at www.crazysexylife.com. If you’re not familiar with Kris Carr, please do yourself a favor and get to know her – pronto! Her film, Crazy Sexy Cancer is a good place to start.  And if you want to rev up your health and start feeling better than ever, you’re going to want to grab her brand new book Crazy Sexy Diet right away! Here is a transcript of my post:

The Tumor on My Last Nerve

Did you know you have twelve nerves in your head? I don’t get too picky about the exact whereabouts, but I know that they are located somewhere around your brain stem and each one has a different gig. For example, your eighth cranial nerve controls the hearing in your left ear. Or maybe it’s the right ear. I’m absolutely certain about the job of the last one, the twelfth cranial nerve. It controls the motor function on the left side of your tongue. I know this definitively because in January 2007, my doctor called to tell me that “unfortunately” (the word you never want to hear after an scan of your noggin’) I have a small mass on my twelfth cranial nerve.

This explained why I had found it increasingly difficult to articulate certain words that require major use of the tongue, like “Google.” Say it out loud right now. Really. Notice the Herculean job that goes on inside your mouth as you pronounce this relatively recent verb? Your tongue gets a workout from stem to stern. Go ahead, say it with me: Google. I can pronounce it, but I’ve lost about 40 percent of my motor function due to the tumor on my last nerve.

So what’s the big deal about losing 40 percent use of one side of your tongue? I suppose it wouldn’t be much of a deal at all if it weren’t for the fact that I use my voice for a living. Maybe you’ve heard of a little Broadway musical called, “The Phantom of the Opera”? There’s this dude with a gnarly face who wears a white mask and chases around a young soprano named Christine Daaé. That young soprano on Broadway was me from 1998 until 2006 (at which point the “young” part became debatable). For an actress and singer, the tongue, as well as every other mechanism involved in vocalization, is of critical value.

The good news is that the tumor on my last nerve is not life-threatening. But the docs stop short of calling it benign due to its rather precarious position at the entry point of my brain and the fact that unfortunately it could become malignant at any time. So what does one do when faced with such anxiety-provoking news? Fortunately, my acting background provides several useful tools for dealing with what, in a script, would be called “the given circumstances.”

My given circumstances currently look like this: I may lose my ability to sing. I may become incurably ill. I may die.

But as I begin to play out that scene, I can almost literally hear my acting teacher clap his hands to interrupt the action: “Sandra, don’t play the end of the scene at the beginning.”

Sometimes actors enter a scene prepped for what they know is coming – the emotional breakdown, the knock-down drag-out – and they bring that negative energy into the scene before the conflict has even begun. It lends an unnecessary weight and edge to what is actually happening in the moment.

Do you ever find yourself doing this in life? I know I do. If we’re not awake and aware, it’s all too easy to project forward into imagined circumstances that haven’t even occurred. We brace ourselves, armed for battle and bring fearful energy into our current reality. When we do that, we rob ourselves of the joy and freedom being offered in the here and now.

Even in a play, when the script is already written and you know precisely how it’s going to end, it doesn’t serve you or the play to act with foreknowledge. In acting, as in life, you and your fellow players are best served by staying present, saying “yes” to what is happening right now, and allowing room for surprise.

Today, the little beauty near my brain is holding steady not causing me a bit of trouble. If it weren’t for my tiny tumor, I may never have found Kris Carr and gotten my Crazy Sexy lifestyle on. When I remain present to this moment, the given circumstances of my life look very different:

I am sitting at my desk typing a guest post for my favorite blog. I feel better than I have in years. I love and appreciate the gift of being able to use my voice not only to sing but as a tool for positive change in the world.

As you act out the script of your life, ask yourself, “Am I playing the end of the scene at the beginning?” “Can I say ‘yes’ to what is happening in the present moment?”

Meanwhile, mind if I ask you a favor? Celebrate your tongue today. Use it wisely. Sing at the top of your lungs. Speak your truth boldly. Give a special something-something to your honey. Significant others can thank me later.

Who knew health and happiness had a club? I don’t know about you, but the title alone makes me want to join ASAP. Imagine how honored I was to have been asked to contribute to their celebration of Women’s History Month. My interview is now up on their site. Please check it out, leave a comment, and share a little health and happiness with your pals on FB and Twitter.

Health and Happiness Club

xoxo,

Sandra

It was freezing and insanely early, but I was thrilled to be singing at the Thanksgiving Day Parade in my hometown of Detroit. Wow, my hair was big.

Perfectionism is the voice of the oppressor, the enemy of the people. It will keep you cramped and insane your whole life . . .

-Ann Lamott

http://www.danoah.com/2010/09/disease-called-perfection.html

The above post has clearly struck a chord. It’s been shared by thousands on Facebook and has started a conversation some 700+ comments strong. I’m sharing it here not because I’m copping out on writing my own blog post (no, really, ahem-that’s not it at all) but because although we come at the subject from different angles, the author and I are advocating the same things: Drop the mask. Become real. In all seriousness, I am sharing this link because I’m quite passionate about spreading “real.” Notice the subtitle of my book in the little box above and to your right? By the way, have you signed your name in that little box yet? If not, whatcha waitin’ for? Go ahead and do it now. I’ll wait . . .

After you’ve read the above post, leave a comment, either there or back here. Many of you reading this are artists, creatives, performers. I wonder how “perfection” has held you back, silenced you, or kept you from going after your dreams. I’ve been there and I’m here to support you. Whatever your experience with the dreaded “perfection” disease, you’re not alone. We can heal this thing by becoming real together.

Imperfectly Yours,

Sandra

The club is not one you’ll be clamoring to join if you don’t already belong to it. The reluctant members have one thing in common: we’ve each lost someone very close to us. Be it mom, friend, spouse, deeply cherished grandparent, or otherwise, you’re a member of the club if you’ve lost a person in whose eyes you saw reflected a better version of yourself. For me, it was my dad. He kinda thought I had superpowers. When it came to my dad, I kinda did. I had the ability, just by walking into a room, to make his eyes take on a quality I imagine Noah’s had on the forty-first day when the first ray of sunshine poked out from behind a cloud. As a girl who carried around a backpack of self-loathing, being met with such a gaze from my father not only unburdened me; it gave me wings.

Just before Christmas in 2007, my dad woke up on an ordinary snowy Michigan morning, made a pot roast to have for dinner that evening, sat down to watch CBS Sunday Morning, and started having chest pains. I was in LA where my husband was performing at the time. By the time I woke up on the West coast, Dad was gone.

It’s going on three years now, but time has no relevance to club members. You’re cruising along, and as months or years pass, you find that you actually have moments of genuine joy and full belly laughter again. You’re quite proud of the way you’ve healed and returned to “normal” in the absence of the person you can’t live without.  All those Eckhart Tolle books and meditations on acceptance have really done the trick! And then suddenly, out of nowhere–BAM–something happens that brings you back to a grief so fresh it’s as if your loss occurred only yesterday. Could be your daughter’s first day of school or passing someone on the street you’d swear for a moment was your person. Maybe you get good or bad news and catch yourself about to dial a number that has long since been disconnected.

The trigger for me was my birthday two days ago. It wasn’t just the glaring absence of my dad’s third-grader’s penmanship on the card that came in the mail, signed solo by my mom for only the third time in a lifetime of cards. It was also the fact that birthdays were one of the innumerable things which formed our unique bond. See, today is my dad’s birthday. He would have been seventy. We would have joked about how old we’re both getting. There would have been a cake with both of our names.

I had planned to record a perky, lighthearted video blog on my birthday, complete with party hat and noisemakers. I was going to talk about embracing my age and how freeing it is to not have to pretend to be an eighteen-year-old virgin anymore, as I did for far too long in my Phantom life. But if I’m proffering an unmasked life, I’ve got to be transparent myself. The truth is I spent the day missing the heck out of my dad. I walked in the woods and sobbed. I went out to dinner and wept on the drive home. I ended the day on my bathroom floor, as crumpled as the wad of Kleenex in my hand.

In a recent vlog, I talked about having unconditional positive regard for the parts of ourselves we don’t like. During my bouts of crying, I decided to refrain from judging myself for being sad. The thoughts were certainly there: It’s your birthday! Stop this! Be happy! But one of the many gifts of getting older is that you learn to go a bit easier on yourself, to allow your emotions the space and time they need to be expressed. Those of us living with loss know that we’ll feel like beacons of resilience at times, and there will be moments (or days) when our knees will buckle in anguish.

Hopefully, what we’ve also learned is that joy waits for us on just the other side of pain. When we numb ourselves to negative feelings with food, alcohol, or simply by staying too busy to feel, we miss out on the gift being broken open offers. Kahlil Gibran wrote: Your joy is your sorrow unmasked.  Today, I feel cleansed by my tears and able to celebrate the day John Joseph was born. Happy 70th, Daddy. I’m gonna put on my party hat and make some noise about the joy you brought into this world.

January 9th, 2006, Phantom's record-breaking performance

Don’t hate me because I’m in Boca. Okay, you can hate me a little since I will be in sunny Florida all this week and next. Chances are it’s snowy and cold where you are (my sympathies) but if you happen to be in the sunshine state, come and check out the show I’m proud to be a part of right now. I’m performing with a bunch of terrifically talented Broadway peeps all over the state. Check the schedule at www.neilberg.com.

If you are lucky enough to live on the other coast, I’ll also be doing some dates in California in February. Hope to see you there!

Sandra