'I Miss My Mum' - And What That Taught Me.

Over the holidays, I was caught off guard by several waves of sadness that seemed to arrive out of nowhere. The kind that hits like a ton of bricks and leaves you wondering what just happened. One morning, at the end of a high-heat yoga class, lying in a sweaty puddle in shavasana, a simple thought floated up: I miss my mum.

My mother has been living with dementia for almost a decade now. At Christmas especially, I’m reminded of all the years when she ran the show - the planning, the warmth, the magic she created. She made Christmas feel safe and joyful. I miss that version of her deeply.

As I lay there, letting the sadness move through me, something else became clear. Sitting right alongside the grief was an overwhelming amount of love. The reason I feel this ache is because I love her so much. And in that moment, connecting to the fact that I’ve had so many years of being loved in that way softened everything. Gratitude crept in. I smiled. My nervous system relaxed. The sadness didn’t disappear - but it no longer consumed me.

That experience reminded me of something important: our most difficult emotions are often deeply connected to what we love. Sadness points to love. Jealousy can point to desire or longing. Nerves often show us what we care about. Even rage can signal a boundary that matters deeply to us.

For all of us actors, this is especially relevant. We work in an industry that constantly asks us to access emotion, yet rarely teaches us how to live with it once the audition, rehearsal, or performance is over. We’re often encouraged to toughen up, to “not take it personally,” to move quickly from one opportunity to the next. But the truth is, sensitivity is not a weakness in this work - it’s a requirement.

If you care deeply about your craft, rejection will hurt. If you love storytelling, periods of creative stagnation will sting. If you’re invested in your growth, comparison and self-doubt may show up from time to time. These feelings don’t mean you’re doing something wrong. More often than not, they mean you’re doing something right - you’re invested.

We’re often taught to push uncomfortable emotions away, to fix them or reframe them as quickly as possible. But what if, instead, we listened? What if we asked, What is this feeling protecting? What does it reveal about what I value? For actors, this kind of curiosity can be transformative - both personally and artistically.

When we allow ourselves to see difficult emotions as messengers rather than enemies, something shifts. They lose some of their power. They become information rather than threats. And in that space, we can hold more than one truth at once - grief and gratitude, sadness and love, fear and excitement, disappointment and hope.

If you find yourself navigating heavy emotions - around the holidays or at any point in your career - know that you’re not broken for feeling them. Your emotional depth is not something to get rid of; it’s something to learn how to hold. There may be love sitting right beside the ache. And sometimes, simply noticing that is enough to change everything.

I wish each and every one of you a brilliant new year full of all the wonderful complexities that come along with living this life. 

Keep up the great work everyone!

M :)