HEALTH AND WELLNESS: MAKING THE DECISION

WORDS AND IMAGE: KIMORA BROCK

LOAM MAGAZINE

The end of this week marks my first month in L.A. and I absolutely love it here.

The experience of leaving everything you know for a new city, reconnecting with old friends and making new ones, all whilst figuring out the most elusive career on the planet is definitely not for the faint hearted. While brainstorming this decision my senior year at Wesleyan I was 100% confident that this was the right move for me. Nothing anybody said or did could've convinced me otherwise. Luckily, I had the help of my family.

After my mom and sister helped me get settled in L.A., however, I spent my first week flooded with uncertainty. It was the same sensation of whether I was going to live or die that I felt when I was unexpectedly swept into the ocean (details in the last post!)

Since I've been here, I've had "high times"--getting contacted by a recruiting agent from a highly respected talent agency who told me that I was "exactly who we're looking for!"--and "low times"--like when said talent agency saw that I didn't have a degree in the arts and told me to "adjust [my] expectations accordingly."

Hearing those words were disappointing. It felt like a little dagger in my heart. But after thinking about it for hours, I realized that you don't move up in life by lowering your expectations.

Although it doesn't always feel that way, there are many times when you can decide what is "good" and "bad" in your life by reframing your reactions to emotional experiences. As I reflected on the interaction with the agency, I asked myself, "Is this experience going to negatively or positively affect my life?" I work everyday to be a more positive person, and so I decided to take the situation itself as an accomplishment! I'm obviously doing SOMETHING right if a top agency somehow found and contacted me unsolicited within my first three weeks of being in L.A.!

This excitement might seem unwarranted to some since I didn't sign with them, but congratulating myself was truly meaningful. Being grateful for ALL of your experiences is the best way to bring more into your life. I share this story with you all in hopes that it will inspire you to make the decision to show gratitude, appreciation, and positivity in your life despite the difficulties.