Helena Walsh Empowerment Studios

Actors, creativity thrives on boredom.

Creative ideas come when you’re doing ordinary things, because you’re below threshold, you’re enjoying the moment, you’’re doing something very ordinary.

Be bored, get bored.

Slow down, do less, be more.

That’s your job as an artist - to perceive the world in a multi-dimensional, inter-dimensional way.

Your job is to create your own world within this world because you’re creative.

Storytellers are some of our most powerful sources of changing the way the human race sees our future. We get to re-imagine a future. We get to tell stories that re-imagine our future in a way that our audiences can see it and have hope.

That’s your job. What a job. What a responsibility.

~ Helena Walsh

Helena’s teachings are inspired by Organic Intelligence ® , Fitzmaurice Voicework ® & NeuroSystemics

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If you want to work with Helena, comment “me” below, and let us connect you to our cutting-edge voice, acting and empowerment programmes. Get ready to slow down, do less and be more!

https://www.helenawalshempowermentstudios.com

Actors, safety and trust can only be felt in the body.

No one else can give you a safe space, or a trusted space.

You need to figure out what is safe and what is trusting for you, and it’s a felt experience inside your bones, your muscles, your breath.

And it’s very important in our industry because you’re in spaces that there’s nothing safe about them at all.

I want you to feel, you can trust and feel secure within.

~ Helena Walsh

Helena’s teachings are inspired by Organic Intelligence ® & Fitzmaurice Voicework ®

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If you want to work with Helena, here’s some exciting opportunities coming up this Summer!

💖3-Day Art of Empowerment Workshop in Clonakilty, West Cork, IRELAND
Taught by Helena Walsh
🗓️July 5-7

🎬4-Day Acting Workshop in Clonakilty, West Cork, IRELAND
Taught by Helena Walsh
🗓️July 8-11

🎬3-Day Acting Workshop in Dublin, IRELAND
Taught by Helena Walsh
🗓️July 17-19

🎬3-Day Acting Workshop in NEW YORK!
Taught by Helena Walsh
🗓️August 3-5

🎬3-Day Acting Workshop in Berlin, GERMANY
Taught by Helena Walsh
🗓️Sept 4-6

🎬3-Day Acting Workshop in Paris, FRANCE
Taught by Helena Walsh
🗓️Sept 11-13

🏄🏻‍♀️7-Night Acting & Surfing Retreat in Clonakilty, West Cork, IRELAND
Taught by Helena Walsh & Benjamin Mathes
This retreat will challenge you physically, artistically and professionally
🗓️September 19th - 26th

🎬The Actor’s Practice: 10 Week Advanced Actor Training with Helena Walsh & Benjamin Mathes
🏡Live in Dublin: Tuesdays
October 6th to December 15th
🏎️Online: Tuesdays & Thursdays
October 6th to December 17th

Learn more & register/apply using the link in our bio!⁠

https://www.helenawalshempowermentstudios.com/store

Actors, your job is to pay attention to your life and notice your experience of it. And from that gain insight, or create, or write.

Digest the human condition. That’s your work.

So it’s not to judge and analyze, that’s another career’s work.

Your relationship with the human condition is not to judge it or analyze it. Your relationship with the human condition is to pay attention to it, observe it, be able to witness it, be with it, not fix it, not solve it, not change it.

But actually, notice the paradox and complexity of it, that’s your work.

And that sense of being driven by this curiosity. It’s actually not about knowing anything. It’s about paying attention and discovering everything. All the time.

It could be the same action, but you need to be alive to it for the first time, every time. You go into scene, you’re alive to it for the first time, every time, like you’ve never done it before.

You’re not bringing what you know to the scene and showing the director what that is, or showing the other actor what that is. You don’t have to, because it’s there. No, you’re going in to discover what else is there that I don’t know yet. You’re not going into the scene to show what you know.

You’re going in to go, I’m going to experience this, and when I come out, I’m going to notice what I discovered or surprised me, that’s your job.

So that means when you meet the world, and you reflect on your 24 hours, you have the capacity to notice what’s comfortable, uncomfortable, soft, hard, agitating, loving. So you’re, throughout your day, you’re practicing these different experiences ,rather than, my day is just the most intense experience I have, and nothing else exists.

Helena’s teachings are inspired by Organic Intelligence ® , Fitzmaurice Voicework ® & NeuroSystemics

https://www.helenawalshempowermentstudios.com

Actors, here’s how to deal with not knowing if you got the part!

Once you start appreciating the unseen, little humble human endeavors that you take part in on a daily basis. What happens then is you’re not doing it for validation.

You’re doing it for a bigger reason, a greater purpose, something that gathers more meaning for you.

You’re doing this irrespective of whether they like it or not.

There’s a spine that walks into an audition or does a self-tape that goes, I’m doing this for me, first and foremost. Because I enjoy doing it, and I enjoy creating this way, and this is the way in which I express myself in the world.

That’s an entirely different magnetic field to come from than one who’s asking for validation.

And that’s hard, because the platform, the way it’s created, is to keep you in the unknown. You won’t be told whether you get the part, it’s like being ghosted constantly.

Actors are constantly ghosted, all of the time. It’s very difficult and hard.

So first of all, acknowledging, this is really hard, then asking yourself : what can I create as my sanctuary, as my creative temple?

That takes accountability and responsibility. You know, that’s the maturity of the actor. Oh, I’m not gonna let this define me, I’m gonna take responsibility, because I’m the only one who knows myself well enough for what it is I need to be in this position.

Because if you’ve decided to do this career, you may as well start to create your ideal, life around it, in a humble, simple way, in that sense. Because actually, the most magical things about life are very ordinary.

https://www.helenawalshempowermentstudios.com/store

All these moments shape who we are and how we bring complexity into the system is the reflective part, is our capacity not just to reflect on the most intense things that happened in our day, and give them the story and the voice.
Because there’s a lot of intense things happening in the world right now and if we just give them the voice, then that’s going to really dysregulate the system.
You are responsible for knowing when your body feels, it’s too much, overwhelmed, and you need to figure out how you take care of your body then.
You’re responsible for reflecting on the moments in your day that are way below threshold, that may even be ordinary, boring, neutral things, almost go unnoticed and noticing them and their value, because they are where you live most of the time.
For everybody in the room currently you’re in a safe environment, and it’s very important to sit into that energy for the rest of the world that isn’t.
So there’s something about grounding yourself in the sense of your own environment and where you are and noticing what is okay, easeful, comfortable.
Because that’s not easy in a world where we’ve been bombarded with the absolute extremes
The most valuable part of being human and the greatest gift we have is what we choose to pay attention to.
And actually when you break love down, love is about paying attention.
So if you’re going to love the world, then if you break that down practically, it’s okay, what am I paying attention to and is it expanding?
As an artist, your job is to really be in the center, find a way of paying attention and valuing the ordinary and the everyday and through that, begin to create.
Because your job is the human condition.
-Helena Walsh

Helena’s teachings are inspired by Organic Intelligence ® & Fitzmaurice Voicework ®

~ PS. Like this post, share with your friends

Want to see more posts like this follow us on instagram

https://www.helenawalshempowermentstudios.com

The natural world is the greatest artist we have and actually, the natural world mirrors to you, the actor, you, the artist, the rhythm at which you need to be moving in order to pay attention to the world.

Your job is to slow down, do less, and be more. It is about resting.

Because in resting, you’re digesting, you’re paying attention to other people, you’re paying attention to the world around you, you’re taking time to integrate it, so that then, when it comes to your art form, you’re able to bring that forward, the complexity of it.

So your job is to slow down, to do less, and to be here.

It is a career that is really, really challenging, obviously from the point of view of ever feeling any stability whatsoever, but the actual holy grail of it is we get to be here.

We actually get to live in the moment, that’s the payback - you actually get to experience your life, because as an actor, your job is to experience your life.

You live, and then you learn. You go into scene, you explore, you come out, and you see what you discovered. There’s no right and wrong in acting.

It’s a complex, paradoxical art form. It’s both and. I hate and love you. I feel frustrated, and yearn for you. It’s got the dualistic experience within it. It’s one of the major forms of compassion and empathy practice that we have, for the audience, for us as an audience is art.

Because art, by its nature, is integrating, whether that be a painting, a piece of dance, an orchestra, a concert, the theater, or a film.

And the arts are just a human expression of nature and if we want to learn and reconnect with our art form, the first place to go is nature, is build your relationship and observational skills with birds and trees and plants and water and hills and mountains because there your system starts to regulate.

And you really need rest in your system in order to create.

https://www.helenawalshempowermentstudios.com/

Actors, most of your career, no one ever sees the work that you put into it.

They see the finished product, but what they don’t see, they have no concept of the practice, and the years and the years of craft and honing your craft that takes but you do.

It’s an intense career and you need something equally huge to regulate you.

The greatest gift you can give yourself is the natural world, in whatever way you choose to interact - whether you wish to surf or swim in the oceans or hike in the forest or whatever way that might be for you.

If you have addictive tendencies, rather than focusing on the addiction, if you build the bandwidth around your life when you feel okay..

The time to do the work is when you feel okay. This comes from Organic Intelligence and my mentor Steve Hoskinson.

The time to practice, grow, transform and deepen your relationship with your craft is in times where you have time off to do so. Because you can give yourself the space and time to grow.

It’s very hard to grow when you’re being asked to deliver, deliver, deliver!! There you’re just going to offer what it is you know.

You’ve got moments where you come back like winter and you allow the soil to rest and then we plant the seeds in the spring and then at some stage, they burst through the soil and ping like this shoot.

Helena’s teachings are inspired by Organic Intelligence ® , Fitzmaurice Voicework ® & NeuroSystemics

https://www.helenawalshempowermentstudios.com

Actors, if you’re having to do all these self-tapes all the time, it’s the tip of the iceberg - that’s not teaching you to act.

It’s not even reflecting who you are.

The meaty stuff is in the stuff you write yourself, the one-woman show that you put on, or something that’s gonna give you a longer time with something to percolate it.

As an artist, you need that stuff.

Now is the time of the artist.

Because now is the time where we’re now being asked to reinvent and to be more inclusive.

Like, if we think of it, the dimension of being human, the geopolitical structure is from a bygone era, but if we ignore that, exactly what you’re saying, why not commit to going deeper!

~Helena Walsh

If you want to work with Helena, we’ve got some exciting opportunities coming up this Summer!

💖3-Day Art of Empowerment Workshop in Clonakilty, West Cork, IRELAND
Taught by Helena Walsh
🗓️July 5-7

🎬4-Day Acting Workshop in Clonakilty, West Cork, IRELAND
Taught by Helena Walsh
🗓️July 8-11

🎬3-Day Acting Workshop in Dublin, IRELAND
Taught by Helena Walsh
🗓️July 17-19

🎬3-Day Acting Workshop in Berlin, GERMANY
Taught by Helena Walsh
🗓️Sept 4-6

🎬3-Day Acting Workshop in Paris, FRANCE
Taught by Helena Walsh
🗓️Sept 11-13

🏄🏻‍♀️7-Night Acting & Surfing Retreat in Clonakilty, West Cork, IRELAND
Taught by Helena Walsh & Benjamin Mathes
This retreat will challenge you physically, artistically and professionally
🗓️September 19th - 26th

🎬10-Week Actor’s Practice
Taught by Helena Walsh & Benjamin Mathes
October 5th - December 9th

Learn more & register/apply using the link in our bio!⁠

https://www.helenawalshempowermentstudios.com/store

helenawalsh

All acting is relational and relationship is about paying attention.
So, whether it’s you’re meeting someone in an audition room, or you’re meeting them on a film set, or you’re meeting them in a rehearsal room, it’s really about paying attention to that other person to the environment. We have to really practice it, because we get inundated with the comments of what our inner voice is saying about everything, and analysis, and judgment, but actually to train yourself to see just what is there and then to train yourself to notice honestly, truthfully how you’re experiencing sensation, feeling, what you actually see.
There, we’re not using thought, but The body is well able for that attention. The thing that makes us uneasy is the mind, not the body. The body is only responding to the commentary of the mind. We really have to train this attention. “I see you, I feel me”. And we start with people who are comfortable, so that you’re really training yourself to be with other people and notice their impact and then you can decide. Then from there, you have this whole treasure trove of getting to sense yourself in different situations, in different relationships.
Because you’re shaped differently by different relational fields. Just like you’re going to be shaped differently by each audition you walk into.
But if we’re not oriented, if we use our thinking to orient ourselves, we’re going to be more disoriented from reality, because we’re using thoughts to orient us as opposed to our senses. But when you use your senses to orient you, you’re going to have a greater truth of the given moment.
Helena’s teachings are inspired by Organic Intelligence ® & Fitzmaurice Voicework ®

~ PS. Like this post, share with your friends

Want to see more posts like this follow us on instagram

If you want to work with Helena, comment “me” below, and let us connect you to our cutting-edge voice, acting and empowerment programmes. Get ready to slow down, do less and be more!

https://www.helenawalshempowermentstudios.com