We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Christina Marie Leonard. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Christina Marie below.
Hi Christina Marie, so happy to have you on the platform and I think our readers are in for a treat because you’ve got such an interesting story and so much insight and wisdom. So, let’s start with a topic that is relevant to everyone, regardless of industry etc. What do you do for self-care and how has it impacted you?
Self care has been difficult for me pretty much my whole life, or at least my adulthood. I naturally feel like I need to be constantly working towards my goals and that I can’t stop to pause because then I’ll get behind. But that mentality has not served me well, and I’ve found I really do need to practice good self care in order to be more effective in all walks of life. In high school and college I was always really busy with school, work, and rehearsals, so when I finally had free time, I practiced self care by drinking and getting high. But as I learned later, that was actually not self care, but “self medicating”, and pretty soon I discovered that the “self medicating” was making everything a lot worse instead of better. Once I got sober in 2017 I could no longer self medicate for self care so I had to figure out how to actually practice real self care. Which was really hard. At first I just kept myself even busier than I was before. If I didn’t have any time imaginable, I wouldn’t have time to self medicate. But turns out I was still self medicating with over-eating and over-exercising (yes over-exercising is a thing, even though LA likes to congratulate us for it). It lead to burnout and bulimia and me getting help for an eating disorder. So then in 2018 I REALLY had to figure out how to practice self care. I had to start meditating (No, not medicating this time. Meditating. The one where you have your eyes closed and your legs crossed). And going to therapy. Now I start the morning with reading a couple pages of some spiritual literature, praying, and meditating for 3-5 minutes. I do a short workout- usually running outside because I prefer the outdoors to the gym, and when I need extra self care I do yoga at home or take a bath and light some incense or palo santo. And I stick my face in my cat’s fur. Sometimes that helps the most.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I am an actress first and foremost, but I also have been performing stand up comedy for the past 10 years, as well as creating my own projects to act in onstage and onscreen. I have always enjoyed writing since I was a kid, and at a young age was making little movies with my friends, so I think it’s only natural that I would continue that into adulthood. Luckily it’s so much easier to cast projects in Los Angeles where there are actors wanting to audition for them. When I was ten years old making movies with my camcorder in Nebraska, the kids from school were always dropping out of my movies and I had to fill in for them. One “movie” I made at age 12, I think by the end I played all the roles at some point in the film. Now I have real, talented actors wanting to be in the stuff I make! It’s so great. Right now I’m working on acting in and producing a play I wrote for The Hollywood Fringe Festival called “The Road to Nowhere”. I’m working with an incredible group of actors and an extremely creative and smart director. I’m really looking forward to the work we will all do together on this. The play premieres June 9th at 5PM at The Second Stage at the Broadwater Theater in Hollywood and runs through Friday June 28th at 7:30PM.
Looking back, what do you think were the three qualities, skills, or areas of knowledge that were most impactful in your journey? What advice do you have for folks who are early in their journey in terms of how they can best develop or improve on these?
Confidence is more important than I realized- and I learned it’s not the same as arrogance (who knew! I didn’t). I was brought up to be pretty modest, and confidence wasn’t easy for me when I started in LA. Being surrounded by supportive friends and mentors, and growing in my craft though, has really increased my confidence over the years which I can tell has attributed to higher self esteem, greater career opportunities, and overall happiness. Tenacity is also so important, I think. Unlike confidence, I never had to work at being tenacious, and I think that helped me even when my confidence was lacking. So many people don’t succeed, not because of lack of talent, but simply because they give up. My dad is someone in my life who is extremely tenacious and worked hard in an uncertain career path of his own, and I really look up to him and his journey has inspired me to never give up.
Lastly, willingness to grow, I think, is so important. I am naturally a very stubborn person and that can be great in some ways- like being stubborn about reaching a goal and not letting someone convince me I can’t do something I have my heart set on. However, being stubborn and unwilling to change some of my ways of doing things has made things harder for me in the past and I’ve realized that making a simple change- like implementing self cares methods I mentioned earlier- can make everything else so much easier.
If you are early in your journey I am just going to say some of the most helpful things that have been said to me: You are enough. Never give up. And change is the cornerstone of growth.
Any advice for folks feeling overwhelmed?
I think the first thing for me, with feeling overwhelmed, is just acknowledging that feeling. And then honoring it and letting myself feel it and being ok with that. Then I will do some writing and see what comes up. Why am I feeling that way? Sometimes it’s pretty clear- often I just have too much on my plate. Sometimes I find that there’s something underlying that I haven’t been looking at or tackling. I talk about it in therapy. I reach out to friends. I go for a walk. And I commit to less the following week. Also, learning to get more sleep has been a game changer for me and my mental health. And just finding the balance, which is always ongoing.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.christinamarieleonard.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/christinamarieleonard
- Facebook: facebook.com/cmleonard1
- Linkedin: https://linkedin.com/in/christinamarieleonard/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/user/cmarieleonard
- Other: “The Road to Nowhere” at The Hollywood Fringe Festival: https://www.hollywoodfringe.org/projects/10504
Image Credits
Photos by Joanna DeGeneres, David Haverty, Nick Andrew, and Ray Raymundo
