Meet Jodi Moore Lewis

Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Jodi Moore Lewis. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Jodi, thanks so much for taking the time to share your insights and lessons with us today. We’re particularly interested in hearing about how you became such a resilient person. Where do you get your resilience from?

I simply step back and ask myself – what other career would you be doing? Nothing lights my soul up as much as the stage or being on set, and settling for something dim isn’t an option. Not to oversimplify the question.

In a career where you are told “no” more than “yes”, I deal quite a lot with second-guessing my worth and talent. The dirty hands of lack and scarcity grab at me constantly. But the way I see it, when you love something and it excites you, you show up for it. I don’t see resilience as being a strong person, transforming into a warrior queen figure – I see it as just that: showing up no matter how you’re feeling. There’s a dedication that is required of an artist and that can be uncomfortable when you aren’t feeling like your flawless self. This notion is not something I woke up understanding. I am a recovering perfectionist who thought I had to look, be, and act a certain way in all scenarios. The more I untangle the hold that has on me the more open I can be to my creativity. The more I actually DO my creativity. By shedding these layers I imagine resilience has come about with more ease.

The biggest thing that has cracked me open is being a forever student. I believe in everlasting expansion, not just as creative work but as life’s work. Early on, I wanted a quick fix, just tell me the magic sauce and I’ll dish it out. The result was the most important thing, where as the journey was bypassed. You cannot bypass your life, you just become more numb to it. When life is not bubbling inside you, art becomes absent. Falling into that hole allowed me to crawl back out with a mindset shift. With a lot of sweat and tears, I’ve been able to befriend my flaws and therefore use it in my art.

I guess that is resilience: coming into yourself to give it back out, and so on it continues over and over again.

Thanks, so before we move on maybe you can share a bit more about yourself?

I am a storyteller through and through. Acting is my number one love and how I most enjoy to express my views of what it is to be human. I also write essays on my Substack Newsletter Love Notes and interview badass women creatives in my podcast Notes With Friends.

I love being an actor. I love the process, the collaboration, the storytelling, and the spirituality of it. I learn so much through this craft about myself and the world. I’ve been a professional actor for 12 years now and when I’m not on set, I’m in class. I view class as a workout. Like I mentioned previously about showing up for your art, I always want to be stretching and growing; challenging myself so when the job comes I’m already ready. I study with Marjorie Ballentine, who I couldn’t recommend more as a teacher and coach. I also work with Jo Kelly who dives into the spiritual nature of acting.

I’ve been fortunate enough to be a part of many wonderful projects. A mini-series I was in, Rumors, released on Amazon Prime recently which is really cool. It’s a women-centered project, unraveling the tropes we fall into, pitting ourselves against one another to get ahead. A big focus of my work is uplifting women’s voices. While we are seeing more of our stories being told, the numbers are not there in terms of having an equal share in the conversation, especially in the mainstream.

My essays are personal entries of my process within my art and life. Writing offers more immediacy of a connection with my audience, which is important to me as I continue to hone my voice as an artist. Hitting send and sharing something without the veil of a character is scary and exhilarating – the best combination. I expanded Love Notes into a podcast because I wanted to bring more than my own perspective into my way of sharing. And picking women’s brains of who I admire seemed like a fun way to do that.

I’m currently in the process of writing a feature film, something that is fairly new for me. Speaking it into it’s existence makes me feel like a fraud, but I am doing it! I’m craving to do another play, manifesting that for the near future. Producing is something I’m becoming more interested in to up-level the opportunities not only for myself but for my talented friends. If you want to play, hit me up!

If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?

Compassion for yourself. You are your own best friend, lover, and champion. No one else knows you as well as you do. Having compassion for yourself through the thick of it and the breezy bits creates more ease in all areas of your life. There are so many jobs I didn’t book, many jobs I did book that didn’t come to fruition, I’ve also put out work that I find repulsive – and at the end of the day I’m still standing. Maybe this ties into resilience, but nothing has to look a certain way or fit a certain mold. We take our unique selves for granted. We take big learning curves for granted. It’s all part of the process and slowing down to scream your frustration into a pillow does wonders. Let it out and love yourself for it.

Trust in the process. Trust in the movement of how your life flows. As much as I hate waiting, I believe in divine timing. Things will come when we are ready for them. It’s like when you are told a story over and over again and suddenly one day you hear a word you never heard before – it’s that aha moment. Everything clicks when it is meant to. I booked the film He(a)rd right before the pandemic. It was a story that felt important for me to tell. I was the lead and Danielle Savre was directing it. The pandemic happened and the project was put to the side indefinitely. It was over a year before Danielle called me up and said, let’s do this thing. At that point, I had found a deeper way to work on my characters that I wasn’t accustomed to when I was initially brought on to the project. I’m so proud of that film, my performance, and what it represents. My body was ready to tap in and go where the story needed me to go.

Community. Finding your people who you can bounce ideas off of, collaborate with, lean on, and help out is vital. To have that safety net with other artists, friends, or co-workers allows you to be more open to make bold choices and get feedback so you can expand your talents. When you’re in the ring with others it just makes everything a lot more fun. Raising the bar continually and feeding off those who inspire you creates a healthy environment for art to thrive.

What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?

I’m a gal who likes a full plate, in my career and at dinner time. Being overwhelmed is something I feel on a daily basis. I overuse the word, it should be my nickname. Being a master of becoming overwhelmed but not yet knowing how to remedy it – though I’ve found a few tools that have helped me.

Take deep breaths and focus on the reality – which is: the world isn’t crumbling around me.
Stop trying to do things “perfectly” – in this case nothing ever gets done, it’s impossible.
Know that burnout is near and that I need a break – now this break could be anything from grabbing a flat white to driving out of the city to go hiking in Yosemite. Breaks are good, they are needed.

We have to remember overwhelm is a sensation not a state of being; it isn’t who we are. When you decide to be a creator, business owner, mother or father, anything where you have to birth and take care of ideas/people on the daily, you are faced with challenges around every turn. The beautiful thing is, we chose to do that. We chose this life. Overwhelm is aliveness. It’s part of it. There’s power in it when we realize we made a choice and aren’t a victim to it. We can stare at the massive amount of food in front of us or delight in it’s deliciousness bite by bite. Once we’re full, we can rest.

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Matt Kallish

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