We recently connected with Samantha Bowling and have shared our conversation below.
Samantha , so great to have you with us and we want to jump right into a really important question. In recent years, it’s become so clear that we’re living through a time where so many folks are lacking self-confidence and self-esteem. So, we’d love to hear about your journey and how you developed your self-confidence and self-esteem.
I struggled with confidence and self esteem for most of my life. I come from a big and vibrant family and as a kid I was always surrounded by a strong community and while I don’t take that for granted, when I moved to Los Angeles to pursue my career I really struggled to see myself in the reflection of the people around me. I found myself chameleoning to whatever would get the most positive response from whoever happened to be around me at the time. For better or worse I think I had lived my whole life that way, and I think a lot of performers can probably relate. Then a few major life changes happened in relatively close succession: my best friend died, my fiancee and I separated and they moved out of the apartment we shared, and I was left reeling and alone. One of my biggest fears up until that point in my life happened out of nowhere, and yet if I sat with myself and just breathed I found that I was okay, it was all actually quite liberating. I had never lived alone before, I had never had a place to just come home to myself and wring out all the energies that I accumulated from other people throughout my day, and really throughout my life, I found that when I intentionally sought solitude I felt more grounded and present when I was with people, I felt more like myself, and in not feeling so desperate to make other people like me, I discovered I really liked myself. So I feel like my confidence and self esteem comes from a practice of self care that includes various periods of intentional solitude. We are told a lot as actors and comedians to get out into the world and take lots of meetings and go to lots of parties and meet people because our network is our net worth and thats all well and good but I would say thats all step two; step one is you gotta meet yourself first.
Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?
I am an actor, writer and comedian. I write what I know and I try to use comedy to help process trauma. Comedy has helped me heal from a lot in life and I have found that by sharing my perspective I help other people heal too. I just premiered my first one woman show “This Was Never Supposed To Be A One Woman Show (A One Woman Show)”, about grieving my comedy partner’s suicide while trying to perform the comedy show about mental health that we were developing together at the time of her death, at the Hollywood Fringe Festival in June 2023 where I won the Producer’s Encore Award and was nominated for the Best Solo Performance Award and the Cultural Envoy Award. I am gearing up to perform “Missions” this year, my second solo show, about growing up as a queer, mixed native kid in a religious suburban town and going on a mission trip to my native family’s ancestral lands and having… notes for our group. I am also preparing to shoot a short horror comedy film I wrote this year about a female serial killer being sexually objectified by her target while she is trying to murder him. And finally I’m beginning the development process on my third solo show, “Surrender,” which is a comedy show about healing from sexual violence. I really like the solo show… I dunno what you’d call it, genre? Medium? IDK but it gives me a chance to flex my performance and writing muscles in one fell swoop. That being said, I’m also really proud of a couple of comedy tv series’ I’m developing right now as well as the feature films I’ve written. I just love telling stories.
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?
I am brave. Almost too brave. Sometimes bordering on stupid, and maybe even going into stupid territory, depending on who you ask. I have found that in dealing with the things I am most afraid of, I have developed my most valuable weapons so I embrace fear and I do what I’m afraid to do even though I’m afraid and I find that as my list of fears shrinks, I grow. So first piece of advice: Expose yourself intentionally to things that scare you and try to meet your fear with curiosity. I also really think my perspective on time is a bit of a superpower. I was diagnosed with ADHD when I was a little kid and always struggled with time blindness, but in learning how to manage that I developed a really great perspective on time. As I mentioned before I am mixed Native (Cherokee and Powhatan desc.) and we see time as a circle. I don’t think time is linear, our experience of it surely is not, and so really, our relationship with time as individuals is not objective, its reflective of our state of mind, and what we invest our focus into and how we process our experiences so I have found ways to use meditation to my advantage and stretch time. I can get very complicated things done well, and quickly, like writing a TV pilot in a couple hours. It also sometimes takes me two weeks to put my laundry away, but I accept and even love myself for that. So piece of advice number two: learn to observe your brain, specifically your experience of time, and see how it shifts how you naturally operate, rather than trying to force one specific temporal outcome (especially when it comes to art/creative pursuits).
I am also a big fan of nature and how nature finds balance, really, if I am religious at all, my religion is nature. Nature has cycles, as do our bodies, after all we are a part of nature and not above it. As a woman, women have our own natural cycles too when it comes to our hormones and they make a big big influence on our day to day experiences of our environments and I try to use how my hormones effect me to my advantage also. Maisie Hill wrote an incredible book called “Period Power” mapping out how to do this and it is probably one of the most useful skills I have ever learned, not only for my own productivity but also as a very powerful self care tool and I highly highly highly recommend literally everyone who is a woman or has ever met one to read it. Thats piece of advice number three, learn how to listen to your body and embrace the little satellite earth that is your meat suit.
What do you do when you feel overwhelmed? Any advice or strategies?
My whole industry is shifting quite a bit right now, we are coming off two major union strikes and looking down the barrel at a possible third one so I am not alone in asking myself what direction my industry is headed and how I can find security in an ever changing technological landscape. I find comfort in the fact that we all at the end of the day are little kids who love to be told stories as we are tucked into bed so as long as there are people who will hear my stories, I’ll keep telling them.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @thesamanthabowling
Image Credits
Sela Shiloni Kaylee Colton Cameron Rice
