Acting Lessons Learned with Tiwana Floyd

129. Thriving as an Introvert on the Picket Line

• Tiwana Floyd • Season 1 • Episode 129

Share episode

Picture this: An introvert, standing alone on the picket line at Amazon Studios, feeling the weight of ancestral history, and surrounded by a sea of people. It's a scenario that could have easily overwhelmed Tiwana Floyd. 

However, propelled by the spirit of ancestors and the compelling need to join the ranks of union members in solidarity, She found the strength to overcome her innate introversion. This empowering narrative is one that she shares with you today, an honest portrayal of her struggles and the ultimate triumph of surmounting them.

Yet, the journey doesn't end there. If you're an introvert, or know someone who is, the second part of this discussion leans into how you can navigate the hustle and bustle of a picket line without losing your peace of mind. 

It's not all about being the loudest or most noticeable, your dedication to the cause carries a profound resonance. Tiwana shares strategies on setting time limits, taking recharging breaks, and acknowledging emotions when they feel overwhelming. 

Join the conversation about navigating such spaces while honoring your unique introverted energy.

Acting Lessons Learned is Produced, Written, Recorded, Engineered and Edited by Tiwana Floyd
If you'd LIKE TO SUPPORT the show, here are 5 Simple ways to do so.

  1. Follow/Subscribe
  2. A ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ Rating
  3. Write a Kind Review
  4. Share an Episode With Your Actor Friends
  5. Buy Tiwana a Coffee: buymeacoffee.com/TiwanaF

Be sure to follow on Instagram as well.
@actinglessonslearned @LifebyTiwana

Learn more about Tiwana Floyd at https://www.tiwanafloyd.com

Music Pixababy "Mesmerized" 15617 & 11492_comamedia

Speaker 1:

Hey there, welcome back to Acting Lessons Learned. I'm Tawanna Floyd. I share personal experiences in the lessons I've learned and still learning as a working actor in Los Angeles. So I don't plan to make every episode a strike conversation, but we SAG Aftermembers are in the early stages of striking and I learned something about myself this past Tuesday when I made my first picket line appearance that I bet you or someone you know may also have experienced or been thinking of or undergoing, and that is walking the picket lines while being an introvert, once the writer strike was announced and SAG Aftermembers were joining them on the front lines.

Speaker 1:

I have been feeling this aversion to picketing, but not understanding really why. Possibly because it's been sweltering in Los Angeles or because I just didn't know how to navigate all of the parameters around parking, signing up, the best time of day, who's going to be there, who can I walk with? But last week, when I received an invite from a trusted colleague that she was gathering people to meet the following Tuesday, I took that as an opportunity to join the ranks of union members, to walk in solidarity, to let these studio execs know that I care Well, not that they know who I am or that they even care that I exist, but to join the numbers to help make an impact. Several days leading up to this Tuesday actually until an hour before the 10am meetup time I wavered on my decision to join my colleague and the crew of people she had rallied together. I didn't know why I was being so indecisive. It wasn't a gut feeling saying to stay home, just me flip-flopping back and forth on whether or not I should go, since we were going to meet at Amazon in Culver City, which is a little more west of LA, kind of like in the cooler parts, because it's going towards Santa Monica, so it's not the hottest part of town. The studio is not in the valley, where temperatures hit triple digits before noon.

Speaker 1:

I had the perfect picket line outfit planned out thanks to my writer friend, who shared all the proper approaches to safe picketing, being that she was a writer and they had already become picket pros, having been on the line for almost two months. So there really was no reason for me not to attend. There was going to be people there that I knew. It's not going to be too hot, it's close by. But it wasn't until I was in the thick of it all that I realized why I had been reluctant to strike. It's just too much for me. I found it incredibly overstimulating for my introverted spirit. While I was there I was experiencing low level anxiety, a little disorientation, even though this studio was not the most heavily protested lot, but it was enough of a crowd to hijack my nervous system. But I got to go backwards because the low levels of anxiety and disorientation had started before I joined all the union members on the picket line.

Speaker 1:

It started at home. First of all, I had a sleepless night, an anomaly for me. I typically sleep fast and deep, but I went to bed at 5 am and when I woke up at 8 am I was groggy. My face felt puffy, I was thirsty, I didn't have an appetite and all of this concerned me because I knew that I would be in the sun and I needed to be rested. I knew that I needed to have sustenance in my belly and I needed to be hydrated. I needed to basically feel well.

Speaker 1:

So my back and forth on going ramped up and I was tempted to use my sleepless night as an excuse not to go. So I sent a temperature text to my colleague to see if she was still going. You know how you text to take the temperature if someone has changed your mind so you can use it as a reason to stay home. Is that just me? It can't be just me. But nope, she had people coming and was already en route. It was 9.30 am and they were meeting at 10. But I had just finished my morning routine of meditating and journaling so I still needed to shower, get dressed, try to eat something and then drive over. I decided that I was going to go, but I wasn't going to put the added pressure on myself to be there by 10 am. So instead of giving myself the pressure to do all these things in 10 minutes, I decided to go at my own pace. I made a green juice, I ate a banana and a handful of nuts in the car, a shower, got dressed, ironed my shirt and I was parked across the street from the studio by 10.30 am.

Speaker 1:

As I stood on Washington Avenue in Culver City, across from the studio, waiting at the light to cross the street to join the strikers, it occurred to me that this was going to be my first ever union picketing protest, and so I started thinking about you know, black people have such a long, tumultuous history with picket lines and protests, that, even though I wasn't born during the civil rights protest, it's in my DNA Because my grandmother was a part of the protest and she would tell me stories about it, and it's always prevalent in our diaspora because it was such a pivotal moment in our freedom. Black people have historically experienced violence at nonviolent protests, so even in the face of this calm and quiet protest happening across the street, I had a wash of fear come over me. I was a guy who walked up next to me at the light and I could tell he was there for the strike as well, possibly a part of the group that I was joining. We engaged pleasantries, but he was preoccupied with his phone. Although my body was physically standing on the corner, my spirit was having an inner dialogue with my ancestors. I began to pray for protection for my mind and my body and my spirit. I blessed the land and thanked the native ancestors who still had me been there in a spirit realm, and then I blasted the entire city of Kovar with love, summoning my angels. My spirit guides my grandmother to be here with me now, and I was so steeped in my prayer.

Speaker 1:

The guy standing near me waiting for the light to change said damn, this is a long ass light. He brought me back to my body. I was standing close to the pole and the light changed button, but I realized I had never pressed it. I frantically pressed the button, jokingly saying oh, I never pressed the button, and I almost started to share a key and peel sketch about not pressing the crosswalk button. But I had a feeling he probably wouldn't get the reference as he may not have watched a key and peel show. Also, I wasn't in a mood for small talk to explain it, nor was I interested in trying to win his attention from his phone. We must have missed three walk lights before I finally noticed the light said four seconds. It wasn't a long light. We kept missing it because it was a fast light, but since neither the guy or I were paying attention, we kept missing it.

Speaker 1:

I came back to my present self as we crossed the street, not together. The guy was walking behind me but he was giving me this don't talk to me energy, which was fine with me because I'm not big on small talk. But I was curious to know what do I do? So I asked him if he had done this before and if he knew whether or not we needed to sign in. He graciously, yet dismissively, said yeah and pointed in the way to go. There was a sag after tarp where I signed in, picked up a t-shirt and a sign and began walking until I saw my colleague in her group, and I was right the guy was with the same group.

Speaker 1:

Now, the group was mostly comprised of people I didn't know, but everyone was jovial yet focused on creating call and response chants on a spot. And then I saw one of my close friends, so I saddled up next to her and we had a friendly chat catching up on life and industry things. I spoke with a few other people. I was doing it, I was walking, I was talking, I was in the thick of it. It wasn't as intimidating as I made it out to be. I was responding to the chant calls. We were loud and proud, doing little jigs. The temperature had increased, we were becoming sweaty, still not unbearable, as unbearable as the valley was, but it was getting hot.

Speaker 1:

Over time, more people joined our group and more people began to show up in general, and this is where I started to feel the pangs of Anxiety. Now, when I get this way, I become aloof, like odd, like awkward, almost kind of like Not approachable, I guess I could say. And it's nothing against the people that are in my presence, it's just, it's just my feelings. I'm an empath, I'm an introvert and I kind of just like need to need to have a little space around me because I get overwhelmed and Over-stimulate it. I noticed that there was a couple that I knew and I hadn't yet had a chance to speak to them, and it was getting weird for me because we were in the same group and enough time had passed where I could have spoken to them. But quite frankly, they could have spoken to me too. So I started getting in my head or making up stories that they may think that I'm being standoffish or shady, but with so many people around them, I decided to catch them later and I did. They were by themselves and I went over and I said, hey, y'all, I didn't give you a proper hello, and then we chatted briefly and Then it was announced that there was a semblance of lunch being served, some form of vegetable pitas, whatever that meant.

Speaker 1:

So I got on the food line. I still didn't have an appetite. I tried one, took a bite, but threw it away pretty quickly because I know what things will turn my stomach and I had a feeling from one taste, one bite of that veggie pita thingy, that it was gonna make me regret eating it later. My introverted spirit was approaching the energy depletion threshold, kind of like, I guess, maybe an amber level. I was on green. Now I was reaching amber and I needed to go before I reached the red part. It was my cue. I did well. My first union picket line was a success in terms of I came, I saw, I chanted and now I had enough and it was time for me to go.

Speaker 1:

With so many people in our group a lot of them that I knew in passing, my friend who I knew well, I had to peace out. The group had swelled so much and I intended to say goodbye to everyone, but I was entering the red zone of my energy and that's the space where my mood takes a deep dive. I'm no longer effervescent to wanna, I'm introverted to wanna. I don't want to be bothered by anybody to wanna, and the only person who really knows this about me was my close friend. But she was, you know, she had her daughter there and she's an extrovert, so I can't expect her to come and take care of me. I actually would not want anybody to take care of me. I just know that I need to take care of myself and leave, and that's. That's the thing about being an introvert. At least, when you know that you're an introvert, you know your limits, you know when you can no longer be social to sustain saying goodbye to everyone.

Speaker 1:

So, as much as I try to catch those who are not surrounded by a swell of people, I managed to say goodbye to three people. I didn't say goodbye to the person who invited me. She was perpetually encircled by a lot of people, naturally because she had brought all of us together. But once I got to my car alone in the air conditioner Actually the moment that I walked away from the line and I was by myself my energy bar started to spike up a bit. So I texted her goodbye and I thanked her for the invite. I stayed for an hour and a half, but I managed to leave before my energy hit zero. So it was all around success and I left before my energy expired.

Speaker 1:

As I was driving home I wondered are other introverts wanting to strike but fear their life energy would be drastically Depleted by the large group of strikers, or maybe the social aspects of being awkward is too uncomfortable to overcome, and I started thinking about the things that I did to take care of myself. And if I had to share it, this is what I would say. Here's a couple of bullet points, if you will. Social interaction. Exhaustion is real for introverts.

Speaker 1:

Picket lines involve continuous social interaction with fellow protesters, passerby, possibly even confrontations with those who disagree with the cause, and this can be emotionally draining for introverts, who often require time to recharge our energy. I suggest setting time limits for social interactions. Take short breaks, find a quiet space to recharge when needed, which is what I did. Communicate your needs to your fellow picketers so they understand your desire for occasional solitude, or just leave. Then there's the dreaded small talk and networking. You know small talk and networking can be challenging. I think it's challenging for everyone, but it's just really not what introverts like to do.

Speaker 1:

Picket lines often involve conversing with new people and explaining who you are and what you do, or, if you're like, feeling like there's actors there or writers there who are. Their careers are more elevated than yours and sometimes you may feel like you're not worthy to have a conversation with them. Let's get over all of that. We're all equals. We're all out here picketing. It doesn't matter whose career is where. We're all fighting for the same thing and, quite frankly, tables turn all the time. That person's career might be more elevated than yours today and in a few months or a few years, the tables will turn and your career will be more elevated. But it's not a hierarchy. We're just here, fighting for the same thing. So keep that in mind.

Speaker 1:

But also consider preparing some talking points in advance to help you feel more confident or articulate during conversations, like somebody asked me how I was doing and in that moment, do I tell them that my energy threshold is depleted? Or do I just say no, I'm good. And I went for the latter. No, I'm good All things considered, but really that was a moment for me to be authentic and say you know what? Right now, life is good, but I am feeling overwhelmed and overstimulated with what's happening, and so I'm probably going to leave soon. I'm going to say goodbye to you now, just in case of I peace out without saying anything to you. Damn, that's good. I wish I'd thought of that before.

Speaker 1:

And then you have to also consider that during the strike. Being on a picket line, everybody is dealing with a range of emotions and if you're an empath, you pick up on all those emotions around you and you may find it challenging to handle the intensity of all of it and you may not even know what you're experiencing. It shows up for me as anxiety in my stomach and sometimes, if it's like really concentrated, it's almost I can't breathe and I have to go and remove myself from all of the people and just sit quietly and take deep breaths. So be sure to acknowledge your emotions. When you're in the thick of things, it's okay to take a step back if you feel overwhelmed. Overall, remember that everyone has different ways of showing support. Your presence and commitment matter, even if you're not the loudest person on the line. Look for like-minded individuals who might also prefer quieter ways of contributing. After participating in a picket line, engage in your own self care practices after picketing to help you decompress and relax. I knew that I needed a little bit more time to recover and process the experience, so I allowed myself the necessary downtime to recharge and reflect, to eat a great meal that I really enjoyed, to watch a show that made me laugh and just to be in the privacy of my home with the air conditioner running, with no other people talking or chanting or emoting their energy.

Speaker 1:

Being an introvert doesn't mean we diminish the value of our contribution to a cause, and we don't get to diminish our light or ourselves. In the meantime, we can be quiet and still be observant and still be as committed as everyone else. Our presence and dedication to striking makes a meaningful impact, even if you only choose to be there for 10, 20, 30 minutes or, in my case, an hour and a half. Let's embrace our introverted natures and find our own unique ways to support the cause that we believe in. Introverts, we get to support the strike in the best way that fits us. No apologies, that's it.

Speaker 1:

If you're an extrovert listening to this and you're probably like, really that's what you guys experience, I love people, that's wonderful. But, um, your introverted friends love people in a different way, and so we just need space and peace and quiet to do so. And look, if you have an introvert friend and you know they are trying to strike and they may want to get out there but not really knowing how, share this episode with them so that they know how to take care of themselves and be a part of it. Um, and really emphasize that they don't have to stay long. They can go and drive by, park, honk the horn, whatever it is that they can do. Thank you for listening. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Also, I could use your help in supporting the show If you could rate the show five stars, leave a loving review, share this episode with as many actors that you think would enjoy hearing any of the topics I've shared.

Speaker 1:

You can buy me a coffee. I am the creator, I produce it, I sound engineer, I record it, I edit the episodes. I promote the show on social media. So if you feel like you know what that's a lot to want, let me buy you a cup of tea. I would accept it. All of the links are in the description connected to my Instagram. You can also check out my latest launch actor business school and, um, you know what? Let's just be sure, take care of ourselves to exercise equally, if not more, self care during a time of high stress and us not knowing what our futures look like as creators, as actors. I'll be back here in two weeks. Have a great weekend.

People on this episode

Head Shot

Tiwana Floyd

Host