Feeling Stuck? That's Just Your Next Level Calling

Ever feel like you’re right on the edge of a breakthrough… and then suddenly, fear pulls you back? That invisible wall you can’t quite name? This episode is for you.

In this raw and personal share, I’m diving deep into the internal glass ceiling—the one we build ourselves. Not the casting rejections, not the industry gatekeeping. But the unconscious limit we place on our own success.

I open up about my journey from emotional numbness to full expression. As an acting student, I could analyze scripts, break down characters—but I couldn’t feel. I was so disconnected from my emotions, and I had no idea why. Turns out, I had internalized beliefs from childhood that made feeling unsafe. And that made acting really hard.

After years of therapy and deep personal work, I finally broke through—but it shouldn’t take a decade to figure this out. That’s why I created the work I now share with actors: to help you overcome self-sabotage faster than I ever could.

Even now, as a coach, I face moments where fear creeps in again. Moments where I question: who am I to do this? And every time, I come back to this question:
“Why place a limit on your success?”

When we release the ceiling, we release the fear.

If something in you is ready to stretch into your next level, I’d love to hear from you. Reach out through the email in the show notes, and let’s talk about what’s really standing between you and the version of you who books the room.

The fear you’re feeling? It’s not a stop sign.
It’s a signal.
You’re moving in the right direction.

As promised, here's my email!

yourjourneytoyou.info@gmail.com

Seeking more gems of wisdom? I've got you covered! ✨

Check out our FREE resources for the 6 Week "Stick it to Self-Sabotage" Challenge!

Dive into our supportive Facebook Community. Get inspired on Instagram, and join the conversation on TikTok. Let's journey together, transforming challenges into triumphs.

P.S. Your journey doesn't end here; it's just taking flight (with a sprinkle of magic✨). Let's forge this beautifully bold path together. 💫

Your Self-Help Sidekick (KA-POW!!!),
Megan

Transcript

Welcome to Your Journey to You

Speaker 1 0:00

Could you play that song for me ? It's my favorite song . Hey , I'm Meg , and welcome to your Journey , to you . This is a podcast for actors in the film and TV industry who want to build a thriving career without burning out in the process . We're diving into the mindset shifts , strategies and real talk . You need to navigate this industry with confidence , from imposter syndrome to self-care to setting healthy boundaries , we're covering it all .

Speaker 1 0:31

Whether you're just getting started or stepping into the next level , this space is here to support you . Let's dive in . Let's start with what I've always

What I’m Here For

Speaker 1 0:42

wanted to do and I've always felt called to inspire and I always felt like that was the coolest thing you could do with your life , or the best thing you could do with your life , and or the thing that would leave the biggest impact on the world , or the bit like leaving this really inspirational , innovative legacy . I've been like this since I was really little , like , like small that I just wanted to inspire people to be better and and I've always honestly been obsessed with personal growth I've always just I wanted to be better and I wanted to do better and I wanted to be a better person in a relationship with other people and I wanted to be the best me that I possibly could be , but that doesn't mean I didn't have struggles along the way . So today I just kind of wanted to recount

My Origin Story

Speaker 1 1:37

on this experience that I had when I was in college and I grew up with two parents who needed a lot for me . We'll just , we'll leave it at that .

Speaker 1 1:49

That kind of led me down this path where it wasn't safe for me to have emotions or for me to feel really anything but compliant , and with that it was also my job , or my role , I guess , within my family to like be the peacemaker and to help people process their emotions and to really I felt like it was my job to put the family back together a lot of the time , and so job to put the family back together a lot of the time . And so that led me to down this path where I really didn't have feelings anymore . Like it was too hard to feel feelings because they weren't appreciated or appropriate ever within my household , and so I was kind of just like walking around like this little numb human being around the world and there and with that being said , there wasn't any sadness or um , well , there was sadness . It was just stuck below the numb and there wasn't really room for joy either , because when you can't feel you , you can't feel anything , whether it's sadness or happiness . And so I ended up in this place where I was just like numb and I couldn't really even access my emotions , let alone feel them , because I had just done this for so many years .

Speaker 1 3:28

So when I got to college and my major I don't know if I mentioned this before , my major was musical theater , and while I love musical theater , it was not what I wanted to do when I left college . I wanted to act , or I liked the genre of film and TV more than I liked musical theater . And the problem that I kept bumping up against in college over and over and over again , was I couldn't emote things in my acting or my singing , my acting or my singing , and looking back now I can very clearly tell that that's because I couldn't feel . And if you can't feel , then how can you be an actor and showcase emotion if if you can't even feel the emotion within yourself ? I loved the psychology behind acting . I loved why people do what they do . I loved all of those things and I could break down what a character was thinking . But at the end of the day , I couldn't feel , so my characters couldn't feel . Sometimes I wish I could go back to college , where I am now , and go through all of the things I did again at like a higher mindset , because I was so just emotionally stuck back then . And so and it was clear in my performances , I'm sure I'm sure it was clear in my performances , I'm sure it was clear in my performances I had this like want to inspire , but how do you inspire when you can't feel or emote ? Like , if you can't feel or emote , how do you feel or emote and affect an emotion in someone else ?

Speaker 1 5:16

It took me a lot of years of therapy , even after college , and a lot of years of really hard work to teach myself how to feel again and how to be present and not live in the past and become this person who could be whatever she wanted to be , because I was stuck in a place where I couldn't be . Let me just say this again it took me years and years to go through this process , years to get out of my own way , years to work through the trauma that I had experienced , to get me to a point where I could just be neutral . That's why I created this business and that's why I created the six weeks to get to self sabotage challenge and that's why I continue to try to put content out there for you guys is because I don't believe that if you're a person who's had trauma and gone through hardship , I don't believe that that should hold you back from booking an acting job . I just don't believe the impact of those things should result in you not getting what you want . Where you've already been in this position of not getting what you want , I just don't think that's okay , and so I really wanted to create a process that would speed up , that would help people get out of the funk and get out of the stuck quickly , create a way that they don't have to be stuck for years and years and years and go through years of talk , therapy and do all of this hard work just to be thriving in their career . Maybe I need to go back a little bit too , because when I was working through therapy and I was going through all of these things , I started getting momentum in my career when I finally had worked through all the shit , but that took me so long , it took forever . It was a really long process and I wish there had been somebody who could have just come in and said look at this behavior pattern , let's change that . Let's look at this behavior and this limiting belief and let's change that . And I wish there was somebody who could have walked me through the process of healing so that I didn't have to spend years and talk therapy trying to figure it out on my own Well , not on my own , you know , with a guide but years trying to learn about myself without somebody saying , hey , this equals this . So that's why I created the six weeks to get to self sabotage challenge and why I create content for you and why I built this business called your journey to you is because I want you to get from surviving to thriving way faster than I did . It doesn't have to take that long . I firmly believe it doesn't have to take you 10 to 15 years of talk therapy to get through and work through all of your stuff and start to have momentum in your career because you've worked through all the stuff . I believe that with good guidance , you can get there way faster and the process can be expedited . So that's my mission in this world is to inspire people to really believe that they can do it .

Speaker 1 8:23

With that being said ,

Smack! Glass Ceiling... Meet Forehead

Speaker 1 8:24

today I want to talk about hitting the glass ceiling . If you don't know what hitting the glass ceiling is , it's when you feel like you have hit the top of what you can actually achieve , like there's no , there's nowhere higher to go . The cool thing about this , though , is that when you hit your glass ceiling , it's actually a huge milestone , because it means that you've already outgrown a part of your past self and you're ready to push beyond what you once thought was possible for yourself . Really , it just means that the next step is expanding the ceiling and making sure you don't get stuck in that the fear and self-doubt , and so let me tell you about my glass ceiling and how this affected me .

Speaker 1 9:15

A couple weeks ago , I hit my glass ceiling , and it was a result of several different experiences coming together , but it was also a result of hearing somebody say you know , if your life never gets better than this , would you be happy ? My immediate answer was no , and then it was like I turned around and looked at myself and was like what you have a lot , why wouldn't you be happy with what you have at myself ? And was like what you have a lot . Why wouldn't you be happy with what you have ? Then I started to get stuck in this like really fearful place where I , like my brain was convincing me that I wasn't physically safe , like in my own space , where I am logically physically safe . But I was expanding beyond just myself as a performer and moving into that role of a coach . And when I moved into that role of a coach , it gave me this platform to inspire people , which is my ultimate dream . It's just to be a voice to inspire people .

Speaker 1 10:19

I think up to some level I didn't think that that was going to be possible for me , like it was never going to manifest into my life that I would have a huge impact on a lot of people and I had almost like capped the amount of people that I could inspire at the level that I'm at now and I had limited it to just my friends and my family and the people that I'm really close with . And now I'm stepping into this new role as a coach . Now I had people that I didn't know that were signing up for my program . I had this like moment of probably a little bit of imposter syndrome , but also like can I do this , even though this has been my ultimate calling , and so I was really stuck for about a week and a lot of fear of am I going to disappoint these people that I don't know in their coaching program ? Am I going to be able to serve them to the best of my ability ?

Speaker 1 11:19

Where I'm at right now , I got really stuck in this very fearful place and I was able to identify really quickly that I had hit my my glass ceiling within the first day or two . That that's why I was so fearful , because I was walking around my house being like , why do I feel so much fear right now ? Why , like , what's going on ? And then I realized that I had hit my glass ceiling . And because I've learned how to manage fear . I've learned how to manage my reaction to fear , and so I also wanted to . I also wanted to give you a little mindset

The Truth About Fear

Speaker 1 11:54

shift today in a way that you can reframe fear for yourself .

Speaker 1 11:59

Fear often shows up when we're stepping into something bigger than we've currently experienced . I think it's really easy to see fear as this , like roadblock , but in reality it's . Fear is a sign of expansion , like you're growing out of your comfort zone or beyond your comfort zone . So , as the week went on , instead of trying to resist this fear that I was naturally feeling , I tried to welcome it as evidence that I was on the verge of my next breakthrough and that I was going to be pushing right through that glass ceiling .

Speaker 1 12:44

After about a week of struggling with this idea of , okay , well , I need to create a new ceiling , I was talking with my acupuncturist . He said something to me that was so profound because I was like , okay , well , now how do I actually create into my head a new glass ceiling ? Like , what's the next level for me ? Is that going to be coaching a hundred people ? Is that going to be , you know , doing lives on Facebook and feeling comfortable talking to however many people at once ? Like , what , what's my next ? What's my next measure for myself , for my next glass ceiling ?

Speaker 1 13:21

He said to me why do you have to place a limit on your success ? That stopped me dead in my tracks Because I was like is that a limiting belief to that I have that I have to set a limit to what I can achieve ? Why can't what I can achieve be infinite ? I decided that I wasn't going to set a new ceiling . I decided that I'm limitless , and almost as soon as I realized that the fear went away Magic , just magic I wanted to give you guys some coaching today on how you can push through your glass ceiling . You're hitting the top and you're feeling really fearful and you're not sure what to do next .

Speaker 1 14:04

Let's talk about how you push through a glass ceiling so , once you realize that your fears are they're just linked to growth you can start to take really intentional actions so you can push past that ceiling . And whether that's , you know , like auditioning for bigger roles or asking for more screen time or networking

Shattering Your Limits

Speaker 1 14:30

with other industry leaders or people you view as leaders , each action you take , no matter how small , helps to break through that self-imposed barrier , that glass ceiling . And so here's some things , some like actionable steps that you can do , and the first is to challenge old beliefs , which is exactly what my acupuncturist did for me challenge this belief that I have to create a new upper limit for myself . So if you're out there trying to challenge some old beliefs , ask yourself what's some beliefs that are holding you back , and is there even any evidence for them ?

Speaker 1 15:11

Another thing that you can do to help you break through this glass ceiling is to visualize success . Just keep visualizing yourself , thriving in bigger roles and learning to embrace discomfort that potentially comes with that , because the discomfort is way worse in our head than it actually is outside of our bodies . And so if we just keep visualizing more success and more success , then that's what we'll get . This is also something , you know , I'm actively doing every day and it's making a huge difference . And then the last thing is to take some small risks . When you're first feeling the end of the fear and the emotion , taking a small risk can feel like you're taking a big risk , but if you gradually just start taking small risks that make you feel like a little uncomfortable , but they're aligned with what your goals are , then you're on your way . And this could be as simple as just like submitting for a role that you once thought was like too big , like a lead role , or networking with somebody you admire in the industry and just reaching out and seeing what they have to offer . And so if you're out there and you've hit your glass ceiling and you're feeling really fearful and you just need a shoulder to cry on or somebody to talk it through and help you pinpoint your limiting beliefs , I am so happy to help you out . I really am Because I don't think it should take years and years and years for you to be able to pinpoint your limiting beliefs on your own .

Speaker 1 16:50

Below in the show notes I'll put a link to my email . Feel free to reach out . I would love to help you . Let me know down in the comments if you liked this episode . And that's a wrap on today's

Until Next Time

Speaker 1 17:02

episode of your Journey to you . I hope this conversation sparked some insights and gave you something to take with you on your journey . If you loved today's episode , don't forget to subscribe , leave a review or share it with a fellow creative who could use a little encouragement and stay connected . Follow me on social media for more mindset tips and industry guidance . Keep going , keep growing and remember your success isn't about the work you do . It's about showing up for yourself along the way you got this .