Trusting Your Gut

Sixteen years ago I met my future husband. As I sit here today at the kitchen table of the home that Todd and I have fought for and built together, the seven years with my ex-husband seem like another lifetime - literally seem like they happened to a completely different human being. When I was living them I thought I'd never be free of them. And now that I'm two decades from their beginning, I can say the woman who survived them is thriving.

Two of Iron Pirate LLC's partners Todd and Kathryn Zeigler.

I won't spend a lot of time on the ex-husband timeline, except to say, there two miracles were given to us as a result. Todd and I have two beautifully amazing adult daughters who are phenomenal humans. Those two young women also now have two younger siblings who have blessed our world.

The journey to this space of peace with the past has not been easy. And I'll be honest, there are days when whispers of doubt and self-loathing creep in. It's an active practice to acknowledge when those thoughts start to chip at my happiness. But over the years, the key to finding my way back mentally and spiritually has been in one single truth - trusting my gut.

The Zeigler Family through the years.

For years and years I'd hear the phrase, "Trust your gut". As I child I equated it to physical hunger. The elder women in our family were phenomenal cooks and so much of our familial experience was wrapped in the ceremony of preparing meals. So, when I got those feelings I wasn't sure about, I ate. I still do this. I'm more equipped with tools to help me enjoy food instead of using it as a placeholder for emotional journeys. But food plays an integral life in both my healing and my discovery.

My gut instincts were fed physically until I found something that fed me spiritually, acting. In acting I found a buffet of mental and emotional exploration like nothing I'd ever experienced. Soon, the urge to eat was mirrored by the urge to explore characters and breathe life into the stories that playwrights and screenwriters shared. I began to grow in my understanding of what it meant to follow my gut (not necessarily trust it), but this always appeared in the form of playing another character and not living as my authentic self.

Then came teaching. I was given the gift of confidence in teaching by my Master Teacher at the conservatory where I studied acting in New York. The studio introduced me to processes that helped support the actor's toolbox. Think of the toolbox as the emotional warehouse where someone can explore how to access an emotion or experience to understand how a character can express what is happening in a scene.

Kathryn Zeigler guest lecturing at the Governor's School for the Arts in Louisville, KY 2015.

Through my own exploration as a performer, and then of my students in their quest for deeper and more meaningful character development, I began to see how instincts played such a major role in the human experience. Then, I began to not only feel for myself but see physical changes in my students as they followed the instincts that were naturally triggered when they trusted their choices onstage. After a performance where it felt like I was literally drawn by a character into one of the most beautiful scenes I've ever been a part of, I was finally able to put a physical sensation on that gut feeling I'd heard so much about.

And that's when I made the very conscious decision to face my greatest fear head-on, my overwhelming deficit of trust.

Trust of anything hasn't come easy for me. And I can bet some of you reading this can relate to having a love/hate with the word and the idea of trust. I've come to believe that is because we relate trust to things that happen outside of ourselves: trusting others, the process, the system, a faith, an idea. Trust oftentimes is introduced as a blindfold that we are asked to wear in order to believe the intentions of others. But I've found, especially the more experience life has given me, it is impossible to truly learn what trust is and what we should personally trust in until we have established it within ourselves.

And that, my friends, is purely rooted in trusting your gut.

Through Acting For Your Life (this blog, our podcast, our classes, our books), I'll be sharing some of the moments that have had the greatest impact of my understanding of trust. Along with this understanding comes a respect of how utilizing your own instincts can and should play a role in communication and achieving your greatest potential.

This isn't a quick-fix. It's not something you can learn, do, and then have engrained. It's a practice; a daily practice that takes time, grace, and patience. And I'll be here, along with our team and special guests, to help you find your way.

Kathryn Rae Zeigler, Founder and Master Teacher of Acting For Your Life

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Disclaimer: The advice and opinions expressed on Acting For Your Life are those of Kathryn Rae Zeigler and are for educational and informational purposes only. Copyright © 2024 Kathryn Rae Zeigler, Acting For Your Life for Iron Pirate LLC. All Rights Reserved. Unauthorized use and/or duplication of this material without express written permission is strictly prohibited.