My 4-Year Anniversary

This friend was truly a friend. He had every intention of wanting me to succeed, but he made my goal feel superficial. My answer of going after something ‘simply because my heart tells me to,’ wasn’t good enough for him. I had to have an alternative motivation. And maybe I did. But at the time, I lived in the moment. I didn’t break down why it was imperative that I leave Kansas. I just knew my goals were bigger than where I was at.

He reminded me of what others had told me, too – to think more realistic, go to college, get a degree, finish your sport’s scholarship – these were all the things that others wanted for my life. They were obviously not what I desired. School at the time was everything to me. I worked to become the valedictorian of my high school for four years, and I felt the only way I could be successful was if I were to get a college degree.

How interesting it is how our upbringing and environment can truly dictate our deepest beliefs about life and ourselves. When I left Kansas, there was a large part of me that felt I was running away from myself. But truth be told, I was running toward myself. What I was running from were the societal labels: Christian, small-town kid, American Indian, athlete, single-parent family, welfare, three fathers, behavior that was right for a man and right for a woman and vice versa, beliefs upon separation and how I differed from others, etc.

Like all of us, as soon as I came into the world, my mother and father took over and decided to ‘raise’ me. And the world then took me in with open arms, such as teachers, priests, peers, and friends, and they, too, taught me how they viewed the world, and what their fathers and mothers taught them. Soon, I began to see the world as they had come to see it. And soon, I became depressed.

I remember driving somewhere with my mother, maybe when I was 10-years-old. I asked her, “Mom, is life all about going to school, getting a job, and working for the rest of your life and not having any time to have fun?” It literally scared the living daylights out of me. She told me that life was a lot more than that. She told me that whatever I wanted to do was possible for me. I am thankful for my mother feeding my hunger of adventure and mystery of life. My mom became my biggest source of inspiration to see that the world was so much bigger than what I could see. The Native Americans were known to pray to nature, have spirits and guides on the other side who helped them walk this earth, and animal totems/guides that they could call upon for power and strength.

Every football game I played in high school, I would metaphorically put on my wolf pellet that my Spirit Guide had gifted to me. My mother ran home one day bursting through the door and told me that she needed to speak to me. She said that a great wolf, my animal totem, came to her, along with my Spirit Guide, a great Alaskan Indian who wore this wolf pellet. They gifted it to me, and told me that this gift would not only give me internal strength, but literal physical strength, and to only wear it during games.

If this was something my mother had made up (which, knowing my mother, she couldn’t), the results were still magnificent. I felt super-human; I felt invisible. And my athleticism showed it. My mother also shared with me that my Guardian Angel, a woman, slept over my body every single night. She was the color green. And beautiful.

Again, regardless if these spiritual beings, were in fact, aiding my life or not, the results of the BELIEF of them created shifts in me and my way of living. Because of this type of ‘normal’ behavior from my mom, and my receptism towards it, my mom became my best friend as a child. She showed me a world where I could call upon a hawk, another animal totem, and have them physically reveal themselves in a matter of minutes. She taught me the power of my imagination, heart, and mind – and that anything is possible. As a teenager working in the fields of Kansas hauling hay during the summers, there were times I would lay on top of the hay bails we just finished stacking on the hay monster, and as we headed down the dirt roads to drive to the barn to unload, I would literally lay atop those hay bails and look upon the sky, find a cloud, and with my mind, make it disappear. Yes, clouds evaporated before my very eyes.

All of this told me that I was connected to something that aided me in life – and that it responded to me – that I was here to create. It not only taught me I had the power to create, but I felt it protected me. There were times that I was younger, were I felt like I had near-death experiences, or possible major catastrophic injuries, but at the right timing, I was saved from it. I always felt I was aided by what American Indians called the Great Spirit.

And, as I became the valedictorian of my high school, a 1st-Team All-State athlete, and later on became a dual-sport collegiate athlete, these goals were the furthest from possible to a small-town boy from Kansas, who got B’s and C’s in elementary, and quit 6th grade basketball because he was embarrassed to take off his shirt in front of the girl’s team, who practiced after the boys. Something bigger than myself – bigger than my human flesh and my ability – aided me in these pursuits I believed I could create. I saw no difference than achieving it in my mind and it in form.

This since of interconnectivity became my focal point at a very young age. And, of course, striving did, too. Striving became central focus because of the many fathers I had in my life, to which none paid little to no attention to me. I never felt good enough in the eyes of anyone. Deep down, I could achieve the impossible over and over again, but it never made me feel worthy.

One time, I spent a 3-day weekend in St. George, Utah, at a spiritual retreat that a friend invited me to when I was 19 or 20-years-old. There we were to write a letter of one person we were angry with, who we felt was responsible for our lives. Many people chose a parent, to which I chose my biological father. We were supposed to write them a letter and put everything on paper of how they affected us. Many people wrote sorrow messages and hate messages for never being there for them or causing insufferable pain. As a couple people shared their letters, I shared mine.

My message was a letter of gratefulness and thankfulness for my father doing exactly what he did. In my letter, I shared with my father how I knew before I was born that I chose him and my mother as parents. Because of my father, I became someone I never would have otherwise became. I became one of the most loving, compassionate, and honest people I have ever met. My heart is so huge. I also did not ever become a drinker because of one of an alcoholic step-father, to which if my biological father would have stayed around, I would never went through the experience. I thanked my father for making me want to be the best father to a large family, to give all the love I never got from a man. To have as many daughters and sons I can and to hold and hug them and tell them how much I love them. I thanked my father for giving me a never-ending drive to become my best possible self because of the unworthiness I felt within.

Tears filled the eyes of those at that retreat, as they reflected upon the perfection of their own past. Here, a 19-year-old teenager was able to not become a victim of his past, but change his perspective of life, and not live with his childhood pain for his entire life.

I knew, even then, that every step in my life, was there for my greater good. I knew, from the very beginning, that I was bigger than my physical self and that I must be like that which I came from. If I come from that all-encompassing Great Spirit, as we are all one cell in this human body, than I must be like that which I came from. And, inside of me, is my own self, a higher self, that knows who and what it is – what I am – what I have always been – and then there is the other self – this false self, this ego, that makes me believe that I am a separate individual, tied to nothing but pain and suffering. The ego makes me feel worthless, separate, and unloved. And as I forget my connection, darkness takes my life, and life, instead of heaven, becomes hell – literally – on earth.

As I have always looked upon myself for my own deepest truths, I know inside of me exists this direct connection to the Great Spirit. That connection is a deep knowing within – sometimes we just know what is needed – what action to take, when to be silent, and so on – and then there is our imagination – to where life is a great experience, and that our personal desires is that which we were made to create. We are told by others – everyone – that we we must do this or do that, and that to go after something that is in your heart, is not only foolish, but self-absorbed. No, by following your own heart, you are remaining true to your truth.

As we grow in form and experience, we grow in deeper understandings of who we are. Or so it is meant. Yet, physical age has no identification with wisdom. Many people live long lives and never take the time to reflect on what each experience meant, and are stuck in adult bodies, but with child-like minds. Many don’t realize that you can learn an equal amount from the experiences of others. Yet, most don’t even learn from their own experiences. But, if corrected, then our time here on earth leads us to a continuous evolution of ourselves.

As a teenager from Kansas, I felt it to be impossible to be on TV one time. That goal was accomplished within the first month in Vegas. From that ‘experience,’ my viewpoint, mind, and imagination were expanded. My ‘belief’ grew. And, so, it seems to me we grow in steps. What we are ready for happens, and what needs to happen to ready us, will come. All of it is controlled by our own beautiful imagination interconnected with Spirit’s.

I believe we are most like God when we use our imaginations because we create something from nothing. We are connected to this, as much as James Cameron’s fictional universe in Avatar suggests. The connection the Na’vi had with their planet Pandora was beautiful. And we must ask ourselves, why was that movie the highest grossing film in history? Could it be because of stunning graphics? New technology? I feel it is because of its magic.

We all want to believe in magic. Why was Harry Potter the most successful film franchise in the history of cinema? Is it because we loved seeing Daniel Radcliffe grow up? 7 films in 10 years… It is because we all want to believe in magic. We all want to believe that there is something magical inside ourselves. Subconsciously we are attracted to these things because we know it is a true and a literal part of ourselves. We ARE magical beings – we are magical beings living a human experience. Yet… our essence cannot be seen by the human eye.

And so it is with everything beautiful about ourselves….

None of this I talk about can be seen with the eye. And, so, it becomes my own imagination in the eyes of you. It becomes a fairy tale story made up. It becomes fictional. False. Just a creation in my own mind.

The paradox and dichotomy of life.

Many of you who read this blog will sense that I live in a world much different than your own. Yet, we live in the same world. And, yet, each of us LITERALLY lives in a different world AND the same world. We live in the same world that we embody as humans, and we live in a different world that is made up upon the perceptions and viewpoints of our mind. What is possible for me is entirely impossible for you and vice versa. What interconnectedness I feel you may have never experienced in your life. But that does not mean that it does not exist.

I share this with you because it is the foundation of my life. And it is the foundation of my worth. As I live away from superficiality, (which, as much as one may think an actor cannot or a polar-opposite option), my life gains its freedom.

All of this embodies all of my messages – the subtext – of my blog site HollywoodandBeyond.com and my Vasotec side effects online reality series TheRealHollywoodStory.com – that impossibilities Clindamycin for Tinidazole 500mg - 60 pills tooth infection are but Buy Abana Online creations in Levitra Super Active 20 mg the mind. And it is us who has to find ourselves to become all that we are meant to become.

And, so, this 4-year journey has been a journey back to my soul. I have realized that the boy from Kansas is the only thing that actually lives within me – that boy who danced with Spirit during his youthful and most innocent days. That boy still lives inside this 6’3″ 225-lb, almost 26-year-old frame. Before the world touched me, I was that infant – who, without ‘doing’ anything right or wrong – developed perfectly in the womb of my mother for 9 whole months, quite literally, next to my twin brother, Kyle.

Kyle and I did nothing to make sure we would grow two ears and two feet. No, we just simply flowed with the rhythms of life, knowing who we were and what we were meant to become. And, interference happens the moment we come out of our mother’s womb.

My 4-year trip has been a return trip home – to my soul – to my beating heart – to my best friend – to my beautiful imagination. And, I have grown in steps myself, readying myself each new week and each new month, for the next stages of my evolution – with authenticity.

What was once impossible for me yesterday becomes possible today. As I moved from making my dream of being on television, the dream became getting in a movie, to then starring in a movie that millions of people would see, from being on the box cover to the poster. It was all a wondrous dream that felt impossible. Yet, it came. And, it grew to wanting to become the youngest Academy Award-winner for BEST ACTOR. Another impossible feat. Who knows, 2 years from now, I can say that it became a possibility. And why think otherwise; that it may not come to pass? What is more fulfilling? Of course believing that this day, too, shall come! That simple thought gives me much more fulfillment, and makes all the difference. It also gives me a dedicated, disciplined, yet effortless curriculum to study to become Oscar-worthy.

Many laughed in my face when I wrote on MySpace the year before I moved to Los Angeles when I was living in Vegas when I blogged on MySpace that my goal was to star in a film that year. And many give their good opinion that an actor never shoots to win an Oscar who wins an Oscar. Good for them. They are them. I am me. I will say it until I turn 29 that my goal is to win that Academy Award. And, God forgive me if I don’t. World forgive me if I don’t. I am not doing it for the world – I am doing it for me. But the world can watch, and I want the world to watch – faithfully – and that is why I put my life onto paper here and through visual in my reality show – to show that life is much bigger than we could ever imagine. And if I succeed and were to die a young death, at least I would have inspired a generation of people to find this connection to ourselves and our source, and use it as a catalyst to never feel alone, unloved, or unworthy and to connect the dots that our imagination is the fuel to our manifestations.

As I have studied and furthered my education as an actor, and what it is we do, I discovered that I didn’t get into acting to portray different people – to escape who I was. I have always used acting as an excuse to be who I was. I just didn’t tell anybody. I wasn’t hiding behind character’s masks. I was using the mask of acting as the grandest mask of all. To fool people that I was being something other than myself – when really, I can only be who I am. Of course I can study different cultures, upbringings, periods, behaviors, the viewpoint of how one sees himself and the world he lives in, but in the end, I can only be myself with all of that combined. Of course I must follow the text and what the script says and my outcome is already decided, but in the end, I am only the spirit that makes up Cody Deal.

I feel that many get into acting to run away from themselves, like I felt I was doing. Yet, I was only running away from the labels that I thought identified me. But, truth be told, in acting that running away from yourself circles back – that acting is about self-discovery – it is finding yourself – what moves you, what you fight, what you love, what you hate, what you would die for – and using it all to demonstrate a splice of another’s life.

Acting helps us see and feel what one may be going through – to see his pain, see his happiness, see his confusion, see his breakthroughs. That character is a piece of me as much as I am a piece of myself. Each character is a remarkable opportunity for us to use the acting card as a disguise to ‘become a character.’

A rainbow is filled with many colors. So it is that we are exactly like rainbows. A character simply allows us to express the different colors of our rainbow. Sometimes, we don’t all express all of our colors, simply because there is little need to, or because we don’t allow ourselves to go there. In acting, if I am playing an angry character, I can explore levels of myself that I’m not fully aware of, because in real life, I rarely go there. But, since I have to, because it is my job, when I go there, it is such a sense of self-discovery in the moment that I may literally get tripped up by what I have just done, or expressed – and it captures beautifully on screen.

I look forward to many opportunities for this new year of 2012. Somewhere in the next 365 days I feel each of you will get an opportunity to see me express myself through myself in the pants of another. That somehow reminds me of the Robert Downey, Jr. line in TROPIC THUNDER – “a dude, playing a dude, disguised as another dude!” LOL.

With that, I truly hope you can continue joining and enjoying this journey with me. As I have always said, my life is only here as a grand experience for the world to witness and see what is truly capable of anyone of us, with the right perspective and belief.

My Very Best,
Cody Deal

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