We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Dana Kippel a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

Dana, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Can you tell us about a time that your work has been misunderstood? Why do you think it happened and did any interesting insights emerge from the experience?

My whole life I have had this common archetype of being misunderstood – and not until recently did I realize I had been unconsciously attracting these situations and feelings in to my life. I have always had low self esteem and self worth due to certain traumas and my upbringing. I recently correlated that when ( these last two years) , after being in a darker place, I started to heal the root cause of these issues , I started to attract people who understood and supported me in my life. I think our outer world is a direct reflection of how we feel internally about ourselves. That may be frustrating to hear and believe me I was very defensive about it , but I have found at least in my own life there is truth to it. I am still a work in progress and I encounter people who try to beat me down with words, make me feel less than, question my work and viewpoints, but I now have the courage to say to myself ” Hey, I don’t want to be around that person anymore and guess what… I don’t have to!” I have no fear about who knows who and what they can “do” for me – I just want to be around good people who are full of love and support each other and raise each other up. In a nutshell I have been learning to love myself first and everything else will follow – and to be kind to myself on days where I am not perfect and regress into behaviors where I don’t stick up for myself out of fear of being disliked or abandoned.

Dana, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

I have always loved creating – I just never believed I could make a living doing it! I fell into filmmaking by starting as an actress trying to navigate my way around LA. I was not a huge fan of the material I was reading and I said to myself – Hey ! Why can’t I write my own stuff and get it made ? That sounds like a lot more fun and I can have more creative control in the process. So I started to interview producers, directors and writers about how they succeeded and how their processes are. I scheduled zooms. I read screen writing books. I wrote screenplays. I read self development books to gain a mindset around believing in myself. After a six months or so of preparing I wrote my first screenplay that I wanted to get produced … no one wanted to help because they didn’t even know who I was or what I could do ! Understandable. So I produced my own film, got the financing from a wonderful investor off Linkedin and some other lovely donators as well as crowdfunding. I think what sets me apart from others is the fact that I am simply, me. I am inspired by art, the books I read, mythology, science, philosophy, my life experiences… I don’t try to be any other filmmaker or follow any specific path – from what I have seen the most successful people carve their own path – and push through A LOT of rejection and failure to get there. That is what I plan to do. Also my films and scripts have a metaphysical edge that is missing in Hollywood – they are almost like secret mystery schools – I love inserting my knowledge that I read in old books into my films for people to find. I think my mixture of science, metaphysics and mythology has not been done too much before. I am most proud of sticking to my values and my guns when it comes to my work. I am not going to make a certain film for fast success. I am going to follow my heart, write what I love writing , and be Dana . That way no matter what happens to my career, my head can hit the pillow at night knowing I am being true to myself.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

I went from living in and out of halfway houses in South Florida, dealing with addiction, when I was twenty one – to abstaining from alcohol and drugs, making films I love and healing myself through writing in Los Angeles. I dealt with a lot of mental health issues and trauma as a child and teenager – I was told by so many people I would die or not succeed. Every event in my life and every relationship seemed to be set up to show me I was unlovable and untouchable. I pushed through all that because I had a little voice of light inside tell me I was going to do something important. I am still pushing through because I believe that and I believe that EVERYONE is put on this earth for a beautiful reason that they just may not be awake to yet. I want to encourage anyone struggling or feeling alone to keep going because one day – maybe a year maybe ten years from now but one day, a miracle WILL happen in your life. And you will know why you are here – if you work on healing yourself and you just keep on going, even if you do not feel great all the time, that is OK, what matters is that you stay here to see how you will feel tomorrow,

Is there a particular goal or mission driving your creative journey?

My goal is to inspire anyone who feels disconnected to their self , others, or nature to realize anyone can feel connection. It starts with yourself. I know this because I have felt disconnected from all three at one point. I felt like I must of missed out on that class in school. It takes work but I believe the most important thing in life is knowing YOURSELF. ” Know thyself ”

Contact Info:

• Website: www.crazycarrotfilms.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dana.thealien/?hl=en
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danakippel/

Image Credits
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