We were lucky to catch up with Tracie Frank recently and have shared our conversation below.

Tracie, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I think I always knew I wanted to be a performer. When I was little–about three or four, I remember watching Sesame Street and asking my mom, “Can you take me to Sesame Street?” I know, it sounds like the theme song! But I’ll never forget the feeling of what I wanted, and it wasn’t just to be around these magical puppets. Seeing grown-ups on TV was one thing, but now there were kids like me on TV! I wanted to do what they were doing, and that desire just never went away.

As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?

Sure! I’m a film and television actor, and commercial voice actor, based in Charlotte, North Carolina. I’m a late-bloomer because life happened… I got pregnant in high school, so I got a job, got married, raised my family. But when I was in my late 30s, some tough life events made me finally stop and ask myself why I’d never even tried to pursue my dreams. I decided to take a chance and see what would happen.

Nowadays I’m a working actor, and an amateur filmmaker. I’m also a voiceover coach, so I get to help others make their dreams come true too! It makes me proud when I think back on quitting a safe corporate job to go after my dream. I’m really grateful to say that I get to do what I love for a living.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

One of the biggest things I needed to unlearn was letting shame take away my power.

Most of us have been indoctrinated into certain beliefs about ourselves, beginning with how we should look, and adding on where and how we ought to live, gender expectations, race and culture dynamics… we’re placed in boxes before we’re even self-aware. By the time I reached adulthood, I already felt a great deal of shame around my appearance, my finances, and my lifestyle choices. And when I became a born-again Christian in my late 20s, church culture unlocked new levels of shame! On top of my other perceived failures, according to the church I was also not feminine enough, not submissive enough, too opinionated. Both the church and my then-husband made it clear I wasn’t at all what I was “supposed” to be. My entire existence was wrong.

The people with the greatest influence over me used shame to diminish me. I know that now. I also understand that those kinds of people are themselves ruled by shame. Rather than learn how to deal with it in a healthy way, they use it to inflate their own egos. It looks like selfishness, avoiding personal responsibility, and gaslighting.

Two things started the process of dismantling shame in my life. First was a close group of women friends that began meeting weekly in 2011. We offered each other a safe place to talk, share and ugly-cry (in other words, to be vulnerable). I didn’t know I needed that until I had it, and it’s not an overstatement to say that experience changed the trajectory of all our lives.

The second was a book by Brené Brown called, “I Thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn’t).” Most of us have heard of her life-changing work on vulnerability (it’s the opposite of shame). This was one of her earliest books, and it was the first book our group read together. Again, life-changing! I’m sure it’s great to read alone, but it’s definitely better to read it together with a safe group of friends.

Everyone experiences shame. But when we let it hold us back, not only are we keeping ourselves small, we’re depriving the people we love (and even the people we’ll just meet in passing) of the best of us. Once I chose to release shame’s hold on me, I found the power to walk away from those who were using my shame to control me. I found the power to go after what I wanted, to be afraid and do it anyway. (This was when I decided to pursue an acting career!) And most importantly, I realized that the power to do and be what I wanted had always been in my hands.

It took time and work to understand my own worth. To understand that joy and happiness don’t have to be earned, that they’re a beautiful part of the human experience. We all deserve to experience true happiness and joy, not to have it meted out by sad, angry, joyless shame wardens.

It’s worth it to find out who you’d be if shame wasn’t in control.

What can society do to ensure an environment that’s helpful to artists and creatives?

I don’t think there are many people who’d say there’s no need for creativity in the world. Yet society tends to belittle it. Some think it’s in the arena of childhood, a thing kindergartners do with finger-paint and rounded scissors. I don’t understand that kind of thinking, since most of us enjoy the fruits of creativity every day, from our favorite music and stories, to our mobile devices to kitchen gadgets.

Creativity is art and music, yes. But scientists and mathematicians are creative too. (What musician isn’t also a mathematician? What sculptor isn’t also an architect?) Everyone is a creative. But I think when we put a box around what creativity is and how it looks, we stifle it in ourselves and others. I think creativity is offering who we are and what’s inside us–our experiences and ideas and perspectives–to add beauty and pleasure and joy to the world.

So, one of the best ways society can support creatives is to be open to all the ways creativity makes itself known, to stop deciding who is creative and how creatives are supposed to show up in the world. If we instead give each other the freedom to be who we are, without cramming each other into boxes based on gender, race, class, and everything else… our innate creativity will shine through.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.traciefrank.com
• Instagram: tracie_frank
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/traciefrankactor
• Linkedin: www.linkedin.com/in/traciefrank
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@TracieFrank

Image Credits
Headshot: Eric Campbell, Photographer