Well, I’ve been so busy with my new career – acting – that I keep being surprised that my old career—lecturing and consulting as a communication specialist and jury consultant – still keeps calling.
Suddenly I have a whole raft of speaking engagements coming up—talking to the East Coast’s appellate and federal judges and lawyers, to executives at the National League of Cities conference, and to other conferences in Miami and California as well as also consulting on cases with one of my long-time clients.
And here I thought that was all over because I’m acting now!
I’m actually preparing to do the play I did Off Broadway in New York again at Shakespeare & Co.’s Studio Festival here in Lenox, MA on Labor Day. This is where they try out plays for next year’s season (!!) and you can imagine how that’s really occupying my mind.
Problem is—I am of two minds. I had to read 700 pages of depositions to prepare for my consulting work next week while I am re-studying and memorizing my script again to be book-free for the play’s performance. And these two minds don’t sit lightly in my head.
My consulting mind is outer-directed – looking, thinking, analyzing facts as presented by an expert witness. How can I help make him clearer, more credible, more persuasive? To make his points more swiftly to a jury that doesn’t listen anymore since email and texting? To keep within the parameters of trial law and also make him not be so defensive, so obstructive, so self-aggrandizing? So I’m all involved in analyzing why he does what he does and finding ways to reach into that place and turn him in a new direction with new understanding – something I’ve done many times before, an always demanding, consuming process.
Yet my other mind – the acting one, the use-your-heart-and-soul one – is inner directed. Totally involved in my becoming another character. In my being what I want my witness to be – credible, clear, persuasive- reaching out to my audience to make them experience and identify with the woman I’m playing. To understand her, agonize with her, feel her almost be her. This work is so internal and self-focused while the other is so other- directed, so intent on understanding someone else and affecting his behavior—making him help his jury-audience not only get his message (which is quite technical and complex) but also like and respect him.
So—career transitions are not easy. The paths are diverse and crowded with demands and issues and striving and yes, concern about how well can I do the new while I sink back down into the comfort of the old one I know. But life is full of challenges and how lucky I am to be able to choose mine and to make the uphill climb a willing one, not one that was just thrust upon me. I’m so grateful and aware of that.
Reading Between the Lines 
Sonya: are you in a position to say “no” to offers regarding your past career? It would be mighty liberating if you could and wanted to…
Sonya, you are certainly a spectacular lady with an indomitable spirit and the energy to pull off anything you attempt. I am in awe of your reported accomplishments. I thank you for keeping your fans updated on all that is occurring in your life. Sorry not to be in your region of the country so that I might have opportunity to see one or another of your shows. I know they would be great, in the way that only you can make them.