Shortly after I graduated from university, I moved from Wisconsin to intern for a well-known journalist in Los Angeles. Eager, I was infatuated with the opportunity and the career of this journalist.
The day post-arrival was my first social outing: A cruise on the yacht of a fast-talking yet clumsy New Yorker—my new boss, who had not yet spoken to me.
Also on the yacht, along with his main assistant (who swung dramatically from tidy and together to psych unit patient), were friends and colleagues.
My boss sat at the helm blasting trivia that only he knew the answers to, and a woman asked me what shade my hair color was.
She exclaimed to my confused response, which was brunette, that it could not be natural, and she never asked for my name or offered a handshake.
The confusion on my end continued, along with amusement and shock. In the first months, a coworker whom I had only just met took her pointer finger and poked my breasts. She was "just checking."
Like the other woman, she was not interested in where I came from, or what I did, or why I was there. Or, like I hoped when I met anyone new, a friendship?
Girls looked me up and down more than any man in Los Angeles. Well, except that stalker, who liked to knock on my door at 3 a.m., even though I never answered.
And perhaps that producer who shoved my head into his crotch after a party, "for the ride," he pressed.
Then there was the posturing of ideas when the boss was around. Even if those ideas were stolen and originally mine.
Legitimate assignments were elusive, and instead I was packing luggage, picking up dry cleaning and mail, recording appearances, scheduling cleanings, and chauffeuring to colonoscopy appointments.
Email communication from the boss was in ALL CAPS. Verbal communication was shouting: "You're replaceable." Except I was not replaced. "You don't know anything." Except I was not learning anything. "You are worthless."
It was some sort of hazing, and I did not know I was participating. The movie The Devil Wears Prada provides a frame of reference. However, because it is a Hollywood movie, the abuse is glamorized.
I admit, I did catch a flight home as often as I could, even for short weekends. Friends and family knew it was challenging, except I was an inmate where only my untrustworthy coworkers could relate.
I was deflated, (besides the verbally abusive boss, in the span of one month my boyfriend broke up with me, I had to evacuate my apartment and I was in a car accident), yet I kept going back.
Yes, I kept going back. Back where movies and television shows are colosseums of violence, destruction, and weapons, yet the actors and celebrities demand gun control and peace. Where show hosts are under the influence of drugs while filming.
A place where bumping into celebrities lacked any climax as they stood there waiting for anyone to swoon, melt, or cry. Where casting contestants for shows meant I was paid to judge people (yes, I was in casting).
Back to a place that harbors millions of images, messages, and ideas, and subsequently, your thoughts, your topics of conversation, your reality.
In most life experiences, there are negative and positive aspects. In fact, per the law of polarity: Every negative has something good and vice versa.
I remained detached from both while relying on my own center and light. This approach is not new or a Hollywood secret. It is me. It is you.
When others stared at me, checked my breasts, stole my idea, or ignored my mind, I did not focus on them or the action.
If I give power to what others think of me, to what they do to me, or what mass messages are bombarding me, then I am giving away my supremacy, and the potential to become jaded or numb creeps in without permission.
Remaining connected to myself and my higher self was the only thing that kept me. If you aren't working in Hollywood, it is more important, as you are their prey, and prey is susceptible to be influenced (usually killed) unknowingly.
Power and purpose are self. Yet in every movie, show, storyline, headline, viral video, tweet, and comment, we are handing that power over.
We are attacked with over 700,000 toxins daily, per San Antonio Neuropathy Center. The consumption of media is not just one toxin, but thousands. Claim yourself, and avoid not only becoming jaded, but also being poisoned.
Lisabeth Lange is a writer and editor. The Luminescence Manual is her first novel.
All views expressed are the author's own.
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