Page 87 - APAP - Inside Arts - Conference 2020

“Eustress is the ability to tackle challenges and see them on the way toward what you want to achieve.”
Q:In the arts, we all work long hours. How can we
avoid this sense of overwork or burnout?
A: Burnout and long hours are often a sign that
people are doing things for all the wrong reasons. What I mean by that is if you’re really inspired and you’re really on-purpose
and you’ve really planned things strategically, we often are just loving what we’re doing and time flies by and we don’t really feel tired. But if we’re doing things that we don’t like doing or that make us feel bad about ourselves or we’re doing stuff that is just going to pay the rent, we often have burnout. It’s not that black and white, but that’s the range
of it. Most people are terrified of having an empty schedule. I can’t tell you how many times someone has said, “Oh my God, I have nothing in June,” and they freak out, instead of saying, “What would I love to create in June?” They fill their schedule because they are terrified of emptiness, instead of actually intentionally having a strategic plan of the kind of work they’d love to do.
Q:What is some advice that you would give someone,
regardless of profession, about how to live well?
A: Forcing the time to get clear on what is really
important to you. The thing about inspiration that’s so
Ahead of the health and wellness sessions Fonteneau
will host at the APAP|NYC conference, Inside Arts caught up with her to learn the basics of her industry. An edited version of the conversation follows.
Q:What’s unique about health and wellness in
the arts?
A: The biggest obstacle for people in the arts is
that their sense of self becomes so entwined in the art form – especially people who start at
a very young age. They quickly lose a sense of who they are independent of their art form, and that leads to so many challenges psychologically. And because we’re not trained from a young age to think
for ourselves, we’re not really
taught how to take care of ourselves, how to negotiate a
fee, how to set boundaries, how to negotiate a contract, how
to pay attention to pain. Part
B is that there’s a completely unrealistic expectation of what
a career is going to look like
and how to go about creating that. I look at our industry and
I think we are un-empowered
in almost every area of life,
and yet we’re these incredible, talented, creative people. We’re not taught how to utilize that to build a fulfilling and sustainable career, so it leads to all kinds of issues like depression, anxiety, self-medication, suicidality, eating disorders, addiction, overworking, burnout, injury, you name it.
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