About Me, Sam.

In 2016 I found myself with horrible cystic acne, a thyroid imbalance, no menstrual cycle, unexplained weight gain, horrible digestive issues, depression, and severe anxiety. I was living in New York City working in finance on the trading floor sticking out like a sore thumb; as I was a born and raised California girl with a deeply sensitive emotional and physical body. I will never forget running from doctor to doctor after work trying to figure out what was “wrong” with me; endocrinologists, therapists, gynecologists, dermatologists, hypnotherapists, you name it. No one could put a finger on what was causing me all this emotional and physical pain. I tried every diet, every work-out and nothing was working as the bandaid to my emotional and physical pain. Everything in my “don’t ever quit” attitude wasn’t letting me leave my job - I loved my co-workers and there was something “sexy” about making money as a 23 year old female. I didn’t need a man to pay for my dinners, I didn’t need my parents to pay for my lifestyle and could finally free myself from the “rich-kid” who gets everything handed to them stereotype. I was working HARD for my money and my lifestyle of going to the Hamptons for the weekend and paying for all my flights home to LA. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until my mom got diagnosed with cancer was I shook into this urgent need to figure out that what I was doing was not “me”. As cliche as it sounds, the motto “you only live once” became my daily mantra.

This was the beginning of the end for me… I signed up for acting classes, painfully left my job, left my life in that world, and ran like the wind back home to California. I look back at that time right when I got home and something huge spiritually was happening. I started having these out-of-body experiences while I was napping where I would see myself dead on my bed. Now looking back to it, I know it was Spirit showing me that an old part of me was dead and I was embarking on a completely new journey - and I knew I couldn’t just drown in the sorrows of being a quitting, jobless, acne filled, depressed human being. That’s when I applied to a 6-week acting program at the William Esper Studio back in New York City. I was going to see if I could pursue my childhood dream of acting in the city that just spit me out to dry. I quickly got overwhelmed with what everyone was going to think about me, “wait, Sam’s going to acting school? Oh she must be going through some mid-20s life crisis.” Or “Haha! Acting?! Wtf. Working must have been too hard for her.” Every negative thing was going through my mind, but there was this ruthless fire inside me to do it that I literally couldn’t control. I felt like I jumped on a train and it was too late to get off. 

A week into the acting program my Grandma, Elizabeth Hirschmann, passed away. In the ambulance from the hospital to her hospice room, I was holding her hand knowing this was going to be my last moment with my Grandma alone. We were driving up this massive hill when she faintly opened her eyes and said “Samantha, follow your dreams” and then went back to closing her eyes. Even recounting this memory makes me cry, not out of sadness, but out of pure electricity of her soul running through my body. At that time I needed those words to get me through the transition of a former athlete- finance woman to a daydreaming actress. My Grandma is now one of my most present angels who guides me in my life whether it be in acting or healing work. She was truly a mystic that taught me a lot about faith, God, Spirit, and Grace.

I give that part of my story the most detail because it is what really got to me where I am. After the 6-week program I went on to complete a professional 2-Year Meisner Technique acting program. The William Esper Studio, my acting teachers, and my acting family taught me everything about my emotional world - what things mean to me, what I hate, what I love, what makes me cry, what makes me angry, what makes me want to fix a broken glass in 10 minutes (Meisner people will know what I mean by that:). It taught me the vast vast vast layers of the human experience. I had never felt so in my skin. Now looking back it was my first introduction to getting to know the tip of the iceberg of my soul’s essence. I was finally having a relationship with my body and finding all the gems of my soul hidden under the layers and layers of censorship that were there.