Everyone please welcome my long-time friend and fellow musical theatre actor and entrepreneur, Stacy Keele, to A Broadway Body: Continued Conversations! Stacy is not only an actor, she’s also a certified Human Design reader + Neuro-linguistic Programming coach helping chronically-ill entrepreneurs build body-led businesses their way, so they can show up in business authentically and avoid burnout.

In our conversation, we discuss how the hustle and grind of pursuing a professional musical theatre career in NYC left Stacy sick and struggling, but also ultimately brought her to her work today. Stacy dives into how Human Design can bring us back into our bodies and help us better relate to the ways we are meant to move in the world. She also ties all of this into how she functions herself (and helps spoonie-preneurs function) best as women in business in chronically-ill bodies. Stacy is a true light, and I cannot wait for you to hear our conversation!

“If you’re a chronically-ill actor, or you’re on the verge, or you feel like you’re going that way, please, please, please take a step back and say, “How am I navigating life? Because theater’s hard. It’s hard emotionally. It’s hard mentally. It’s hard physically. Eight shows a week if you’re on Broadway is hard fricking work. So we have to take care of ourselves in every capacity to be well enough to perform, which is a luxury and a privilege in itself. And so, when we can align with our design, it just helps make all of that so much easier to do.”

– Stacy Keele

Stacy Keele: So, hello, my name is Stacy Keele, also known as the Spoonie CEO Advisor. So I am currently helping spoonie-preneurs with chronic conditions, so chronically-ill entrepreneurs. I help guide them to reclaim their rest, rhythm, and revenue using Human Design. And Human Design is a map of your energetic DNA rooted in ancient wisdom and science. So it’s this cool crossroads of science and woo. It is a tool. It’s not a belief system, so you don’t have to subscribe to any school of thought or religion to learn and experiment with your design. But it’s a tool to really help us tap into who we were designed to be energetically in this world, which I think fits in a lot with our stories and A Broadway Body.

Megan Gill: Absolutely and just honoring your body and all of that good stuff.

Stacy Keele: Yeah, and it’s been a wild, wild journey for me in these last 15 years from when we graduated from college, from the musical theater program, and after that I moved to New York City, and I lived there for a decade. And I worked my little butt off hustling, hustling, hustling, working eight jobs at a time. I found myself working at Ellen’s Stardust Diner for about seven years, which was wonderful and beautiful, and also brutal as hell. Trying to balance all of these parts of being an actor and running your own business, which is really what being an actor is, I think if I could go back and do it over, I would definitely have that mindset a little bit more instead of just trying to fit into all of these boxes that we think we have to fit into and that we have to shrink ourselves into. I worked myself into the ground trying to make all of this work, and I had success in New York. You know, I did. I got my equity card. I did a children’s tour. And then COVID hit, and we located back down to Austin, Texas, which is where I am now.

But throughout all of that, trying to fit into boxes, trying to make the New York Life work, trying to make me fit into the New York life (is how I will say it) really led me to some chronic illness issues, and I got diagnosed with my first chronic illness – because we start to collect them like little puzzle pieces – was Hashimoto’s, so a thyroid autoimmune. And I really came to that discovery when I was nannying (one of my million jobs in New York), and I found that I couldn’t walk like five blocks without having to sit down. And I was like, “This is wild. What is going on here?” And so, I tried to find the answers, all the doctors. I finally ended up getting diagnosed with an autoimmune. And then quickly after that, I was diagnosed with Endometriosis and then Adenomyosis and then Psoriasis, and they just started happening to me.

And looking back, now knowing my Human Design, my energetic DNA, I realized that I was operating completely in opposition to how I’m designed. And I found that that was the biggest missing piece to what was going on. And now that I know in Human Design, I am an energy type that is a non-sacral, which means we don’t have as much doer energy as the rest of the energy types. And how going back to college, going back to early New York days, I would do it a hundred percent differently. I would honor my energetic DNA. I would show up authentically. Looking back, I think of all the ways that I tried to change myself in order to be what casting wanted, what our school wanted, what we were told would book. And now I’m like, what a whole other life ago, you know? Instead of just showing up in the room and saying, “This is me.” I would wake up every day and I would straighten my hair and then I would wave it, and I have naturally curly hair. Like what?

Megan Gill: Oh, yep.

Stacy Keele: Like, what? What was I doing? You know, I was spending so much energy and brain capacity focusing on the foods I was eating and how to lose weight and how to, you know, ultimately ended up in all of those, you know, eating-disorder cycles because I just believed that I had to “fix myself” to book work, to be a successful actor, to succeed in any sort of way, shape, or form in this lifetime. And now I know that that is absolutely untrue and that could I have gone back and shown up authentically, I probably would’ve been more successful.

Megan Gill: And my story is similar, unfortunately, and I think for a lot of us, we try to shrink ourselves to fit into these boxes, specifically as actors looking to book work. Hearing you speak on all of that, I can’t help but think, wow, if you and I were able to go back to our time in college now, knowing what we know now, obviously learning we’ve learned and experiencing what we’ve experienced and coming into ourselves and our bodies now, I think that, at least speaking for myself, I would’ve been so much more confident onstage, so much more confident in class, so much more confident in my art. I would’ve been able to perform more authentically. And I think it would’ve made me a stronger actor –

Stacy Keele: And person.

Megan Gill: Oh my god. Yes, absolutely. And then not to mention the fact that we were wasting so much brain power and time and energy on trying to “fix ourselves” to be this thing that our professors, the casting directors, the industry, the agents wanted us to “br,” at least what we thought in our heads. I’m like, wow, I could have taken all of that and energy and put it into becoming a better actor.

Now, I’m obsessed with television. In college and thereafter, up until the pandemic, I didn’t watch tv. And now it’s interesting because I’m making movies now, so it makes a little bit more sense that I’m really obsessed with TV. But wow, I just spend time watching the art and I’m just so grateful to have been, as one of my recent guests and friends Amy said, removed from the matrix. I removed myself from that way of life and that way of thinking. And now I’m able to actually do the things that I wanna do and that I love and put time and energy into watching art and making art instead of thinking, “What am I going to eat tonight? Oh no, I need to go work out X amount today because of XYZ,” and all of the bullshit that we

unfortunately were succumbed to.”

Stacy Keele: Yeah, I think what it really comes down to is we were so focused on the how, “How are we going to make this work? How are we going to be cast? How are we going to, you know, be successful and be what everyone wants,” that we lost track of the why. Why are we doing this, you know? It’s like for you now, you’re creating such beautiful, creative, important mission-based work that back then was not even on the radar because we were spending so much time worrying about, you know, how we looked and how we were perceived and if we could be the right type. And now it’s just focused on the art in the mission, which is really the why. Why is so important

Megan Gill: Yeah, absolutely. And it’s also interesting that we’ve both kind of diverted from the traditional musical theater actor trajectory. And I think that says a lot about where we’ve come as people as well as far as relating to ourselves and our bodies and honoring our energies. And it is a hustle,nand it is a hustle that I at least realized I was no longer willing to take part in, and also for me and the way that I energetically move in the world, it didn’t work for my lifestyle anymore. And I mean, I’m very grateful that it didn’t lead me to a chronic illness. I’m very, very grateful. But still, I was burnt out. I wasn’t able to do the life things I wanted to. I was struggling for money. I was not stable, not happy in that grind. And even here in LA it’s like there are things that I just say no to because I’m like, “Nope,” you know. I kind of like just being home. I don’t really wanna travel and work unless it’s for something that I really care about.

So I really appreciate you bringing that part of it up as well. And I’m curious to know a little bit more about how honoring that energy has led you – how your life is now versus when you were in the hustle of New York and, and the grind and the go, go go and this and that. I’m just curious to hear you speak on that.

Stacy Keele: Yeah, absolutely. It’s completely different, like wildly, wildly different. And again, you know, I’ve said it already a couple times on this call, but you know, going back, I would just do things completely differently. I was throwing spaghetti against the wall being like, “Will this work? Will they like me here? Can I lose ten more pounds and be cast in this? Am I the right type?” And now is why I serve spoonie-preneurs. I don’t know if we know what Spoon Theory is, if I can educate on that is for people listening being like, “What the fuck is Spoon Theroy?”

So Spoon Theory – and I apologize, because I cannot remember who coined this term [Christine Miserandino]. I should go look it up and we can amend. But spoon theory is a way for able-bodied, typically healthy people to understand the dilemmas and challenges and obstacles of living in a chronically-ill body. And they use it through the form of energetic expenditure in the form of spoons. So it’s waking up one day and saying, “How many spoons do I have today to use?” Most people with chronic illness are dynamically disabled, which means one day they can’t get outta bed and then the next they feel pretty good and they can go to the mall. Oh my gosh, who goes to the mall these days? Did I just give away my age? Who goes to the mall? Hilarious. They can go to the farmer’s market, we’ll use that, right?

Megan Gill: Very Austin/LA of you, yep.

Stacy Keele: But they have more energy to wake up, to get ready, to go socialize, to go someplace, right? They have more spoons to give out that day, and then when they wake up on a “bad day,” you know, showering is all they have room for. And , that’ll take all your spoons, right? You wake up and you say, “I have five spoons today, and I spent three of them taking a shower.” So now we have to be more mindful of how we spend those last two spoons.

So when I say spoonie-preneur, that just means a chronically-ill entrepreneur, and I find that most chronically-ill entrepreneurs find themselves in self-employment because they can’t sustain working for other people in dynamically-disabled bodies. And so, it’s this stuck between a rock and a hard place because you can’t work for somebody else because you keep flaring in your illness. And so, then you remove yourself from that environment and then you start working for yourself, and then you start looking up strategies of how to build a business.

Thinking back to being an actor and running my own business, it’s like what strategies was I using? Strategies that didn’t work for me that were like, “Oh, you know, dye your hair blonde or red, or be different, stand out. Don’t wear your glasses in your headshots, or XYZ.” I never wore these in any headshots. And I’m like, curly hair and glasses? That’s iconically me. And I was so far away from that back in my New York days, right? But I find that for spoonie-preneurs, you know, you go work for yourself, you try to build your own business, and you’re still flaring because you’re taking advice from able-bodied biz bros who have these strategies that are like, “Just make it work. Just wake up and do it.” And it’s like you cannot do that if you are trying to create more time freedom and capacity to take care of yourself if you’re working 80 hours a week. And so, then you’re just like how do I make this work, and I find that the key piece lies in your energetic DNA, and it’s how to create these actionable strategies that actually work for you instead of trying to, again, fit yourself into a box that you have no business being in.

So for me, I’m a projector in Human Design. In Human Design, there are five energy types. There are generators who are doers, manifesting generators like you, who are our divine multitaskers, who are here to do multiple things in their life, those little butterflies that taste the flour over here and say, “Oh, I love this, and then now I’m done and let me go to the next flower.” We have reflectors who make up 1% of the population who have completely open energy that reflect and evaluate the environments and the people they’re around. And we have manifesters who are the initiators, and we’re all taught to be initiators no matter what we’re doing. Capitalism, thank you. If you wanna go get it, make it happen. Do it yourself. Be that captain of the ship, right? But that’s only energetically correct for one energy type in Human Design, and that’s the manifester. And then I am a projector. We make up 20% of the population. We are not doers; we are seers, we are guides. We’re here to help make other people’s energy more efficient. So it’s less about the doing and it’s more about the seeing. We can see further down the timeline for ourselves and other energy types to say, “Oh, what a beautiful mission. What about this thing that you’re gonna hit in two years, two weeks, two days that might cause some issues,” right? And so I was operating like a generator. I was like, go, go, go, do, do, do all the time, because that’s what our society tells us is valuable, is productive.

Megan Gill: That’s also what the land of pursuing a professional musical theater career leads you to innately do. Because without the going to get and the doing and the showing up to the EPA and the ECC and whatever, you’re not gonna book, you’re never gonna get the work. I just wanted to point that out too.

Stacy Keele: Yeah, they teach us it’s a numbers game, and in Human Design it is anything but a numbers game. It’s checking in with your aura saying, “Do I belong here? Is this what I actually want to be doing? Is this worth my time and energy and capacity, right? Instead of being mindful and intentional, we’re told to just like go to all the open calls, and then you wake up at 5:00 AM and you’re exhausted by the time it’s 10:00 AM and you get a number and it’s just like, it doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work. And then we start creating all those narratives about ourselves. “Well, I’m just lazy. Well, I’m not good enough. Well, maybe if I just…”

Megan Gill: “Well, why can she do it, and I can’t?”

Stacy Keele: Yeah, that comparison game, which gets you absolutely nowhere. You know, “Maybe if I just lost 20 more pounds, I could make it work,” right? Instead of, “How about I take a step back and look at my energetic DNA, my Human Design, and say, “Where am I not living in alignment, and how can I shift more into that to create more time freedom, more health,” and time to take care of our bodies and be intentional and mindful and go at it from a very strategic point instead of just showing up to everything, including the things that you’re not right for.

How many times have we heard from mentors, teachers, professors of, “Even if you’re not right for it, go. Just go. Have them see you.” No, stop telling people that.

Megan Gill: God, I so agree. And I do think that like our industry, specifically, is shifting. The performance industry is like, “Do not show up for that dance call for fucking whatever, Hamilton, if you’re not right. You know, or just read the room, be smart, don’t show up for everything. Be discerning.

Stacy Keele: Yeah. Don’t go to the Book of Mormon call. They don’t wanna see you.

Megan Gill: Yeah, exactly, and I love that you are speaking about all of this and bringing this to the table today, because something for me that has really shifted the way that I’m living and moving in the world is last year my word of the year was “ease,” because I realized, much like you that I don’t operate well when I’m go, go, go, packing my days, doing this and that and running around. I am a ball of stress. I’m a ball of anxiety. I am not well mentally and physically because of it. And I really made the conscious effort to find more ease in my life, not make my life easier, right? But find where I am in this space moving with just a general air of ease, and it truly has changed my life. Granted, we can’t achieve that ease every single day. Right. It ebbs and it flows.

Stacy Keele: It’s the human experience, yeah.

Megan Gill: Exactly. But I think it’s so, so, so important that you are doing what you do and that you are helping spoonie-preneurs see, “I have this much capacity. I operate in this way, and that is okay. I don’t have to look at my friend over here who is going, going, going every single moment of every single day, always doing, and feel bad about myself and feel bad about my choices to move at a slower pace because that works for me,” and when I honor what works for me, just like with the acting stuff, when you honor what’s truly Stacy (the glasses, the curly hair) you show up from an authentic, confident place. And isn’t that the beauty of being a human being in the first place?

Stacy Keele: Yeah, absolutely. And I love the word ease. And in Human Design, a lot of that is activating your flow state, is activating those moments where you are, as the manifesting generator, attracting. You’re responding. You’re not initiating, you’re not chasing. You’re leaning into the things that you love. You’re overflowing this beautiful sparkle in your aura, and you are magnetizing the right opportunities and people and collaborations and projects to you to then respond to, and it’s so much easier to live your life from that point of view, from that way. And you’re right, the human experience is full of ups and downs. It’s ebbs and flows. It’s peaks and valleys, and just because we learn our Human Design or just because we learn our astrology or just because we learn brain science, right – I also have my life coaching cert in neurolinguistic programming, which is so beneficial in tandem with Human Design, because we create new neural pathways to help support these shifts we’re moving into energetically instead of being like, “Eh, I don’t know, nothing’s working. I don’t know, I guess I’m gonna trust it.” But our brains need that evidence to help activate that flow state and say, “Oh, I do belong here, and it is possible, and things are easier, and I do make more money when I’m in flow.” And just because we learn these things, you know, it doesn’t mean that life is going to be perfect. There’s no such thing as perfect, but it helps us navigate it better. It helps us stay regulated instead of that reactivity that is so easy when we do wake up at 5:00 AM to go to the open call and put our name on the unofficial list.

To be fair, like I haven’t been in New York for almost five years now, which time is freaking flying. So, you know, I imagine they still have unofficial lists. I imagine people are still waking up or rolling out of bed at midnight to be first on our list to see if they honor it, which is wild. But it helps us see how dysregulated are we in those moments of having hundreds of hundreds of people around us warming up, putting on their makeup, curling their hair, also trying to fit into a box they think that casting wants instead of just – nobody wants that.

I remember my very first audition in New York, I didn’t know how it worked, right? Which is a whole other story of like, why aren’t we taught that in college of how do auditions actually work in New York or LA or Chicago, these different markets. We’re just not taught that. We’re thrown to the wolves saying, “Good luck. Figure it out,” you know? And so, I remember I got there, and I was not ready at all. And I had all my stuff and there was nowhere to sit. And it was raining. Oh God, it was raining. I looked like a wet rat, and all of these girls take off their hoods and they’re in perfect condition at 7:00 AM. And I was like, “Oh, is that how we’re supposed to do it?” And that’s such a good metaphor for all of this, you know? “Is this how I should be doing it? Is this how it’s done? How do I do it?” And having these resources and tools and knowledge helps when those moments come when we do feel dysregulated, when we do feel not enough, when we are not in flow state to help activate these strategies to then find our way back into it so much easier and with grace and compassion through love instead of hate.

And that’s a really big thing that I’ve learned in these last 15 years, is that you can’t change anything from a place of hate. You can only shift from a place of love. And I think that in this industry, we’re taught to hate ourselves every step of the way. “You’re not pretty enough. You’re not the right look. You’re not small enough. Shrink yourself. That’s the wrong song. That’s a bad monologue.” You know, “Who do you think you are? An ingenue? You’re a character actor, but that’s not right.” You know, “How can we make your voice type match your physical type,” instead of just saying, “This is me, this is what I bring, this is my magic. Put it on stage or don’t.”

Megan Gill: That’s the magic, right? When we can show up as our true, genuine selves and authentically sing what we want to sing, what feels good to us, and wear what we want to wear, what feels good to us, not the jewel-toned dress with –

Stacy Keele: I was gonna say that!

Megan Gill: – heels that I’m toppling over in with crazy makeup on. It’s such a game changer, and I think that, for me, in the last couple of years since getting in touch with the work that I really want to do in the world and really owning myself and showing up as myself and doing all of the work that I have taken a lot of time to do with myself, I think it’s just changed the way that I show up in the world so much. My confidence is so much higher than it was ten years ago when I had just graduated college and I had went to pursue this career in Chicago. I look back and I’m just like, “Wow. Like no wonder I didn’t –,” I mean, I’m grateful for, like you said, the work that I did have.

Stacy Keele: Of course.

Megan Gill: And I’m like, oh, well I just, I can’t help but imagine how much more work I could have done or what other opportunities I could have had if I was living more in alignment with how I am supposed to show up in the world and if I was able to like my voice confidently and share my art confidently instead of feeling like I had to hide myself and hide all of these things that I didn’t want other people to see.

Stacy Keele: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. It’s so sad.

Megan Gill: It really is.

Stacy Keele: And not just, you know, how we show up in the room, but also the networking part of it too. When I was in New York, I hated to see a networking event coming. I was like it couldn’t be me. I don’t want to talk to these people. I don’t want to do this. And now networking is my bread and butter in my business and I love it because it’s genuine, it’s authentic, it’s those connections. In my Human Design, I do have the channel of the salesperson, which is about being able to sell myself, sell my business, sell my services, sell what I love and feel really passionate about because it’s coming from a soul place and not an ego place. I’m not trying to scam people. I’m not trying to say, “You need this because…,” you know, those pain points. I hate pain point marketing. It just feels so icky to me, and it’s about rising together. If I had that mindset back in New York with networking, oh my gosh, it could have been so different. In the industry it’s all about who you know, and it always used to feel so sleazy to me. But I mean, it’s, it’s true. If you’re a good person and you do good work and you show up authentically, people want to work with you. But I had such a mindset of, “’m not a car salesman. I am not gonna go to these events and lie about myself and say I’m a Ferrari when I’m a lemon,” you know, not that I’m a lemon.

Megan Gill: No, absolutely not!

Stacy Keele: But in the grand scheme of things, the habits we have, the networking we do, the way we view ourselves, the way we’ve been taught to view ourselves in the deconditioning and deprogramming – you mentioned unplugging from the matrix, how we’re designed to hate ourselves and view ourselves, especially as women, because that’s where our power lies and they want to take that away and they want us to be small, because what happens if we’re expansive? What happens if we show up authentically? What happens if we take up space in the room, you know? Which is why like I do focus on working with spoonie-preneurs and spiritual service providers, but also I would absolutely freaking die to work with actors who are still doing the thing in New York and Chicago in LA and saying, “Hey, don’t become chronically-ill like me. Learn the lessons,” or if you are chronically-ill, don’t keep pushing those patterns and narratives. Let’s take a breath, because you can have wealth as well as health.” It’s not one or the other, and it doesn’t have to be. It’s just about how we get there and how we set up our lives and our businesses and how we navigate the world that matters. And when we do it according to our energetic DNA, it’s like a sunroof opens and suddenly the beautiful rays are just shining right upon us. Instead of trying to dodge and find it. “Where’s the spotlight? I can change to fit into it.” No bitch, just be you and let the sun shine upon you.

Megan Gill: Yeah, and I really do believe that it functions that way, and I feel like I’ve seen proof with myself and my story that it functions that way.

Okay, I have a question for you. As someone who has found themselves so aligned with their work and so passionate about the work that you’re doing now, that’s very different from pursuing the career of a professional actor, do you think that – knowing everything you know now and who you are now, do you think that had you had these tools and known these things about yourself, hypothetically, when you were going to New York to pursue this career, that it would’ve completely shifted your relationship to music theater and to pursuing a professional career in that work?

Stacy Keele: I think I’m where I am now because of the struggles I went through in college and in my early days in New York, and there’s a whole other part of my story even before I got to Wichita. When I was at – I’ll say it, I was at Oklahoma City University and boy that did a number on me.

Megan Gill: I forgot about this.

Stacy Keele: Yes. That was like – I stayed two years. I stayed a year too long. I transferred to Wichita my junior year, which was the boldest, bravest, best decision I ever made for myself because Wichita, you know, as – I don’t even wanna say harmful, but as maybe outdated or – we’re all doing the best we can with what we know. And I do believe that all of our professors there did the best that they could with nurturing us and trying to set us up for success. They were five million percent better than Oklahoma City.

From the minute I stepped foot on Oklahoma City’s grounds, I was like, “Wow, this doesn’t feel good. This isn’t right for me.” I didn’t get into their musical theater program. I got into their music program and I was like, “Great, I’ll get to know the staff and the people and then re-audition for music theater and get in,” because that’s what I was told could happen. And I never worked with any of the faculty there. It was all adjunct. They never even let me talk to anyone who was in the music theater professor, instructor world. I rushed when I didn’t want to rush because my sisters were like, “It’s the best thing!” because they were big sorority people, and I was not. And so, I let them convince me and then I fell through the cracks. And so, I didn’t get into any houses there. I remember calling my parents being like, “Nobody wants me. I feel so unwanted. I feel so unrecognized. This is insane.” I stayed two years. I should have stayed a semester maybe. But then I found myself in Wichita.

But Wichita is where I really did a lot of deconstructing of the harm that was done to me at OCU. It was just like a completely different world, but I am who I am now because of all of that, because of those struggles, because of the processing and the integration in the healing and the deprogramming that I’ve had to do. And because of that, that’s how I got into NLP. That’s how I got into astrology and Human Design and channeling and being the witchy entrepreneur that I am now. So I have to give props to younger me for surviving all of that and choosing healing. Good for me, good for me, younger, me. I love you. You’re the best.

But also knowing what I know now, if I could go back, it would be a hundred percent different, like totally different. When I think about my time working at Ellen’s Stardust Diner, which was in Times Square, it was the singing diner, you know, I would work doubles there. I would work doubles into opening shifts. And a double at Ellen’s Stardust Diner, I would work opening to closing doubles, which would be get there at 7:00 AM, leave at 1:00 AM, be back at 8:00 AM. And I made so much money. I was rolling in it, you know? But that’s what made me sick. That’s what contributed to my illness because I didn’t know any better. I thought, “This is how it’s done. This is how you make money. This is how you support yourself.” But then you’re so burnt out from working that even going to the auditions is hard.

Megan Gill: Yeah.

Stacy Keele: And so, I would do things wildly different, and I do believe I would be much more successful. And in my own chronic illness, I did have a hysterectomy last year to cure my Adenomyosis. So Adenomyosis is when it lives in the uterus. They’re a different pathology but Endometriosis is outside of the uterus. And so, there’s no cure for Endo, but there is for Adeno. So I decided to have a hysterectomy, which has been revolutionary for my energy and capacity and pain. I was in debilitating pain 24/7.

And so, just now, recently, I’ve been wanting to get back into the theater scene here in Austin. And so, I’m thinking about using all of these tools that I now have that I give to my clients, that I give to the actors that I do talk to who are still doing the game, you know, I would take all of that and will hopefully create success in that arena as well, here in Austin, when I decide – when I find a show that I want to audition for, when my energy says, “This one,” right? Again, it’s not a numbers game. I’m not gonna go to every theater here and be like, “Well, I guess I’ll just try.” No, that’s not how we do it. So, yes and for that question.

Megan Gill: I had a feeling that was gonna be your answer, but I had to ask. And I also have to think of course all of that adversity, if you will, and all of that trauma that you had experienced in your past led you here. And I just commend you for taking that and wanting to help others and wanting to help others do it differently and show people that there is another way. I think that’s so, so, so, so important and I feel very aligned with that in my mission as well. It’s like, well, if we went through all of this stuff, we have a hand in helping more people not experience and see that there’s another way and see that if you are living in alignment with yourself as an actor, for instance, and you’re only showing up to the auditions that really speak to you, that that’s when the magic happens and that’s when you’re gonna end up booking, because it means something to you and because it feels right to you and because your heart’s actually in it. I just think that that is really, really, really important. And obviously life is so long, knock on wood, right?

Stacy Keele: So long, too long. Just kidding.

Megan Gill: So the fact that like you’re getting back into the theater is amazing, and there’s so much time to do it all, you know?

Stacy Keele: Yeah. It’s so funny, I was talking to my friend Dustin, who also lived in New York and did the theater thing and how we’re getting older now. I’m 38, and he just turned 40, and we were talking about how we’ll still – I was just listening to Rock of Ages, which is one of my silly guilty pleasure musicals. I love it. But how we’ll still listen to cast albums and how we have to change our point of view of who we would be. I was listening to Dear Evan Hansen the other day and I was like, “You would be the mom. You would be a mom character now,” which is also so crazy to be like, “Where am I at now in life? What am I auditioning for now in life? What energy do I bring now in life?” It made me laugh that I was like, “Yeah, you would not play Evan Hanson. You would play the dad.” He was like, “Yep.”

Megan Gill: Yeah. But also I think that in and of itself can have a lot that comes up for us as far as body stuff goes. And as far as like, “Okay, let me honor who I am now as I’m aging in this industry,” and some people I think, have a hard time with that and really try to fight it. But again, I just believe that the alignment happens when we just trust in what is meant for us and what feels good to us. Aging is obviously this big, scary thing, no matter how much we wanna say, “Oh, I’m fine with it. I’m excited to get older.” It’s still scary. And I think it’s just framed differently for actors when you’re now thinking like, “Oh yeah, I would be the mom.” I’m 33 at the age where I’m auditioning for mom a lot, especially being very Midwestern. It’s like, yeah, I’m giving mom, and that’s kind of weird because also I’m not a mom, and I don’t even have a partner, and all of that stuff that comes up with it too, which again, I think just ties back to body also, you know?

Stacy Keele: Yeah. But Human Design has a hundred percent – I will not say it is the reason I’ve done all this healing, because it’s not, I have to give myself credit for, you know, finding this path before I found Human Design. But it has been such a supportive tool of helping me understand who I need to be in a designed to be in this world and understanding how to age gracefully and how to deconstruct and unplug from this programming of, “Well, you’re 33. Where’s your husband and your wife, your kids, your white picket fence. Where’s that?” And collectively – you know, Pluto’s an Aquarius now. This is the age of Aquarius. We’re moving towards that more divine feminine leadership, which is about intention and mindfulness and less about the masculine action-packed, “Just do it. Go for it. Show up to every call and make it happen.” Like, no, we’re more in the receiving era. So when we can learn our design, right, we learn how to receive those opportunities more instead of trying to take that initiative to say, “Well, I’ll just lose that weight, right?” And it’s helped me so much find peace in my body, in my chronically-ill body, which is also very difficult, and honoring and being compassionate and gentle with myself on my bad days, on those dynamic-disability days where I have the migraine and I cannot open my eyes, or when I have the cramping in my legs, and I can’t walk. Sometimes people with endo need a mobility aid, a cane, and people look at you with invisible illness, and they’re like, “You don’t need that! What are you doing? You’re taking that handicap spot from someone else,” because we look fine, you know?

And also if you’re a chronically-ill actor or you’re on the verge or you feel like you’re going that way, you know, please, please, please take a step back and say, “How am I navigating life? Because theater’s hard. It’s hard emotionally. It’s hard mentally. It’s hard physically. Eight shows a week if you’re on Broadway is hard fricking work. So we have to take care of ourselves in every capacity to be well enough to perform, which is a luxury and a privilege in itself. And so, when we can align with our design, it just helps make all of that so much easier to do.

Megan Gill: Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely, you’re doing really, really, really, really, really important work.

Stacy Keele: Thank you.

Megan Gill: And I’m really glad that you have found this, and I know that it’s so important and it’s life-changing. Just pointing out another reason to not comment on people’s

bodies and to not comment on maybe the aid that they’re using. You do not know what people are going through.

Stacy Keele: Never.

Megan Gill: And you do not know what is going on in somebody’s mental, in somebody’s physical, and just do not – just don’t. Just don’t even. Why…

Stacy Keele: Just stop. Just stop. Stop doing it!

Megan Gill: Yeah, just don’t do it. Just don’t do it. Another reason to not do it because, right, especially with invisible illness, you don’t know what’s going on, or with eating disorders and body stuff. It’s so invisible. People think it’s not, but it is, and you just do not know what people are going through.

Stacy Keele: Yeah, and you think giving somebody a compliment saying, “You’ve lost weight. You look great,” is a good thing, but you, again, don’t know what somebody’s going through. Maybe they haven’t eaten in four days. Maybe they, you know, have binge-eating disorder, maybe they purge, you know, and it’s just reinforcing those patterns by saying, “You’re looking good.”

Megan Gill: Right.

Stacy Keele: You can say other things besides, you know, “Oh, you’ve lost weight,” you know? You can give other compliments. “You’re looking strong, you’re looking happy, you’re looking –,” you know?

I don’t comment on people’s bodies, but especially in the – this is a whole nother conversation – but the age of GLP-1 inhibitors and things like that, everyone do you. If that’s right for you, then I support it. But right when they had started coming out, I had some friends who were on them who were dropping significant weight, and I pulled one aside and I was like, “Listen, I don’t comment on bodies. I make it a rule to do that, but you’re my friend and I’m worried about you. Are you okay?” And she was like, “Yes, I am okay. Thank you for asking that.” And then I was like, “Great!” And then I let it lie, you know? But yeah, as a rule, just shut up. I tell my nephews that a lot. “Commenting on bodies is not kind!”

Megan Gill: Yeah, you don’t know what people are going through. Yeah.

Okay, I have a final question for you before we wrap up today. What is your favorite thing or your favorite things about your body?

Stacy Keele: Oh, wow. My favorite things about my body are what it does for me. So since I’ve moved back to Austin, I’ve gotten into pole dancing, pole fitness, it has been very challenging. I don’t know if you’ve ever tried it, but it is very hard and you have to be strong as hell to do it. And, again, dynamic disability: sometimes I go and I can’t do anything, and then other times I go and I nail the combo. And I just really love supporting my body in that giving it a pat on its back saying, “Look what you did for me today. You showed up today,” right?

So that is probably the biggest thing lately is what can my body do for me instead of what isn’t it doing for me? Especially as a spoony, as somebody who’s chronically ill, it’s easy to focus on the cans and the won’ts and the used to’s and the mourning, which I’ve done a lot of, but now I’d like to celebrate it for what it does do on its good days.

Megan Gill: Yeah, I think that’s such an important reframe, and thank you for sharing

that.

Stacy Keele: Wait, what’s yours? Can I ask you, can I turn that back on you?

Megan Gill: Sure, why not! Mine is my smile and my laugh. It’s something that, yes, a smile is physical, but my laugh is not something that you can see, and just the way that you can connect with people through a smile and through laughter and the way that it makes other people feel, and vice versa, the way that other people’s laughs make me feel just really, really special to me and something that I really value.

Stacy Keele: Yes, you do have a beautiful smile and laugh.

Megan Gill: Thanks!

Stacy Keele: I love it.

Megan Gill: Yay. Well, thank you for coming on today.

Stacy Keele: Thank you so much for having me. This was such a wonderful conversation, and I think that it’s important to keep having these conversations, these continued conversations. (See what I did there?) Because it is so important, you know, to have different points of view and to have people on to explain their relationships with how they got – with acting in their bodies and the traumas they’ve experienced (big T, little t), and the healing that is possible within that, because I hope that a lot of people who are experiencing the things that we experienced in college and and in these cities and trying to pursue theater find Continued Conversations, find A Broadway Body, find this community of, “Hey, there’s a different way,” and you don’t have to create success through hating yourself or trying to fix yourself and turn yourself into these different boxes that you can create success just by being yourself.

“They teach us it’s a numbers game, and in Human Design it is anything but a numbers game. It’s checking in with your aura saying, “Do I belong here? Is this what I actually want to be doing? Is this worth my time and energy and capacity, right? Instead of being mindful and intentional, we’re told to just like go to all the open calls, and then you wake up at 5:00 AM and you’re exhausted by the time it’s 10:00 AM and you get a number and it’s just like, it doesn’t work. It just doesn’t work. And then we start creating all those narratives about ourselves. “Well, I’m just lazy. Well, I’m not good enough. Well, maybe if I just… Maybe if I just lost 20 more pounds, I could make it work,” right? Instead of, “How about I take a step back and look at my energetic DNA, my Human Design, and say, “Where am I not living in alignment, and how can I shift more into that to create more time freedom, more health,” and time to take care of our bodies and be intentional and mindful and go at it from a very strategic point instead of just showing up to everything, including the things that you’re not right for.”

– Stacy Keele

Stacy Keele is a certified Human Design reader + Neuro-linguistic Programming coach currently located in Austin, TX. She helps guide spoonie-preneurs w/ chronic conditions to reclaim rest, rhythm, + revenue through energetic DNA, building body-led businesses their way!

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While I’m not a licensed therapist, registered dietician, or medical health professional and cannot speak to body image topics from a clinical, trauma-informed place, I am an expert of lived experience. I’m an academic of my own body, and I’m passionate about facilitating conversations with other humans about their relationships with their bodies. I believe it’s important to continue conversations about healthy body image in creative spaces as a means to heal individuals as well as the collective whole. But just know the information presented in this medium is not professional mental health advice or medical advice, and any questions or concerns you have should always be directed to your health providers.

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