if you do one esti mable act every day

…for 365 days, eventually you will have a year's worth of it in your tank. I know we live in a culture where everyone wants everything yesterday and no one wants to do any work to get it. I mean, with human growth hormones and liposuction, plastic surgery, etc, everyone looks great and feels terrible. The only way to really feel good is to go inside. I don't care if I'm only person on earth who believes this or says it. You can tell me money will make you happy, you can tell me a person will make you happy but I'm telling you NOTHING outside of yourself can bring you true contentment.

My Dad used to tell me that hard work builds character. He's right, kinda. When you work hard on something that means something to you, it builds your character. When you work hard at something that depletes you as a human being, that only makes you angry. Fact.

Everyone knows it deep inside. Everyone knows the truth. We might do things to deceive ourselves or others but deep down we all know.

Think about a time when you did something that you didn't feel good about but seconds later you were already justifying it, and you alone were not strong enough to suppress the bad feelings, so you call 5 people you tell them your version of what happened and they prop you up. It only lasts as long as the phone call and the second you hang up, the truth pushes through and you have to call someone else.

I was afraid to go inside. I was afraid that I might find something I didn't like. I did, and the difference is that I thought I would go in and find that I am innately bad, but I found the opposite. I am innately good. The bad stuff was just behaviors that I had learned to survive because I couldn't tolerate the pure love.

Pretty is as Pretty does.

Controlled chaos

That's the way I would describe how I like my art and my life. Well, maybe "controlled spontaneity" is more like it. I love to fly by the seat of my pants, but I realize that seat belts were invented for a reason. They do not restrict you while you’re driving, nor do they control the speed at which you choose to drive, but they do  protect you in case of emergency.

Boundaries are the seat belt of life. If you figure out where you end and another person begins, there can be room for everyone. That is easier said than done, especially when love is involved.

The key to it all is that boundaries are the greatest form of love and really the only way that the purest form of love can exist. Control is not love, it's aggression.

Think about a kid who is acting up. When you tell them to stop it, they may hem and haw, but inside they feel loved. They feel like you care about them and they feel like you see them.

Lots of grown ups have not officially grown up, so in reality this theory works with them too. The problem with this is someone has to be the grown up. In a world where lots of us do not feel like we got enough, it's hard to wrap our brain around.

The good news is that when you create boundaries, you are helping everyone involved. Most people don't feel worthy to set them, so when you do, they are thrilled. They think, Thank you for doing that because I can't stop myself. When you do it for a kid, you are ensuring that that kid will grow up with a little more respect for themselves and others. When you do it for an adult, you are helping the wounded kid inside of them by demanding more of them and I believe with all my heart that people will rise to the occasion.

Sometimes it's not the first boundary, but the second, or the third that finally sticks, but it will stick. Love is messy, but it can be pure. You have to exert yourself when you love. You need to put yourself out there. You need to be responsible. Baby steps and eventually you will have more to give than get :) The one with the power is the responsible one, and if you're reading this right now you have just become responsible.

Make them connect with your heart instead of your bowels because really, wouldn't you rather live in love than shit?

When I go in, I get out:)

When I go inside myself I feel safe and connected. It takes all my strength to do that some days. I have been trained that I am supposed to get my happiness from outside things. I've found that that is just an oppressive way to live. If I depend on outside things then there is never any safety.

I remember reading about a football player who made so much money just so he could build a concrete fortress. He was sexually abused when he was little and this was the only way he could feel safe. The problem with that is that it's a false sense of safety. I call it danger disguised as safety. We think these things will somehow make us not as scared, but the truth is, only love will kill the fear.

We cannot change the awful things from our past and running from them creates a bigger split inside of us. It's like we create a false self so we don't have to be that person that the bad things happened to. The problem with that is that we create is a bigger wound. Our intention is to protect it but what we really do is perpetuate it. We leave ourselves wide open to be hurt over and over again. On a deeper level we hurt ourselves because we think we are the things that were done to us.

You see when you push the bad feelings down the good ones have to go too.

The only way out of this danger is to admit that we are in it. Then — and only then — can we begin to protect ourselves.

I know I’m asking a lot. How can it be that we had bad things happen to us, and then we screwed up our lives because of these bad things, and it's all our responsibility to fix it?

It sounds like a huge job, one that you might not think you have the strength to overcome but there is hope that you are not a victim: you have strength beyond your wildest dreams.

Think about it as if you were buried alive. You would not just die, you would do anything to dig yourself out. And you would have to do it slowly too so that it all didn't cave in on you, but you would do it until you were free :)

Then when you were free you would have to be even more gentle with yourself because in a weird way the dark suffocation had been comfortable. Now you are in the light, exposed, so you must grow slowly.

Sound familiar? Life, death and rebirth = fine line

Choice

We all have it. I personally never really wanted to accept it because that would mean that once i saw that I could really do whatever I wanted I would be responsible. But that sounds really heavy. Also like I have some sort of power. That's a trick I tell myself so I don't have to feel my own powerlessness. I have figured out a way to kinda sit somewhere in the middle. I am responsible to do whatever is humanly possible to fix my insides. I have come to believe that I am made of something so beautiful and spiritual. It is my responsibly to nurture that person and maybe help people feel a little better every day. And if they are not ready to feel better it’s my responsibility to leave them alone :)

Grateful

Let's just say that I nevah evah evah thought that I could turn things back around. I had no idea. I was so down and out that I thought it would stay like that forehvah.

But then again, I must not have. I had a deep down body hope that defied nature. After all, why would I keep going? Well, it' s happening. I'm rebuilding and the coolest paht of all of it is that it's happening because I've revealed all of myself. The WTF podcast has brought so much attention to me and my career. I had no idea that it would. From that interview so many people have contacted me about how much they appreciate my honesty and hearing how much work goes into a career.

The funniest part of all of this is that the exact thing that connects me to people is the thing that I ran from and then I cried about being lonely.

I wanted people to read my mind and I wanted to be so put together and have others feel my feelings so that I never had to be uncomfortable, which actually made me more uncomfortable.

I had to learn to exert myself, to give to others so they would see me and want to be involved with me. I used to trick myself into thinking that they only liked me when I'm down. It's amazing the tricks my mind would do to prevent me from taking responsibility.

That is not the truth. They like me cause I share all of me, the highs and the lows and the beauty that connects us all, Humanity.

I hope I always have the courage to exert myself and show my vulnerability. I find that when I'm kind I get covered in a wave of shame, but it passes and a whole lotta love comes back at me.

Everyday I struggle with something that I would not want the world to see. Today it's letting others treat me poorly because obviously I have some connection to it. I get something out of it. I'm tryin to let go of it and have hope that if I act differently things will be different.

I might be small, but I can do big things.

take a listen y'all

Marc puts aside his fear of Boston Natives to welcome the thickly accented and very funny Sue Costello to the garage. Sue talks about how the bottom dropped out on her rising comedy career and how an unlikely role in The Fighter prepped her for a comeback.

BLOGGING

OK back to blogging. I just renewed my hosting package and it costs me an arm and a leg on account of my blog. So, I might as well use it. I'm also going to get back to the business of vlogging because I think I can post them here as well. In the meantime, please follow me on Twitter @suecostello

give the funny— it will come back 10 fold

When my friend laughed the other night I asked her, “Why?” She said, "You say funny things" and all of sudden it hit me like a ton of bricks, that I am a person who has this personality and this spirit that is driven both my heart and my brain, but something even less tangible: LOVE.

It is all housed in this body. To make someone laugh goes beyond anything tangible. It's an unspoken generosity. In order to make someone laugh it needs to be about them, not about you. It's taken me years to start to care about others more than myself, and I could only do that once I started to care about myself. It's deep, I know. But it's also really simple.

Last week I headlined at Gotham and the audience was amazing! All the comics noticed. And I thought, "Yeah, cause they are Kadoozie Kadets :) These people are here to see me." I have nurtured my relationship with them. I have given to them and now they are coming out to see me. It's a mutual respect thing.

Then, I sat and watched the comics. The more laughs they got, the more they loosened up and were funny and the more the audience laughed. Someone said, "Sue, this is fun" and I said "Yeah, look, that's how it should be: one person gives and the others accept and send it back!!!”

That night I looked up existential , and this is what is said: (adjective) pertaining to existence.

Is it crazy that I am finally realizing that I exist? And, and, and, that I can really make a difference? I might be small, but I can do big things :)