Being home for the holidays is an excellent opportunity for you to examine how your family’s dynamics have shaped your personality. If you’re an actor, you can use the experiences to grow your awareness of human nature and, of course, apply it to your creative work.

One of the most memorable things I learned in my days as an acting student came from my favorite teacher, Eileen Vorbach: “All the things you think are fucked up about yourself? That’s your gift.” What I think she meant was that the ways in which each of us feels like we’re an outsider or that we’re broken or that we’re just plain weird are the same traits that both fuel our creativity and make us interesting to watch onstage.