Today we’d like to introduce you to Kimberly Hamilton.
Hi Kimberly, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
My journey as a performing artist and holistic health coach began when I started dance classes at the age of three. Growing up as a severe asthmatic and being hospitalized throughout childhood was not easy as a dancer, but my struggles with asthma gave me a strong appreciation for the mind/body connection and especially breath control. As an adolescent, I was extremely shy, but performing on stage felt freeing to me. As a young dancer, I was very self-conscious about my body and, like many dancers, felt too much pressure to look skinny in a leotard. At the age of 12, I struggled with an eating disorder and low self-esteem, so I decided to take a break from dancing and focus more on acting. When I started taking acting classes, I began to stop worrying so much about what I looked like in a dance leotard, developed healthy eating habits, and gained more confidence. Essentially, my interest in acting helped me to focus more on my inner growth and less on my appearance. Changing my focus in the way, I believe, led me to acknowledge that my self-worth and inner strength is based on what lies within. This discovery eventually led me to exploring the path of yoga as a way to access inner peace.
Throughout high school, as I learned more about the history of theatre and performed in high school plays, I developed a strong appreciation for the art of storytelling and how stories can profoundly influence lives. My passion for touching lives through theatre and film deepened when I attended college and graduated from Kennesaw State University with a BFA in Theatre and Performance Studies. In college, I initially had mixed feelings about joining a sorority but decided to join Delta Phil Epsilon because of their philanthropic work with The National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (ANAD). During my time at KSU, I was active in many community service organizations, so I suppose that is why I won the title of Kennesaw State’s Homecoming Queen 2006.
By the time I graduated from college, my asthma issues had lessened to a degree so I only had to rely on a maintenance inhaler and occasionally a rescue inhaler. I was taking good care of my health but felt worried that an acting career would not provide financial stability, so I decided to put my acting career on hold and try a corporate job for a while. I began working for a home improvement company as an events marketer and quickly worked my way up the corporate ladder to marketing manager. After a year of managing the entire company, being responsible for hiring, training and firing employees, and working overtime, the stressful job started taking a toll on my health. Managing the company, working very hard to make a sales quota was stressing me so much that I developed shingles and triggered an asthma flare-up. However, I was determined to get my asthma issues under control so I would not have to rely on unnatural steroid inhalers my entire life. After doing extensive research on the correlation between asthma and diet, I experimented with weaning myself off the inhalers by simply eating an anti-inflammatory diet, getting more sunlight and vitamin D, and prioritizing sleep and soon my shingles went away, my asthma issues vanished and I no longer needed to rely on steroid inhalers to breathe normally.
I am grateful for my learning experience in the corporate sales field because this time in my life taught me how much stress, diet and sleep can profoundly affect one’s health. This chapter in my life is one pivotal experience that motivated me to become a yoga instructor and to pursue my art despite how financially unstable an artist’s lifestyle can be. Experiencing the corporate lifestyle helped me realize how draining the sales environment felt and how deeply unfulfilled I felt abandoning my love for performing arts in an effort to live a “practical” lifestyle. Eventually, I left my corporate job and continued to pursue acting with more vigor than before while pursuing my career in the health and wellness field.
Today I teach yoga to a variety of age groups through corporate companies such as Kaiser Permanente and Excellence and Exercise. I also have years of experience teaching at various yoga studios and performing arts studios around Atlanta. In addition to group classes, I mentor private clients with varying backgrounds. Many of my clients are performing artists like me who have struggled with body image issues or eating disorders. It is my mission to empower people to feel confident and beautiful, moving to the rhythm of their breath no matter what their body shape may look like. It brings me great joy to teach performing artists yoga techniques to warm up before a performance or unwind after a performance. It also elates me to teach kids, seniors and help all walks of life become of the best version of themselves by nourishing the mind and body through yoga, nutrition, meditation, and mindfulness.
Since leaving the corporate world, I have performed in various professional theatre shows, films, commercials and audiobooks. I have also dabbled in writing and producing theatre and films around Atlanta. People often recognize me for my comedy sketches that have gone viral on Youtube, but one achievement I am most proud of is producing and performing the play Constellations by Nick Payne. Constellations is a play about many themes such as hope, love, and science and explores darker themes like morality and cancer. My co-producer and acting partner, Michael Howell, and I were able to use a portion of ticket sales to donate to the American Cancer Society, which felt quite fulfilling. In the past year, I also had the privilege to act in an independent Atlanta film called, “Sunset In Winter”, which aims to raise awareness about suicide prevention. Inspiring stories such as these fulfill me the most as an artist. My primary artistic goal is to work on many more projects that touch lives in a positive way.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
The most challenging part of my journey has been learning how to establish work/life balance and set healthy boundaries. It has been difficult to balance pursuing my passions while financially supporting myself. There have been many times I have worked jobs that did not relate to my passions, such as sales jobs, brand ambassador work, and waiting tables just to pay my bills. Pursuing a career as an actor can feel discouraging considering the average working actor books 1 out of 100 auditions. The last few years on average, I taped 1-4 auditions per week and booked about 1-5 acting jobs per year. However, when I remind myself to have fun taping auditions and enjoy the creative practice, I remain joyful pursuing my art. Also, collaborating with artists to produce my own plays and films has felt quite fulfilling. One thing I love about Atlanta is meeting like minds who want to collaborate creatively.
Stress has also been a challenging factor as a performing artist, but practicing yoga is my most valuable tool when managing stress. Sometimes at the end of a long day of work, I will receive multiple auditions that are due in the next couple of days, so I have to manage my time to tape them as soon as possible which often means canceling plans, staying up late and sacrificing sleep. Playing emotionally complex characters can be draining, but yoga helps me unwind and calm my nervous system after an emotionally taxing role.
Another aspect of an actor’s lifestyle that is stressful is dealing with the competitive side of the entertainment business. Like many industries, colleagues in the film industry sometimes view fellow actors as competition, so it can be difficult to maintain genuine friendships. I view my work as a collaborative art that requires mutual support in order to create stories that change lives for the better, but I learned through experience that not everyone in the entertainment business shares my perspective. Since storytelling is such a collaborative art form, I think supporting fellow artists is the only way we can succeed together, but I have encountered people who think they need to put others down or use people to leverage themselves in the industry. Throughout my career, there have been times where I was too trusting and naive which taught me to be careful and selective about who to trust in the film industry. When you are too trusting in this industry, you can put yourself in a position to be taken advantage of, so over the years, I have learned to create healthy boundaries.
In general, most of the artists I have been lucky enough to meet are wonderful people, but I have witnessed others who try take advantage of young actors who are just getting started and eager to work. For example, like many of my friends, when I first started acting, I was so eager to perform that I would agree to perform almost any role free of charge without any regard to how I personally felt about the writing and ignore my disheartened feelings if the director treated the cast and crew disrespectfully. As a result, I devoted much of my time and energy to unprofessional projects with hazardous working conditions. At this time when I was younger and less experienced, I would reluctantly agree to play shallow, and debatably debasing roles. I would always hope something good would come out of donating my talent to these unprofessional projects, but repeatedly felt disappointed when my efforts felt futile.
One example when I learned I needed to create healthier boundaries occurred a few years ago when I nearly died working on an unpaid, unprofessional horror film. The director of the horror film instructed me to roll into large hole in the ground and play dead while another actor shoveled dirt on top of me. I followed the directions exactly and while I was laying still playing dead, I got bitten by so many fire ants that I went into anaphylactic shock. Luckily, I was rushed to the hospital just in time to get treated, but as a result, I had to miss weeks of work to recover and I was left with an enormous medical bill.
As I look back over the years, I am grateful for the lessons that taught me why it is necessary to say “No” sometimes and not let people take advantage of your kindness and eagerness to perform. At this point in my career, I am still happy to work on projects for free if I have a strong appreciation for the writing and I trust the producers have good intentions. Today I am much more selective about the amount of time and energy I will donate for free. I am proud to say I respect myself as a professional actor more than I did years ago and I chose to collaborate with artists who treat everyone on set with a certain level of professionalism and respect.
I also had to learn to develop healthy boundaries as a yoga instructor. While the health and wellness field is not typically viewed as competitive as the entertainment business, there is a level of competitiveness that I still struggle to navigate at times. For example, when Covid 19 first emerged, and the United States was required to quarantine, my heart went out to everyone whose businesses closed. All of the companies where I was teaching yoga closed down except one who transitioned to virtual zoom classes, so I had free time during the day and I wanted to offer free daily virtual yoga classes for everyone who needed stress relief during the pandemic. Initially I thought I would just be teaching free classes for two weeks since I heard the quarantine would likely last two weeks, but as we all know, everyone in the United States was in quarantine for much longer than expected and businesses stayed shut down for months longer. I felt so sad for everyone who was struggling with stress and isolation, so I continued to teach two free virtual classes every day for about six months.
During this time in the pandemic, it made me happy to hear many of my students express gratitude about how my virtual classes helped ease their stress during these troublesome times. However, to my dismay, a few yoga instructors reached out and criticized me for offering yoga for free. Since yoga was their primary business, these particular instructors were worried that offering free yoga during the pandemic might somehow hurt their business. This situation was difficult for me to navigate because I have always felt that yoga should be available to everyone regardless of race, age, religion, ideology or financial status. In my years of teaching, I have often struggled with mixed feelings about treating yoga like a business. Especially during the quarantine, I felt that people who were financially stressed needed yoga more than anyone, so I assured the few concerned instructors that there was no need to worry because I was only planning on offering classes for a short term until businesses starting functioning again. I did not see how I could do anyone harm by offering free virtual classes for a few more weeks until businesses reopened. After providing a total of 327 free classes, the companies for whom I had worked as a yoga instructor had still had not reopened as expected and my financial concerns were escalating, so at this turning point, I determined it was time to stop offering free daily classes so I could have more time to prioritize my finances.
Trying to grow my own online yoga business during this pandemic has been quite challenging. When I first started, I spent weeks at a time coming up with business plans, making social media posts, and when hardly anyone would sign up, I would devote exponentially more time changing my business model and trying different approaches. This cycle repeated many times. I could not afford to hire a professional marketer to help me promote my business and there were times when I felt very frustrated that it seemed no matter how I would modify my business model, I would not make any profit. I experimented with collaborating with other fitness coaches, but those plans did not work out either.
At this point, I am content with my current business model, I love mentoring the clients I work with now, and I am hoping eventually I can afford to hire a professional social media marketer to reach more people who need my services. Although my personal business is not my primary source of income and I am still trying to figure out marketing strategies, it is so rewarding to see my current private clients transform and live healthier lifestyles during my mentorship. In addition to my private recurring clients, I am extremely grateful my corporate yoga classes are finally functioning again which provides sustainable income. I feel so happy and honored to be currently teaching a variety of different styles of yoga to various demographics from all walks of life. It is such a joy to teach yoga and health education at medical facilities such as Kaiser Permanente. It is also quite fulfilling to teach yoga for multiple businesses, childcare centers and performing arts studios such as Excellence in Exercise, Galaxy Music & Performing Arts Academy, Mixdeity Media Studios, Oodazu and Sunny Street Yoga. In addition to my teaching jobs, I am immensely grateful for the acting jobs I have booked since film and theatre productions are now operating with covid safety protocols.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
My primary goal as a performing artist is to help tell stories that touch lives in a meaningful way. I love performing in live theatre and films that provoke deep thought about life’s mysteries. Comedy is one of my favorite genres because I feel laughter can often be the best source of medicine. Laughter relieves stress, releases endorphins and therefore, can boost immunity. Having a sense of humor about life and learning to laugh at myself instead of always taking myself super seriously has helped me get through some tough times.
Since laughter can be healing and therapeutic, it warms my heart to make people laugh. My favorite stories to tell are dark comedies because I feel they can reflect life in the most realistic way and thus have a profound effect on the audience. I do not particularly care for horror films that do nothing but disturb the audience. On the other hand, I do not like fairy tales that depict a false sense of idealism and ignore life’s harsh realities. My favorite stories to tell have a realistic balance of darkness and levity. I have a strong appreciation for dark comedies because a well written dark comedy can provoke thought about the tragic aspects of life while offering light and hope at the end of the tunnel. In the last few years, I have enjoyed not only acting in dark comedies, but writing and producing dark comedies with other artists as well.
As a professional in the entertainment industry, another main goal of mine is to help other performing artists maintain a healthy work/life balance. While I can certainly respect actors who are willing to do anything for their art, I believe it is unhealthy for artists to take their art so seriously that they compromise their health and their life. I feel it is important for every artist to understand how to separate their art from their life. After all, art is merely a reflection of life. The reason we tell stories is to change lives. My work as an actor is a big part of my life, but my art and my life are not one in the same. It is important to me to have a healthy, happy life outside of my art. When an artist starts to blur the line between reality and fiction or risk their life for their art, it can lead to self-destructive and literally life threatening behaviors.
While I can empathize with actors who are so dedicated to their craft that they are willing to engage in psychologically damaging and hazardous behaviors for character research, I think it is ultimately unhealthy to substitute life for art. One of my main missions as a yoga instructor is to teach actors yogic tools to warm up before a performance, release tension, and focus the mind, so they don’t feel the need to resort to toxic habits such as excessive alcohol, risky drugs, unnatural depressants or stimulants. I understand from experience how playing certain emotionally complex roles can be highly taxing on the nervous system. For instance, when I performed the play “Constellations,” playing a character on the brink of death required me to go to very dark places in my mind every night. While it brought me great joy to tell this inspiring story and hear the audience’s responses at the show, if I had not practiced yoga afterwards, it would have been much more difficult to unwind and release the emotionally turbulent energy from the performance. It is my mission to teach actors how yoga can help them unwind from an emotionally taxing role and return to a state of inner peace after an intense performance. I have had the privilege to coach many actors and other types of performing artists over the years and it brings me great joy to hear about how much yoga has enhanced their art, improved their life, and helped them establish a healthy work/life balance.
I suppose one of my specialties is satire. I love satirizing pop culture, politics, and social phenomenons to evoke laughter and provoke thought about the foibles of humanity. While I am often recognized for comedic videos that have gone viral on YouTube, I am most proud of producing and performing the play “Constellations”, producing and performing “Unmasked Voice” and acting in the indie film “Sunset In Winter.” I felt honored to receive awards and recognition for these productions, but what makes me most proud is that these three stories each aim to inspire and enlighten people in unique ways. I am looking forward to working on many more projects with positive missions and I am excited to see how the future unfolds.
Alright so before we go can you talk to us a bit about how people can work with you, collaborate with you or support you?
Artists interested in making films, comedy sketches, or collaborating creatively in any way are welcome to contact me through my website, email or on social media . All of these links are listed below. Likewise, I encourage anyone to reach out to me in any way for more information about my group yoga classes or private online offerings. Marketing professionals are certainly welcome to reach out to me to discuss working together to market my “Yoga Flow With Kim” holistic health business. One way to support my work is through my patreon. A simple way to support me is to share my website with friends who need my services. The easiest way to support me is to subscribe to my Youtube channels and share my free content.
Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/yogaflowwithkim,
Yoga Flow Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/yogaflowwithkim
Acting Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/kimberlyhamilton22
Contact Info:
- Email: Kimberlyhamilton22@gmail.com
- Website: https://www.yogaflowwithkim.online/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/kim_ham22/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/kimberly.hamilton.5891/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/yogaflowwithkim
- Other: http://kimberlyhamiltonactor.info/performance
Image Credits
Naomi Smith, Mike Rivera, Rachel Lamb, Homero Santos, Briana Randall
