Advice from an International Actor: Finding Success through Intention

From the minute I stepped on stage at the age of three, I knew that performing is what I wanted to do.

The lights, the audience and adrenaline permeated my little bones. When I was introduced to film acting, that was a whole new level. The joy of booking a role, working with a crew of people focused on making the magic happen and being part of that collaboration was an incredible feeling!

I have also always been adventurous when it comes to life. I love getting out of my comfort zone, seeing other cultures, and meeting all kinds of people. I dreamed that I would explore and live in cool places, experience new things, and still be doing what I love: acting!

So if that was truly what I wanted then why wasn’t I doing it?

First of all, life happened. I “grew up,” took on a lot of responsibilities and packed my schedule. I was very good at filling up my time, multi-tasking, ticking boxes off of daily check lists and getting a lot of “stuff” accomplished. The thing was, I was so busy being busy that I lost focus on what truly brought me joy.

My energy was all over the place. I allowed the perspectives of others to cloud my vision. I developed limiting beliefs that had me lose sight of my truth and I fell out of alignment with my intention.

If I wanted to achieve my dreams, I needed to drop all of these ways of being, get centered and ask four important questions:

What do I actually want to do?

What do I love that really lights me up?

How do I want my life to look?

How do I want to feel?

The answers were simple. I want to feel peace, love, joy, freedom, connection, fulfillment and have a blast doing it.

Acting and traveling are my passions that light me up and I want to spend my time doing that. I also knew that having fun was key and wanted to spend more time playing.

My dissatisfaction came from not focusing my time and energy on my true calling and not playing enough. I knew I wanted to be a successful working actor and I knew that I wanted to travel the world, but I also knew that I was focusing on many other things that weren’t that.

Now that I knew what I wanted to do, the next question was “how was I going to achieve it?”

My old way of thinking was that work had to be hard for it to pay off, that if I got very serious, put my head down and worked tirelessly I would succeed.

Well, I tried that and I wasn’t completely succeeding or feeling fulfilled. I was then introduced to the law of attraction and the mirror effect. They say that we create our reality and attract things into our experience by the way we feel which translates into vibration. How I feel dictates what I achieve. It stems from a place of being, not a place of doing. I can’t fight for peace. I have to be peaceful to gain peace. Begging for love doesn’t work either. I have to be loving to get love.

In my acting I can’t prove that I’m confident. I have to put in the work, do my preparation and then the confidence radiates from me and translates into my scene. What I exude, l attract like a mirror, it’s my energy that creates. Also all the desired feelings of peace, love and joy are on the same vibration as abundance, money, booking the role and having a good time. Each of these feelings are mutually exchangeable and when I have achieved one, the others are right there at my grasp!

They say “whatever you focus on you get more of”. My problems were that I was focussing on so many things I thought I “should” do and my energy was scattered. I wasn’t always deliberate with my thoughts. I was reacting to life rather than having deliberate focus on the way I wanted to feel and the things I wanted to create. I was not focused on having fun.

I had a point of view that life was serious business and if I wanted to succeed then I had to take it very seriously. My thoughts were if I work really hard now, then I’d be able to have fun later. I wasn’t taking into account vibration and the mirror effect. The feelings that I have now create my next experience.

How was I supposed to create a life of joy and fun if I wasn’t currently having a blast? How was I expecting to get into flow state and achieve my goals If I wasn’t having a good time? It was time for me to get real about creating a life of joy rather than allowing life to create me. It was time to deliberately use the law of attraction.

What’s inconsistent with what I was committed to?

Everything I was doing that wasn’t in alignment either had to be altered, eliminated, or my relationship to it needed to change. I had to drop all the busy-ness and assess where I was spending my time.

How I dictated what I would focus my time on was with this criteria:

• Is this in alignment with my calling?

• Does this feel like a “Heck Yes?”

• Can I do any altering to it to have it align with my intention or make it a “Heck Yes”?

• If it's not a “Heck Yes” then it's a “Heck No.”

And just like that, activities and ways of being were dropping like flies. My life was becoming a lot simpler, a lot more focused and a lot more fun!

It wasn’t all uphill from there however: this was uncharted territory, and human beings are stubborn and old patterns can be hard to shake.

When I found myself reverting back to the idea of life being a chore or a grind, I had to get refocused in my new paradigm and it took some work. I had to remember that It’s not solely about only doing things that bring me joy, but bringing joy to everything that I do. I needed to trust the process and the timing, believing that there is a divine plan that’s unfolding. I have to allow it to show up as it does, not how I expected it to be.

My wanting to control things would often get in the way of that. I was confronted with letting go of my idea of how things should shape and trust that the divine plan would be better than any plan I could come up with myself. I aimed to let go and find the joy in letting the universe surprise me!

I had to disregard all the reasons I had that would get in the way of me having what I wanted and trust all my dreams were coming true. Trusting was the name of the game. When making a decision I had to trust that I knew what was best for me, and then trust that it was always working out for me in the end.

As I was growing up no one ever said, “Mercedes, you know what’s best for you, just follow your inner guidance system.” It was quite the contrary! I was raised believing that I didn’t know what was best for me, that only my parents, teachers or elders were qualified for that job.

Trusting and following my inner guidance system was a new muscle and to work it I had to listen to it and follow my joy. We know what’s best for us by the way we feel, and the way we feel dictates what we attract. It’s a lot easier to have a sense of things when we have less noise bogging us down. Now that I was realigned, I was available to hear and see new possibilities.

I love to travel, and I love acting. However, I found it challenging to have ease with both together. I had limiting beliefs that I had to be in Vancouver or Los Angeles to pursue acting. In the past, when I went out of town, I put acting on hold, until I came back to audition. I also had a lot of responsibility in Vancouver, managing my energy healing business, my acting career, my classes, my two dogs, and my bills. I felt weighed down and couldn’t see a way out.

I know a lot of people look at the pandemic as a negative thing, but it was during that time that everything turned around for me! During lockdown, I had an opportunity to slow down and reassess my life in this way. As I eliminated things that didn’t serve me, new possibilities opened up that sorted out my former problems.

No longer was I tied down to being in Vancouver to go to castings; all auditions were moved to online self tapes. The weekly acting classes I was not wanting to miss were now offered over Zoom. I was finally able to fit in all the studying I wanted to do too! I took acting classes, voice classes, screenwriting classes and was able to make it work because I didn’t have to commute. In the past I felt tied to my location but now I saw the possibility to travel and work.

Mercedes De La Cruz is now working towards her next goal of becoming a director. Here she is seen shadowing actress/director Jessica Harmon on set of ‘A Christmas Star’ in Kelowna, Canada

I looked around at my physical space, environment and possessions and started to reevaluate. For quite some time I had been feeling like my possessions were weighing me down. I felt as though they owed me, rather than me owning them! To keep all my things from bogging me down and feeling tied to Vancouver I decided to give everything I owned away!

I wanted a feeling of freedom and my stuff just didn’t feel like a “Heck Yes’ anymore! I went through all my belongings with the intention of only keeping the things that really lit me up, and I was able to minimize my entire life into two suitcases! It’s incredible how little we actually need and how everything shows up exactly when we need it.

During this time my partner felt the urge to move out of Canada and offered for me to join him in Belgrade, Serbia. I had no idea what I would do in Eastern Europe, but I went for it. I moved to Europe! I was now a digital nomad and I was excited and scared all at the same time. I moved to a new country where I didn’t speak the language, had no friends or family there, and didn’t know how I was going to continue acting. It was a constant redirecting of alignment and trust.

One after another, new opportunities started opening up, people came out of the woodwork, cooperating components came together, I built an acting community in Belgrade and started doing castings in Europe!

Much to my surprise, Belgrade was becoming quite the draw for international productions, and just like that I was cast in a Legendary Pictures feature film and became an international actress! Opportunities began popping up for me all over and I started going back and forth from Europe to Canada to film.

I have now done productions in South America, Europe and Canada and I intend to keep on expanding even more. I’m even on a Serbian TV series and have one of the few parts that are spoken in English! \

I am represented by Melisse Kelly at Cue Management in Vancouver Canada, Tijana Popovic with Slavic Artists in the Balkan region and I’m now looking for management in Los Angeles to add to the team! Thanks to my newfound perspective, I have made my dreams come true! I am a working actress, traveling the globe and having an incredible time doing it.

About Mercedes De La Cruz

Hello! My name is Mercedes De La Cruz and I am a mixed race Canadian actress best known for my memorable and charismatic performances in more than two dozen television shows and independent films. . My dream was to be be a working actress, travel the globe and have a blast doing it, so that’s what I do! I now live between Belgrade, Serbia, Vancouver, Canada and where ever else my little heart desires to go. I currently just wrapped filming Legendary Pictures feature film ‘The Machine’, as well as a recurring supporting role on the hit Serbian TV series ‘Mom And Dad Are Playing War’.

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