perjantai 21. joulukuuta 2012

Days 90-91: The "less than myself" persona - theatre improvisation


20-21122012

This post is a continuation to:

To go through the situation of the impro practice yesterday. We have had one person dropping out of the group and some that haven't been able to come to practice for a while, and I have noticed this has triggered an insecurity in me. I ask myself: Are we doing a poor job with the group? Am I making improvisation theatre seem uninteresting / frightening? Am I demanding too much of the participants? Are we explaining the methods clearly enough? So what happens is that my starting point for directing the group changes from simply doing what we have set out to do and guiding people to the best of my abilities, into a desire to succeed / a fear of failure, success and failure here measured by the participants' will to participate in the activity. Instead of embracing the people that do come to rehearsal I worry over those who don't show up, because I interpret that to be a sign that I have failed.

So then as I try to direct the group my goal is to make others pleased, or seemingly pleased, or apparently having a good time, not realizing that this is not my purpose of being here – my goal is to teach and learn improv theatre and assemble a group that is committed to training themselves in it. Even though it is an essential part of this goal that people enjoy themselves, that is not the goal itself – and thus if my goal is to make others happy I am acting out of fear.

Another thing I noticed at the rehearsal was that I was unwilling to carry out any role or character properly within the exercises. As I was already insecure and thinking “I wonder what these people think of me”, “I wonder if they think I'm uninteresting”, “I wonder if they think less of me”, it felt very wobbly to even attempt to stand within a theatre role as I wasn't stable within myself to begin with. It was like I was constantly looking for signs of feedback from others so I could define myself within their presence, and then looking for the feedback also as I was within a role – and thus allowing all signs of feedback to affect how I acted and thus acting very poorly, restlessly and aimlessly. My focus was not on the acting work but in defining my self-image within the situation.

So everything that I did, I did for others – and that's where I live as less than what I could be or less than who I actually am. I deliberately make myself less than myself as I place the authority over me outside of me into other people.



I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look for others to define me and tell me “who I am” in their presence as I have been unwilling to face myself and thus carry my responsibility to know myself, not realizing that as I get to know who I actually am by facing myself it is possible to re-create myself and thus re-define myself by myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look for “clues” and “signs” in the behavioral feedback of others so that I could define myself according to them, “find my place” in the situation by defining “who I am” as seen by “the others”, not realizing that the “clues/signs” I “pick up” are bits and pieces of movement I decide to separate from the flow of another's living expression and which I then magnify and interpret through mind-filters that serve my predetermined self-image – and that these “clues/signs” are thus a distortion of the mind and have nothing to do with reality, such as a photograph taken of a tree and then heavily photoshopped has nothing to do with the actual tree anymore, but becomes a new “piece of art” by the creator – and that these mind-interpretations are thus nothing but completely separate “pieces of art” “inspired” by the reality painted by the mind.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that all the “signs/clues” I pick up from the behavior of others are chosen by the mind according to the patterns I have learned in my life so far, and that as my focus is directed by the mind instead of being directed by myself the focus cannot be trusted to be in accordance with the reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to allow my focus to be directed by the mind instead of standing within and as breath within and as myself and being my directive principle myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to try to “find my place” in situations because I have felt insecure in them.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I need to “find my place” in a situation in order to be able to function and be comfortable.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that there is no “place” for me in social situations as the only “place” where I can be is within myself - a constant location that will never change during this physical life - and that because of it's consistent and intimate nature it is the most comfortable place to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as I stand within and as myself within and as breath there is no situation that can “make me” uncomfortable unless I accept and allow it – my outlines as this physical body as the residing place for myself will stay the same no matter the surroundings.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe I need to know “who I am” as defined by self-interpreted feedback of others in order to be able to function in a situation, not realizing that what I perceive to be “functioning” is in fact living according to the social behavioral patterns that I have learned while growing up and agreed to and acted upon for all my life thus far.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to search for clues in the behavior of others to see if I am funny.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to search for clues in the behavior of others to see if I am skilled.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to search for clues in the behavior of others to see if I am appreciated.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to search for clues in the behavior of others to see if I am accepted.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not focus on my acting process as my focus is in searching for clues of validation in the behavior of others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look for others to validate that my behavior is what I perceive they want it to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want/need/desire to behave in such a way that gains acceptance/appreciation/admiration as I have feared rejection/abandonment.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to look for others to tell me I'm accepted, not realizing I there manifest self-separation as I do not see the only thing that actually exists is self-acceptance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I have been living as self-separation as I have refused to accept myself, then living as abuse as I have tried to “fix” this separation by asking for others to accept me for me, abdicating my responsibility to carry myself as self-acceptance.

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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become insecure as the feedback of others isn't what I expect it to be.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to become confused as I am not sure what kind of feedback I'm even looking for and then not knowing how to interpret the behavioral “clues” of others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to force myself to wear a personality even though I have known I do not want to, then collapsing within the personality as I have given up on carrying it – an odd struggle between the old and the new. [I find this really fascinating.]

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize this confusion of mind is dissolvable if I return myself to breath where I could see and realize that I'm attempting to act through a persona and that as I see it's not valid I can simply let it go.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to hold on to the confusion and stay stuck within the mind instead of returning to breath and letting it go.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to lock myself into the mind-state of confusion with fear as I was still unsure whether people were enjoying themselves or not.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that if I want to know how people have experienced these meetings I can simply ask (duh).

[Here I removed some SF concerning specific people.]
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I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to live as less than who I actually am by not standing within myself as my directive principle as I have looked for others to define me for me.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that as I make myself less than who I am, others are bound to see just that much of me as that is what I show of myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that others will think less of me as I have believed their thoughts would somehow directly influence me without my acceptance.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe that if others think less of me, it is proof that I am indeed less – not realizing that the thoughts of others are not me and that thoughts can in fact be false – and mostly are.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe the thoughts of others (which I have no way of directly accessing, viewing and assessing) to create the reality myself included, the opinions and likes and dislikes of others making up the reality I inhabit, not realizing that instead of being in the eyes of others, the reality is right HERE completely unreliant on the mind as thoughts as I breathe and sense the world around me and move as myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize the absurdity of believing that others define the reality and myself as I have been completely dependent on and addicted to the feedback of others to shape my reality for me.



I commit myself to practice my breathing when in the presence of people as I see that is where I most commonly fall out of breath.

I commit myself to stop believing the “clues” and “signs” my mind picks up from the behavior of others from within the realization that they are only pieces of what I choose to see of another and not the entire reality, and that any claims of the validity of these “clues” and “signs” are of the mind and not actual information gained through communication.

I commit myself to keep my focus on people as a whole instead of holding on to details I pick up from them as we interact.

I commit myself to bring myself to breath whenever I remember and engage in some kind of contact with my sensual reality in order to “ground” myself and bring myself back to reality as I now see and realize that HERE is where the real “comfort zone” exists.

I commit myself when acting to focus on myself instead of focusing on others present. [This I will open up shortly.]

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