Authentic Self Found While Acting Like Someone Else

Who know that acting could be so freeing? Tonight, the AACC had a guest trainer teaching improv games and methods. Most of the games centered around just accepting whatever situation you are given and going with it. It was a struggle at first to let go of all the judgments that were in my head , “I look stupid” being the main one, but then, it was like I was a girl again, doing whatever came to mind I was free, weightless, and perfect. One of the games was about just saying “yes and” or “because” to whatever statement is given to you. So, ” You are a terrible mother” would have to be followed with an agreement like ” Yes, and I force my children to wear underwear on their head”. I think, that was a really good exercise to demonstrate that taking things personally or judging (whether it be one’s self or others or the statements made by others) is really what keeps us from being our true authentic selves. Anyway, I remember my mother saying that if you just accepted what someone said about you or to you and you didn’t take it personally the statement had no power over you. I’ll work on being more eloquent with my wording, So I can better explain why it’s so important that I’m letting go of my judgments, but right now, what I want to get across, is that pretending to be someone else (acting) let me shed some of the junk I was carrying around with me, and it helped me to see that that junk, it’s not really a part of my authentic self, it’s just some junk that for whatever reason I’ve been hanging onto. OK, this is a rambling post that i think is jumping around a bit, but all of that aside, if one improv acting session caused so many neurons to fire in my head, why aren’t there more therapies like that?