Wow, I finally have some time to update my blog!! Yippee! Thursday & Friday were non-stop busy, and I spent all of my free time yesterday (about half the day) decompressing from the week.
So, I did some personal journaling Wednesday night, so by Thursday morning I was feeling pretty good again. During the Daily Acting Workout we started with some warm up exercises, physical movement, then a visualization exercise while we were walking around. He coached us to visualize a light in our center, maybe it was flames, maybe it was a glow, maybe it was ice. I tried visualizing a glowing orb in my center, but it really wasn’t a strong visualization. So I asked myself, okay then, what’s really there? Immediately I saw it was a freaking black hole that was sucking everyone else’s energy. Crap! And then, he coached us to share our energy with each person in the room individually, as a way of discovering how strong our energy was, if we could receive someone else’s energy at the same time as projecting our own, or if our energy was overpowering, or withered under some one else’s. I didn’t want to share mine, so I whispered that to the teacher, and he said, “Okay, stay private then.”
I felt so bad for withdrawing from the group, and I was starting to worry that this pain I kept finding would interfere with the learning process. I did not want to draw special attention to myself, but by withdrawing from the group, that’s exactly what I did, and that hurt too.
I stepped back into the group as they started the circle repetition exercise. (Everyone stands in a circle, and one person starts a repetition with someone else in the circle, everyone else observes the repetition, and if the observers see a behavior in one of the two people that the other didn’t call, the observer calls it, and the repetition goes between that person and the person who’s behavior was called. Example: A says to B, “You’re cute.” B repeats, “I’m cute.” A says, “You’re cute.” B repeats, “I’m cute” but doesn’t call the fact that A is flirting. So C says to A “You’re flirting!” A repeats to C “I’m flirting.” I hope that makes sense.)
Anyhow, I was extremely uncomfortable stepping into the circle because I didn’t want special attention, but I knew that my behavior was demanding it, and I didn’t know how to change that. And of course one of the level 2 guys started the repetition with me. “There’s something going on inside you.” I repeated and agreed. Then Melvin (who is in my class) said to me “You’ll get through it.” I repeated and allowed that statement to sink in, it’s something I definitely needed to hear. And then the repetition went on to other people, and I was able to breath a little bit easier.
But then we went into a line repetition (two lines facing each other, and after a minute or so of repeating with the person across from you, everyone steps to the right to face a new partner) Almost everyone that stepped across from me said, “You’re distracted.” – “You’re self-centered.” – “You’re thinking” And I was, because I was still worried, and my predominant thought was, “I need to talk to the instructor about this after class, because I don’t want it to be a problem.” And I had been relieved in the circle when the attention was taken off me, but now it was being brought right back again.
So after the workout, M. approached me and asked if I was okay, if there was anything I needed to talk about, so I told him a bit about what was going on. He was very kind and supportive, said if anything came up during class and I needed to leave the room he’d walk out with me. The workout teacher left (we have a different instructor every day) while I was talking to M., and that really distracted me so I didn’t hear a lot of what M. was saying (Sorry!) But then when our regular Meisner teacher, Mark Piatelli arrived, I asked if I could speak with him privately and told him the basics, that I’d been hurt a while ago, thought I was over it, but it was resurfacing during some of the exercises in class, and that I didn’t want it to be a problem, and I was concerned especially after today’s workout class that it might be because everyone kept bringing attention back to it. Basically he told me that I needed to take care of myself, that during an exercise I just needed to bring my attention back to the other person and not myself, and if he saw that I was moving away he’d bring me back to the exercise, and if I still was having difficulties I could simply sit out and observe. That really helped me out, and I was able to focus much better during class.
So, I did some personal journaling Wednesday night, so by Thursday morning I was feeling pretty good again. During the Daily Acting Workout we started with some warm up exercises, physical movement, then a visualization exercise while we were walking around. He coached us to visualize a light in our center, maybe it was flames, maybe it was a glow, maybe it was ice. I tried visualizing a glowing orb in my center, but it really wasn’t a strong visualization. So I asked myself, okay then, what’s really there? Immediately I saw it was a freaking black hole that was sucking everyone else’s energy. Crap! And then, he coached us to share our energy with each person in the room individually, as a way of discovering how strong our energy was, if we could receive someone else’s energy at the same time as projecting our own, or if our energy was overpowering, or withered under some one else’s. I didn’t want to share mine, so I whispered that to the teacher, and he said, “Okay, stay private then.”
I felt so bad for withdrawing from the group, and I was starting to worry that this pain I kept finding would interfere with the learning process. I did not want to draw special attention to myself, but by withdrawing from the group, that’s exactly what I did, and that hurt too.
I stepped back into the group as they started the circle repetition exercise. (Everyone stands in a circle, and one person starts a repetition with someone else in the circle, everyone else observes the repetition, and if the observers see a behavior in one of the two people that the other didn’t call, the observer calls it, and the repetition goes between that person and the person who’s behavior was called. Example: A says to B, “You’re cute.” B repeats, “I’m cute.” A says, “You’re cute.” B repeats, “I’m cute” but doesn’t call the fact that A is flirting. So C says to A “You’re flirting!” A repeats to C “I’m flirting.” I hope that makes sense.)
Anyhow, I was extremely uncomfortable stepping into the circle because I didn’t want special attention, but I knew that my behavior was demanding it, and I didn’t know how to change that. And of course one of the level 2 guys started the repetition with me. “There’s something going on inside you.” I repeated and agreed. Then Melvin (who is in my class) said to me “You’ll get through it.” I repeated and allowed that statement to sink in, it’s something I definitely needed to hear. And then the repetition went on to other people, and I was able to breath a little bit easier.
But then we went into a line repetition (two lines facing each other, and after a minute or so of repeating with the person across from you, everyone steps to the right to face a new partner) Almost everyone that stepped across from me said, “You’re distracted.” – “You’re self-centered.” – “You’re thinking” And I was, because I was still worried, and my predominant thought was, “I need to talk to the instructor about this after class, because I don’t want it to be a problem.” And I had been relieved in the circle when the attention was taken off me, but now it was being brought right back again.
So after the workout, M. approached me and asked if I was okay, if there was anything I needed to talk about, so I told him a bit about what was going on. He was very kind and supportive, said if anything came up during class and I needed to leave the room he’d walk out with me. The workout teacher left (we have a different instructor every day) while I was talking to M., and that really distracted me so I didn’t hear a lot of what M. was saying (Sorry!) But then when our regular Meisner teacher, Mark Piatelli arrived, I asked if I could speak with him privately and told him the basics, that I’d been hurt a while ago, thought I was over it, but it was resurfacing during some of the exercises in class, and that I didn’t want it to be a problem, and I was concerned especially after today’s workout class that it might be because everyone kept bringing attention back to it. Basically he told me that I needed to take care of myself, that during an exercise I just needed to bring my attention back to the other person and not myself, and if he saw that I was moving away he’d bring me back to the exercise, and if I still was having difficulties I could simply sit out and observe. That really helped me out, and I was able to focus much better during class.
I ended up doing the repetition exercise with M. during the regular class. He stays in his head so much but totally does not see that. I said to him, "You're thinking." He repeated it with no change in his tone and after a few back and forths, I laughed and said, "You're still thinking!!" Mark called me on that one. He asked me, "What do you want from him?" I said, "I want him to get out of his head and connect with me." And Mark asked, "And what did you do?" I said, "I told him he was thinking." Mark said, "You smiled. You were nice about it." He pointed to a sign at the back of the classroom, one that gets referenced a lot. It says, "If you want to be polite, work in customer service." And I think that's about the only note I got for that day.
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