Operation Open Up

I would consider myself to be an open and emotionally centered guy. Especially for a guy, and as long as your not trying to date me. After all, my career choice is about displaying the emotional contents of my soul publicly in a restricted scenario. (ACTING) I have always felt like I had a good instrument and methodology for accessing the marrow of my emotions and using them in my work. I have either been deluding myself for several years, or I blew the top off of this yesterday. I had a real breakthrough in class.

For those of you who do not know, and didn't figure it out in the last paragraph, I am an actor. I take a musical Interpretation class on Wednesdays with a fabulous woman named Kimberly Vaughn. This is a class that deals with the acting and performance of musical material. I have had some real trouble when it comes to singing. I get super nervous, and therfore not very good. There are many theories among acting fellows that suggest singing requires the most open vessel, namely people. One draws energy from the earth, pushing it out from their center, and using it to vibrate through the throat chakras in order to make a sound. This is a pretty intense energy flow if you think about it. If we are trying to block any of the impulse or emotion that is coming up with that energy, we begin to block the sound, and our vocal production goes down the tubes. Not to mention our storytelling. I had been doing some decent story telling in class so far, but my sound had not been up to what I thought it could be. Yesterday I learned that this is because I was limiting the emotion I allowed to come through.

Our teacher uses a grounding (or centering) method that uses principals of bio-energetics. The method is standing on a dowel with a pressure point in your foot, and leaning into it. Then you begin to rlease vocally saying "GET AWAY! GET AWAY! GET AWAY!" On the other side the release is about taking space and time and control so you say "It's MIne!" Yesterday I found that the pushing out of the negativity was a particular release. When I switched sides and began to take the good energy, I was doing the actions, but I was not saying that IT IS MINE. My teacher pointed this out and I began to focus on really claiming my space and positivity. As I did this, energy began to tingle up my feet and legs. My center got warm, and my whole back released and fell into alignment very comfortably. I felt more present, aware and open than I had in my whole life.

I began to perform the piece I was working on this week, and I found that my whole instrument was so free and open that the work was no longer work. When I stopped and recieved corrections they did not feel like attacks, and I knew instantly how to manipulate the work. My second run of the song was clear, honest, and my voice sounded like honey. It was exactly what I had been trying to do with this piece for weeks. My teacher made it a point to show me that it was the full spectrum of emotions that gave this piece the color it had just been endowed with. She said "It's ok to be ugly sometimes. Not all of our emotions are gentle and pleasing." This seemed so obvious, and yet the action of recieving permission for my darker emotions in a state of such openness made me cry. I usually would stop this crying instantly in front of a class of people. I decided to let it out. There was a flood of tears behind a dam I have built upon for a long time. The tears came, and went quickly, and when they were gone I realized that the dam was much more intense than what it was containing.

So I learned:
I am not as open as I would like to think I am.
There is a well of things that I do not share because I don't think that they are inspiring or worthy.
The fear of feelings is much worse than the actual feelings.
&
Once I arrive for the work. The work begins.

The true challenge is how to remain open and vulnerable like this. Ah the quest of an actor. For now I'm going to have more coffee and glow about my breakthrough.