The Tortured vs. The Healthy Artist

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As I sit in the fallout of tortured “geniuses” before me, I reflect on how we, in an effort to feel safe, separate our art from our daily living.
I watched the documentary, Salinger, on PBS’ American Masters. As an actor, I’m fascinated with human behavior. Salinger was – is – a writing phenom, but what interested me was how he wrote as opposed to what he wrote. Not long after Catcher in the Rye was published, he moved from Manhattan to Cornish, New Hampshire, an idyllic, sacred place “away from it all”. But unlike most writers, who use their sacred places with scheduled intent, he used it (and his windowless office) non-stop, and it became a place for him to hide. I see obvious parallels to this and the abuse of natural drugs. Originally intended as medicinal and sacred, plant based drugs are now used as modern day transports to “hiding places”.

There’s a false romance that plagues our arts. It is one that says we must be a “mess” in order to be a genius: Van Gogh, Sylvia Plath, Curt Cobain, Whitney Houston, Phillip Seymour Hoffman – you get it. But, come on, we know that it doesn’t have to be that way. We can be “normal” and still fulfill our art purpose. Yet still we continue to romanticize eccentricity bathed in the light of genius and fame. As with Salinger, we categorize his willful separation from his family (and his odd Lolita complex) as just a part of him being a genius, and turn our palms upward. What can you do? Something. I believe we can do something. I wondered, as I watched this documentary, if his work would have benefited from healthy relationships. Could he have created art without having to deny his daughter and wives the affection they so craved? Could being a good father, neighbor, teacher, or husband, have driven him to write even better works?
In the five main areas of life – career, relationships, health, finances and spirituality – artists tend to focus on only one: career. I want to pile all of these areas in the same car, and take a road trip through art. I imagine good health supporting my career. I imagine frequent, in-person contact with loved ones fueling my career. I can see a strong spiritual base inspiring my creativity, and a good financial flow that keeps me abundant in art supplies. Being a loner is considered cool. Being career driven at the expense of personal relationships is deemed admirable (unless you’re a woman). Being an outsider, being separate is considered synonymous with being a genius. It’s also synonymous with being a serial killer. We are not separate. We are not our art. Our art is simply an expression of who we are. And who we are is the sum of all of our parts.

 

 

YOU’LL SHOOT YOUR EYE OUT, KID

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If you’ve never seen the holiday film, A Christmas Story, I apologize for all of the references here. (Seriously, you’ve never seen A Christmas Story?)

During my recent participation in a business webinar, I botched an opportunity to talk with one of my favorite authors. I love this woman – I’d been listening to her for 7 years – her business and life coaching always gave me something meaty to chew on. (High praise from a vegetarian.) Since my business flow had become stagnant, I felt I needed help. They opened the phone line for questions. I didn’t really have a question, so much as I wanted to talk with her. I thought it’d be kinda cool. Like “touching a rock star”, ya know? I had it all planned out: I’d listen to her other callers first, and formulate my question based in theirs in time for my turn. But I ended up getting through. The screener immediately asked for my name and my question, which I didn’t have. Really – I didn’t think I’d get through! christmas-Ralphie_santa Suddenly, I was about to be “face to face” with my hero, but I never really expected that. This is where I felt like Ralphie in A Christmas Story when he finally gets to sit on Santa’s lap: Put on the spot, I squeezed a lame business question out of my butt. Something about overcoming overwhelm in a sea of competition? What? Whatever – I thought I could reformulate it into a better question before they got to me, right? Not a chance, because not only did I get through, I was also the very first caller! Before I could think, “What was I thinking”, I was on the phone with this world-renowned, life/business coach. When she asked me for my question I, like Ralphie, blurted out the equivalent of “football”. She snatched that up like a single woman diving for a wedding bouquet. This was her cue to launch into old advice I’d heard her give at least a dozen times before. I mean, I was such a big fan that I knew virtually all of her tips. As she went on about something completely irrelevant to me, I felt myself desperately trying to climb back up the “slide”, in an attempt to rephrase my question. All I heard was “blah blah blah” until she finally asked, “Is that true?” No it’s not!! You got it all wrong! is what I wanted to scream, but it was now too late to defend or explain my true situation – the boot had touched my forehead.ChristmasStory_boot I simply replied, “If that’s what you hear from my voice, then it must be true.” Not what she wanted to hear, which prompted her to move on to the next caller. My mic got cut off, and down the slide I went. From somewhere in the “cotton pit”, I heard her say to her partner, “Well, I’m not a mind reader!”

I felt gypped. I felt like I had finally gotten my Little Orphan Annie decoder ring and all I got was a lousy commercial! She gave me old advice. It was a template – cookie-cutter – advice. I was sooo angry and frustrated . . . and embarrassed. I knew it was the wrong advice; it was so clearly the wrong advice – based on the wrong question! So I started to think, well what did I want her to say? What I wanted her to tell me was . . . Wait! This is when I realized that I knew all along what the right advice was. OMG – It wasn’t a matter of me needing her or any other expert’s opinion. It was a matter of me just doing what I needed to do! The hard truth: without accountability or support, I had cycled into over thinking, fear and procrastination. This “Doh!” moment propelled me into action. I immediately dug out a list of objectives I had begun in January and began with my most difficult task: reaching out to people I didn’t know. Scary.

A month later, I still know it’s the right thing to do, and I’m committed. I’ve been told that real progress – more often than not – is made with just ten seconds of outrageous courage. Not only do I believe it – I know it.

EITHER WAY YOU ARE RIGHT

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Either way you are right. I plucked that fortune out of a cookie some time ago, and I’ve kept it floating around my kitchenFortune ever since. Every now and then when I’m making toast or blending a smoothie, that little slip of paper pops up to greet me. I like to keep the fortunes that resonate with me, even if they’re not really fortunes.

Early Wednesday morning, I stepped out of the way as a teenage girl ran past me, wedging her way through the morning crowd. I usually avoid the high school route on my morning walks, but ya gotta mix it up every now and then, right? Her puffy, black hi-tops and bouncing backpack made her look smaller and more awkward than she probably was. She seemed a bit desperate, yet quite focused as she kept repeating, “I’m late. I’m late. I’m late. I’m late. I’m late.” Like Alice’s White Rabbit, she disappeared down the path. I laughed inside as I remembered being that girl – and then I remembered who I was just the day before.

I was “double-booked”, so to speak, for both a commercial audition and a print job at the same time. All parties agreed that if I showed up super early to one, I could be a few minutes late to the other – no later than 11:00 am! Everything had to go perfectly. I left my place three minutes later than planned (ugh), then there was an accident on the 134 Freeway (oh, come on!), and then there was no immediate parking (really?). Still, I was 4 minutes early. Awesome, I can just jump in and out of this audition super quick, right? But then I was handed a script. Script? No one said anything about a script??! I got to work, and made the lines my own in five minutes. I’m ready! Nope. I had to wait for my scene partner to show up. When he finally arrived, he had the same reaction, “Script? No one said anything about a script!” By the time he was ready, I was five minutes behind my perfect schedule. Four takes and a thirty minute drive later, I pulled up to the print shoot exactly on time, but the only parking was across a six lane boulevard! Pulling my suitcase full of wardrobe behind me, I arrived at 11:04 am, only to find out that they didn’t even need me until after lunch! Was I aggravated? Nope, not at all. You see, I knew this was going to happen, because before I walked out the door that morning, I had declared that everything would work out fine. I couldn’t predict how things would work out – I just kept repeating, It’s all going to work out fine. It’s all going to work out fine.

I wanted to find that teenage girl, and reassure her that everything would work out fine if she just switched her words from I’m late to All is well. I know there are no magic words that change reality, but I have experienced “magic thoughts” that have changed my perception of reality. And when you change your perception of the world, your world changes.

 

LAW #2 Giving (and Receiving)

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At some point or another every actor has done an exercise of give and take. It usually consists of meandering around the stage, clapping at each other, and making strange sounds. Although this is an effective exercise that hones holistic listening skills, it’s not what I’m talking about here. Back in the day, Martin DuMaat – one of Chicago’s most influential improv teachers –  had one direction for improv scenes: “It’s your scene partner’s birthday,” he used to say. He went on to explain that scenes flow when each actor gives his partner “gifts”. It was in the giving, that the inevitable receiving would instantaneously occur. And like breathing, every inhale exists because of an exhale. What is “gifting your partner”? It’s a lot of things, but mostly it’s

The conscious introduction of discoveries.

Not new ideas or inventions, but discoveries – discoveries that go beyond the usual ones of location (where) and activity (what).  Over and over again we see players throwing out “wacky” situations in zany locales in order to get a laugh. (They’re usually inventions anyway.) That’s fun, but for the most part, it’s playing for the end product – the joke. An honest improvisor plays for the now, not for the future. I’m not saying that the where & what can’t come by honestly. I’m saying that they must be discovered in the moment as opposed to being discovered as a joke. If you play the joke, then the back and forth ends right there. End of scene. (I’m talking about the joke, not the game.) But if you’re genuinely in the moment, you will infinitely discover infinite possibilities. By stating them, or living them into the scene, you have now given your partner “gifts”. So what happens next? Their in-the-moment-response (receiving) will spark another discovery, and so on. And deeper discoveries will emerge, like relationship (who) and needs (why).

If you think (key word, think) that your scene partner is giving you nothing, then you’re judging them, their gift, and you’re judging/limiting your ability to receive. Now it’s your turn to play as if they think it’s your birthday. Let go of the judgment, and see them as their character. When the character “gives nothing”, that’s something wonderful – the actor is actually giving you something for your on-stage relationship. Too often an actor will see a glimpse of something, but not respond to it, and later will say “Hey, I thought you were gonna blah, blah, blah, so I waited for you to blah, blah, blah.” Don’t ever assume. Don’t ever wait for your partner to do what you expect. Find joy in the unexpected, and respond to it. Unless that gift is received, then infinite discoveries will shrink into finite ideas. Beware of an opposite reaction as well: being caught up in your partner’s talent. At some point we all find ourselves performing with someone who is  . . . amazing. Our reaction might be to feel as if we need to be just as good. We might fear that this expert will find us boring or become frustrated with our lack of equal genius, so we scramble to keep pace or be clever. Funny how those knee-jerk reactions take over, huh? Know this: if you’re performing with a highly talented improvisor – they are not judging you. They, in fact, delight in everything you do, because they have learned how to receive all gifts.

This is law because it always exists. Like breathing, if you stop the exchange, you die. Can a scene be resuscitated? Always. Whatever we receive or perceive from our partner automatically generates a response. If we fight against that response, then we are not working with the Law of Giving and Receiving. If we allow the Law to be, then we will all succeed.

Accidental Gifts

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Sarcasm’s a tricky thing, isn’t it? Last week I was heading into the 7-11, when I noticed an elderly man in a wheelchair asking a couple for a handout. The boyfriend stopped, but the woman – who was using a walker – paused in front of the doorway. “Oh he’s always asking people to do things for him!” she snapped. opendoorBut before anyone could respond, I opened the door for her and said, “And let me do this for you.” She thanked me several times and told me how sweet I was, completely missing the irony. This ticked me off. I wasn’t trying to be nice, I was trying to teach her a lesson in compassion! How annoying to mistake my finger wagging for a courteous gesture! Truth? When she saw kindness in me instead of a smartass, her focus changed, her mood changed, and she went inside the store with a big stupid smile on her face. I gave her crap, but she saw compassion.

So how do we take life’s crap and as see it as a gift? postman A crappy gift I received last year was facial eczema. It was horrible. It worked its way across my face in excruciating two week cycles: first the skin became inflamed like a severe sunburn, then it dried, pulled and tightened across my eyes and mouth like latex make-up, and finally it would crack, peel and flake. No sooner had the flaking subsided, did the painful “sunburn” start all over again. I could no longer wear my contact lenses, and the slightest brush of my hair would trigger insatiable itching. This went on for months.

I didn’t want to be angry about this – my skin was trying to tell me something, right?  I saw a Doctor of Asian Medicine, early-acupuncture-imageand she prescribed an extreme diet change: no gluten, dairy, coffee, soda, spices, alcohol, chocolate, onions, garlic, dark fruits, brown rice, nuts, etc. This truly sucked. She also prescribed frequent acupuncture sessions and many, many Chinese herbs. After three months, I saw waves of healing and recurrence, but I could no longer afford her. I still stuck with the diet, though. Along the way, I found a meditation practice that provided the only peaceful time in my day. About five months later, things were starting to improve: the cycles were now separated by longer time periods of peaceful skin. Yet it would always return. I knew I needed help, so I contacted my aunt who is an Integrative Doctor in the adrenal_test_kit_clinical_pakMidwest. Before I could say anything, she generously offered to work with me long distance. After a full lab analysis, (did you know you can FedEx your body fluids?) it was determined that something was “off” in my gut. She prescribed supplements: fish oils, probiotics, vitamin D, folic acid, digestive enzymes, etc. She also warned me against corn and soy. Really?

What’s working for me, may not work for you. Every body’s different.  I’ve been faithfully taking my supplements (about six a day),  and I’ve reduced my daily diet restrictions to gluten, coffee, soda, and dairy. Now and again I will see barely noticeable rough patches when I eat “bad” foods, but they clear up quickly.  It’s been fifteen months since the eczema began, and today I am grateful for it. It has brought about lifestyle changes that I had put on the back burner for years:

  • Integrative Medicine
  • Daily meditation
  • Conscious eating

If not for the eczema, I’d still be bombarding my system with “harmless” foods, until a perhaps worse situation appeared. I never would have investigated my gut health and discovered deficiencies before they got worse. I also never would have committed to a meditation practice, which grounds me, and regularly brings sweet insights. I awoke to this one last spring:Lotus position on the edge of a cliff

And at every moment, in every day, there is opportunity to receive all gifts.

 

How to Dodge the Flying Sh*t

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slippery-slope-3One year ago, the beginning of my downward spiral began. On September 11th, my boyfriend’s father called to say he didn’t have long to live. I drove my boyfriend to the airport, supporting him with strength and optimism. I thought he’d be back in two weeks. Instead, he spent four months tending to his dad’s declining health. From September to January, I drove back and forth from my place to his – over the hill and back – to forward his mail and personal items, water his (now dead) plants, and care for his cat. Kitty’s renal failure required special care. As bad timing would have it, I began to suffer from painful facial eczema that greatly affected my quality of life. My strength and optimism were beginning to wane. Just before Thanksgiving, my computer died. With all my running around I had no time to see friends. I was quite alone, and started to feel it. We decided it was best if I moved in to his place. I felt a sense of relief, but now I was looking at having to purge thirteen years of my lifePallBearers. On New Year’s Eve, I gave my thirty days’ notice, and on January 3rd, my boyfriend’s father died. I had my phone turned off when he tried to call me. Epic Fail.

I jumped on a plane to help with his dad’s funeral, but didn’t expect to help with his mom as well. Dementia was setting in, and now her son had a new reason to stay even longer. Back in L.A., I had to either sell or give away most of my belongings before I could move. It wasn’t until March when I felt I could finally catch up with my business and my life. (Really, there is no “catching up”).

Now six months had passed, and my savings were drained. Commercial auditions were unusually scarce, and theater jobs trickled. I still suffered from the eczema, buGetting to know yout could no longer afford a doctor. In May, Kitty was diagnosed with cancer and needed even more care. In June, my theatrical agent went out of business, I had a terrible falling out with a friend, and my dentist informed me that I needed a $1000 crown. July was a very dark month. Then on August on 29th – in the vein of “wfronthat else could go wrong?” –  my parked car was totaled by a reckless driver.

Don’t’ ask me if I can see that “everything happens for a reason”. That’s a question to occupy the mind, not the heart. Here is what my heart awakened to: Every terrible thing I experienced gave me something concrete to fix/solve, and every single time, it revealed itself as a distraction. Everything distracted me from working on my art and on my business. This is not to say that I place no importance on these outside events. I very much do. What they’ve brought to my attention, however, is my willingness to put my art and my business aside in favor of them. There are no clear outcomes, no guaranteed results in creative endeavors. To do the work for the sake of doing the work is “poo-pooed” in our culture – How can you enjoy (fill in the blank) when (fill in the blank) has happened? Are you making money at it? Are you forwarding your career? These questions are nothing but excuses for not showing up to the canvas. couch_potatoDuring hard times, it is more acceptable to self medicate in front of the TV than it is to expand ourselves. What we must see is that exercising our talents – with no societal agenda or audience approval –  is how we feel better, feel joy, and reap the rewards.

What is that thing you’ve been yearning to do that will expand your talents and put a smile on your face? doingMakeUpAre you too busy checking off your to-do list to get down to the real work? Are you doing the work, but repeatedly coming up for air to see if someone is clapping? Expanding our talents is what we are meant to do. It is not selfish. It is mandatory, and it gets us through the hard times.

LAW #1 Infinite Creativity

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Get Out of Your Head

Get Out of Your Head

Get out of your head and you will have access to infinite possibilities. How many times have we been told, “Get out of your head”? The problem is, the harder we try, the more we’re sure to stay in it. When our minds are occupied by thoughts of trying  to think ahead or trying to find the joke/game or what furthers the plot, we are no longer open to every possibility. So what to do? Get out of your head and get into  . . . the now.  You might ask: But if I get out of my amazing memory of impressive facts, how can I wow the audience with quick wit and pop culture trivia? Or, how can I make the scenes relevant without implementing current events and philosophical references? Personally, I hate when a stage gets littered with “clever clutter”. It’s a guaranteed sign that the actors don’t trust the scene. The 13th century poet and mystic, Rumi, said, “Sell your cleverness and buy bewilderment.” Observe the artist who successfully suspends their rational, linear mind andmoves ‘into the zone’. It’s when your thinking mind lures you out of the zone – out of the “now” –that you resort to the clutter. Be present. Look at your partner. Look at them entirely. Really look at them. (Or really feel them.) When you get into the present, your mind stops, and everything that is important rises to the surface. Compare the hyperactive dispensing of cleverisms to a string quartet where the musicians are banging on their instruments. If the “chatter” is noisy, then no one will notice the subtle pluck of the perfectly tuned viola. That subtle pluck could be what takes you to the next level of relationship and scenic progression. That subtle pluck was probably the heart of the scene. If you’d rather make a joke, then that subtle pluck will never be heard.

“Law” is such a harsh word

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Most dictionaries define “law” in terms of government or the legal system. I finally found this one in dictionary.com:

A statement J.Lo describing a relationship observed to be invariable Makers: between or among Madison phenomena for all cases in which the specified conditions are met: the law of wholesale NBA jerseys gravity.

 

The Laws of Improv are simply that. They are not something to be obeyed, but rather something you surrender to. If you hold on tight to cheap NBA jerseys old assumptions, then you don’t allow cheap mlb jerseys room for the Law of Infinite cheap jerseys Creativity. I want to make it clear that these laws are not harsh, nor will you be “punished” for not using them. Again, you can’t really use them, you de simply allow them. So let’s look at the first law, The Law of Infiinite Creativity, for example. If you ever Laws find yourself in a scene where you hit a wall, you are frozen, stymied, etc. it’s only because you’ve closed yourself off to the fact that you have access to limitless possibilities. It’s as simply as wholesale jerseys that. The solution? Laugh about the fact that you’re in you’re head, relax, and allow.

I’m not Moses, but I’ve got these Laws . . .

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I was inspired to write a book about the Laws of Improv, because after so many years of watching improvisation become “mainstream”, I was still shocked to see how many people thought it was something that only “funny, clever” people did, or worse – feared it. I’m not that clever, but I do have more funny moments than the average person. Hitting those moments (quite by accident) gave me encouragement to move forward. I took it as a hint to further explore other different forms, but at no time was I ever afraid. I took my fearlessness for granted. Recently, I thought I should look inward to see why I was so attracted to improv and why I loved it so. I asked myself: What is it in me that makes me fearless without a script? Why am I so excited about uncertainty? It seems that I – and many others– was born with a  knowing. A knowing that is there for everybody. This is when I began to put it into words. While doing this, I was surprised to learn that a very skilled improv friend did not have this innate knowing, but that years ago had forced themselves to cultivate it. What if they had this information 20 years ago?

 

We all know the basic rules of improv: Don’t ask questions, Don’t deny, YesAnd, etc. But these rules can and have been broken by many a seasoned improviser. We’ve seen it, and it gives us delight to see how a pro handles it. What I now discovered – literally at my kitchen table – is that there are Laws of Improv, and these can never be broken. They are like the laws of physics   – they just are. I’m hoping that these Laws will bring you a sense of relief and peace. Knowing that no matter what you to do, these laws will never change and you can find comfort in them. Once you fully understand them and make them part of your play time, you will be able to achieve great things. After all, air travel is only possible by understanding the Law of Gravity.