How can Mindful Acting bring you to the next level?
Me, nervously waiting backstage to play Mary Hatch in It’s A Wonderful Life - 2004
When I first started out in theatre, I had thee worst stage fright, but it really only affected me before the performance.
I would stand backstage, shaking like a leaf, anticipating going on. I remember someone noticed and asked me “Why do you do this to yourself?” It really stopped me dead in my tracks. Because they were right, why was making myself so miserable right before I had to perform.
Simply put, when I walked on the stage, it was as if I left all of that intensity behind, and all of my senses were in present time. I was on purpose, listening with clarity, feeling my body in space, grounded, peaceful, receptive. I walked into a mindful state while I was performing.
Truly, at that time in my life, it was the only place I felt that way.
So I started to research and found Mindfulness Meditation and saw how similar it felt to how I felt when I was acting. I started to look at how I could cultivate that presence before I went on.
Now, with the tools I have learned, my stage fright has basically vanished. I have a bit of nerves, more so excitement and care about what is to come. But the near debilitating nervousness has left.
Me, free as a bird as Jessica, in Pot Kettle Black by Bill Marchant - 2019
Mindful Acting, to me, is bringing presence to your mind and body on and off the stage or camera. Working in present time allows you to be sharp to your senses, available for inspiration, and feel in relative control of the situation and your faculties.
Once I started to implement mindful technique backstage before a show, I notice how my performance was dramatically enhanced by the calm relaxation I was feeling before.
It brought living on stage to another level. Because I didn’t have to wade through an almost panic attack beforehand. I could rest in the knowing that I had done my homework, and I could effortlessly live on stage.
I knew that my experience with Mindfulness both on and back stage wasn’t the norm with my peers. Many of my friends talked about being self conscious on stage, getting into their heads, or having that same stage fright I had suffered from before Mindful Acting came into my practice.
So I started to gather some of the tools I learned, mixed with the Chakra work that I had been researching and implementing in my own work and with those I coached, and put it into a course that is now called Acting with the Chakras.
And Mindful Actor Workshops was born.
I wanted to help people not have to go through the years of suffering at the hand of my anxiety and depression, nerves and self doubt that I had to. I wanted them to have the tools that I didn’t have for far too long. The work at Mindful Actor Workshops is my love letter to the world who suffer so much without tools to understand their bodies’ brilliance and who don’t know how strong they actually are.
What blew my mind is that it isn’t just for actors. Over the 10 years I’ve been teaching these classes, many creative and curious people who don’t identify as actors have learned these tools and their lives have blossomed. Ease in navigating work stressors, giving presentations, and finding their authentic voice and expression when their voice used to leave them. Chakra awareness and Mindfulness are very powerful practices for everybody.