Treat #80
: Out of our Heads and into our Hearts
I am taking a Comedy Improv class here in Ojai. People say: wow that must be so much fun. The truth is I am struggling a bit. Let’s say I would be voted the one who most needs more practice. The class could be called Comedy Improve! I beg the teacher to take my place and say my lines when he invites me to do a scene. His feedback recently was: “you just can’t stand there or you will keep going into your head. The lines are not in your head. They are in the moment. You need to move or pick up something (imaginary) so you keep the flow going.” HMMMM…where have I heard this before? Do something physical. I started laughing and told him I am constantly inviting my clients to start moving vs. thinking so the next action can reveal itself. Who knew that Comedy Improv would be teaching me what I am teaching? I know some of you would love watching me be the student.
My tendency on stage when it is my turn to talk is to freeze and stand still. I keep thinking I will figure out what to say. It doesn’t work that way. Amazingly, there is no room for figuring out any of it. The next line doesn’t live in the mind. Once I get out of my head and into my physical body and start moving the next line comes out spontaneously. I had a moment (a tiny moment) in class after that feedback in which I suddenly forgot where I was and found myself naturally moving and doing as if I was being shown what to do. All I did was follow the movement of my body.
I love experiencing again and again how action doesn’t live in the mind. It’s fun to feel; knowing what to do next is simply a natural extension of moving my body. Having a visceral physical demonstration week after week keeps me going back. I see clearly that “over analyzing” or “trying to figure things out” lives outside the moment and cheat me of the unbelievable creativity that lives inside when I am moving, acting and doing in the moment. We are all highly creative beings if we will just move. I know my heart speaks freely when I am in motion.
The process of writing my book has been a process of moving from thinking into doing. The first three versions of the book came out of my mind from a place of thinking—what would be wise to say? I finally let go of the whole process, realizing what I was writing was not what I wanted to publish. After deciding to put things on hold, new ideas for the book began to show up in the early morning hours. I noticed my initial tendency was to only think about these ideas, but then I trained myself to get a pen and write down what was coming forward in my consciousness. The more willing I was to move out of bed and get paper and pen and write, the more I was given. Eventually, over a few months, I had quite a collection of ideas from which to choose. I typed up all the ideas and then I noticed myself starting to think again about how to put them together. My good friend was visiting from the east coast and she suggested we just put all the papers with the typed ideas on the floor. I handed her one at a time and she said – stays in – goes out and we made a pile of the keepers. Then we took the quotes I had been writing and we did the same. We just started moving paper around until it seemed to make sense. I found a big blank art book and I started glue-sticking the pages into the book. After the book was compiled, I shipped it off to my designer and it was enough to capture her attention to agree to take me on as a client. We did a similar process with creating the art for the book. I just moved my paintbrush on paper without an intention to illustrate the book. We had over a hundred drawings and we intuitively chose what went with what text. We did all of this outdoors in a garden. That day was the most creative fun day I have had to date. When you see Complete.Done.Finished. I think you will experience the movement in this book.
Moving is sometimes where we do our best knowing. For me moving out of my head and into my heart is my freedom.
Martha Invitations
1. The next time you find yourself trying to figure something out, stand up, wiggle around, shake your body and see what happens.
2. When you hesitate to do something, see if your mind is stopping you. Then move around a bit and see if the hesitation remains. Sometimes it is wise not to move and often it is simply procrastinating.
3. Ask someone to collaborate with you on a project that has not been moving and see if there is a way to unstuck it through movement.
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