Be Here Now

 

Improv comedy means being present – right here, right now.  Not thinking about what you need to do later, or what you should have done differently.  Improv only works by your being willing to:

BE HERE NOW.

 

The more present you are, the faster your brain will work, because you are not using up brain RAM thinking, being in the left brain, or being self-critical.  These take up a lot of mental processing space and leave less room for creativity, humor, inspiration and spontaneity.  One of the reasons people enjoy improv so much is it is one of the fastest methods for putting you in the present.  And the present is where we have all the fun!

 

Focus on Pleasure

 

What you focus on, you get more of.  So focusing on pleasure will bring more of it into your life.  To focus on pleasure, you have to begin to trust your own senses again.

 

There was a time when you trusted pleasure.   It felt good.   It made you happy.  It made you feel full.  You wanted more and felt delighted when you got it.

 

Then language showed up. 

 

The word “NO!” in particular had a pretty clear meaning.  “No, don’t touch that!”  “No, don’t put that in your mouth!  “No, don’t do that!”  We heard a lot of those words and saw the faces that went with them, and they made a strong impression in our minds.   After all, they came from people we were dependent upon for our very survival. 

 

For the most part the people who said “No!” to us zillions of times were doing the best they could to protect us from the perils that go along with infant pleasure – such as touching everything, putting everything in our mouth, and in general exploring the world through our senses. 

 

Don’t do…THAT!  Yes!  Do that!

 

The problem was -- that what we were doing felt good.  But the looks on their faces said that was bad.  And so we began to doubt that what feels good is good.   Somewhere along the road of leaving infancy, we lost the Paradise of Pleasure where everything was experienced through the senses.  Now we have to get it back.  How? 

 

We go back home through our senses.  To what feels good.  Because the journey home is paved with pleasure.  This is very important for improv students because to get the full range of the “Actor’s Instrument” we need full access to our senses of sight, sound, touch and perception.

Great acting and great improvisational comedy is based on your ability to authentically display emotions and sensations.   You need to re-connect with your senses.  How do you do that?    Focus on what feels good.

What feels good is good for actors, because it means you are in the present moment.

 

This is because what feels good is what is authentic and true for you.  And what is authentic and true -- feels good.  On the other hand it feels awful to be phony, or to pretend to be happy, or to try to make someone else happy at the expense of your own happiness.  It feels constricting to follow someone else’s prescription for your life if it doesn’t ring true for you.  It feels maddening to accept someone else’s version of reality if it doesn’t match yours.  The only thing that feels good is to live in accordance with what you know to be true, because that is the only thing that feels good.

 

The Sense-ible Approach

 

This is why actors need to reclaim their sense of truthful pleasure and to re-enliven the senses.  I believe that the journey back home is through the senses, which is why we do the specific warm-ups in class that focus on them.  So if what you’re doing is feeling good, it is like a Geiger Counter that tells you you’re on the right track.  Pleasure or good feelings are your inner guidance system pointing you in the authentic direction back to your senses.  Pay attention to what feels good – and you will strengthen your connection to your authenticity and you’ll have more of it. 

 

Because the mind can only focus on one thing at a time, focusing on pleasure is very therapeutic because it eases away suffering.  Since the mind likes to be busy, it can be busy on the experience of joy or pleasure.  Focus on pleasure increases pleasure.  When a person has been traumatized, a part of their brain gets stuck in the past (read my blog on this).  Helping traumatized people enjoy the present is extremely healing.  It’s fast and effective -- and it’s free.

 

Homework Activity:  Pleasure-Size 

 

Exercising your sense of pleasure increases your ability to feel more.  So if that sounds like fun to you, here’s a little “pleasure in action” process I call “Pleasure-Size.”

 

Pick one of your favorite senses – such as sight, sound or touch.  Let’s say you picked sight (but you can pick whichever one seems more fun to you.)   Focus your eyes on something right where you are that brings you some pleasure. 

If you happen to have an extraordinary view of the ocean at sunset, that’s wonderful.  But even if you are sitting in the dullest of rooms – find something, a color, a shape, a pattern that makes you feel good. 

If you are reading this from a maximum security prison, you can imagine something.  Imagination is also very effective.   By the way, this good thing doesn’t have to catapult you into full-body bliss, it just needs to be something that makes you feel more good than you did a second ago. 

 

Now, really focus on it; in the sense of letting it in, letting it affect your senses.  Allow the good feeling to permeate or move through you.  Feel the effect of focusing on this good thing.  This is not a mental, thinking exercise.  This is about the sensory experience of how it feels in your body to focus on something good.

Then find something else that feels good.   Find one or two more things that you can enjoy.  Do you notice that you are quickly starting to feel better?  If you are using the sense of sound, really listen to something pleasurable.  Or with taste or touch, focus and amplify that sensation. 

The reason you feel better so quickly doing this pleasure-size is because focusing any one of your senses on what feels good has a beneficial effect for your entire being, which includes your state of mind.

 

Write in your Journal for the week about how this exercise went.  Try it with the other senses and see and feel the differences!

 

Need a little inspiration?  Watch how committed Simon’s cat is to what pleases him in this You Tube.

 

http://www.youtube.com/user/simonscat#p/u/5/s13dLaTIHSg

 

Simon’s Cat:  TV Dinner

 

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