You may have caught yourself being really anxious when you go to an audition, when you’re working on stage or on set. You may feel a lot of body sensations while acting, like your heart beats really fast, you sweat a lot, or your voice shrinks. And after acting, you may experience a lot of self judgment and overthink about how others perceive you, if they liked you or not, if you did it “right” or “wrong”, if you made the “right” choices, if you could have done it “better”, etc.
Inevitably, all these thoughts and feelings can trigger a lot of frustration too, since they prevent you from being 100% present, free, instinctive and open. And as an actor, you want to have all the space in your body in order to just BE your character and present to what’s at stake in the moment, which has nothing to do with you or your career, but everything to do with your characters and what they want.
However, when you watch my training below you will discover that surrendering to whatever you’re feeling in the moment is what’s going to make you able to be fully present, authentic and free. But you’re unable to access your own feelings because you’ve been raised and conditioned to feel, think and behave a certain way so you could get external validation and fit in. You’ve also been trained to think there is a “right and wrong” way to do things and act. This conditioning may make you think that your anxiety is inappropriate and that you need to fix it.
Therefore, you may have tried to calm yourself down, pump up your confidence and self motivate in order not to feel that anxiety and self judgment. But when you do this, you stop being present to what you’re actually feeling in the moment. And the more you resist all these feelings, the more they will persist; the further away you’ll walk away from your instrument and the more you’ll walk towards a learned behavior and towards what others expect of you. Inevitably, you end up robbing yourself of your chances of being present, authentic, unique and alive and of all those feelings that you can give to your character.
So the work to do is to unlearn all those behaviors and unwire all that resistance that prevents you from being your true, instinctive, free and authentic self.
Watch my training to hear all my thoughts on this topic.
After you watch the training, I'd love for you to join in the conversation happening in our private Facebook Group THE INSTINCTIVE ACTORS' SOCIETY. You can get answers for your specific situation directly from me and connect with HUNDREDS of like-minded actors across the globe, so we can move things forward faster together.
If you're not already a member, be sure to request to join ASAP here.
See you there!
Jo Kelly
Creator, The Reset Journey From Resistance to Freedom
P.S. Whenever you're ready, here are two ways I can help you:
Get your FREE training on how to STOP TRYING TO BE A GOOD ACTOR SO YOU HAVE A CHANCE AT BEING GREAT
Get on the waitlist for my program, The Reset Journey From Resistance to Freedom, and stop struggling to access your natural, authentic talent in the audition room or on set. You'll learn how to reset your instrument to be 100% instinctive and free in just 33 days.
GET ON WAITLIST: tobeornottoact.com/waitlist
