Vulnerability (gross, I know)
~VuLnErAbiLiTy~
What a fun little word. Just kidding. It’s not. Vulnerability sucks. Well sometimes. But it's also pretty cool too.
Vulnerability is beautiful because it connects us to each other. It reveals the human heart and struggle. It helps us know we aren’t alone.
Vulnerability is also icky because it opens us up for people to see. It makes us susceptible to judgment. It’s risky and terrifying.
Unfortunately, the creative life demands vulnerability.
I used to think I had mastered vulnerability (haha, I know, don’t laugh too hard).
I am generally a very open extrovert. Sometimes too much. I want to know and be known. I am more unguarded and therefore it is usually easier to share things about myself others may find incredibly vulnerable. But the thing is, vulnerability isn’t defined by sharing certain information. It’s defined by being vulnerable. Putting yourself in a place where you could be hurt.
Me sharing my middle name with others is not vulnerable for me. Talking about how I cried earlier today to my close friends isn’t very vulnerable for me.
But standing in front of my acting teacher and being asked to say words genuinely that I didn’t even realize I connected to on a deep level…that is freaking terrifying. That is vulnerability.
Standing before an audience and singing about my struggle for perfectionism and control, that is vulnerable.
Letting myself experience anger in a scene is vulnerable.
Letting others see me fall apart is vulnerable.
It’s vulnerable for me because it puts me at emotional risk.
But enough about what vulnerability is.
I bring up vulnerability today because I experienced an anxiety attack when working on a monologue/musical theatre song today. And I need to process that. And maybe, together, we can discover something new about ourselves and vulnerability. Especially in the creative process.
Do you ever feel like you are standing on a high dive?
I don’t know about you, but growing up I was afraid of heights. Looking down from the high dive the water seemed so far away. No matter how much I reasoned with myself about the safety of the jump, the fear rose and I would freeze in my tracks on the precipice of the jump. Just jump.
But I couldn’t jump. And the longer I stood there, waiting and watching, the more impossible it became to move, until I was standing there with tears in my eyes, a lump in my throat, and my breath caught in my lungs. With the fear and anxiety overwhelming, I ashamedly climbed down the ladder thinking I can’t, I just can’t.
This scenario occurred too many times growing up. Fear left me frozen on the high dive, and the longer I waited the more impossible it became to jump.
As I grew older and God led me through situations which challenged my fear of heights, I discovered that if I jumped immediately off the high dive, even though the fear response was the same, I could do it. But the longer I stood, the more difficult it would become to jump. So on a mission trip to Belize I climbed up to a high dive above the ocean and jumped. I just jumped. No thought about it. No waiting. I was still terrified but I jumped.
Freshman year I discovered that acting is a lot like that. When I find myself in a vulnerable moment it is like standing on the high dive. No matter how much I rationalize the safety of the jump, my body responds in fear. In the same way, no matter how much I tell myself the room and the people are safe, my body’s fight or flight response kicks in to protect me.
While it is natural and perfectly okay, this fear is not always useful. I need to jump.
The problem is, I do not always realize I am on the high dive.
Sometimes I experience the bodily response to the vulnerability, without recognizing what is vulnerable. I get anxious, start crying, and freeze wondering what is wrong with me and why I can’t just do whatever is being asked of me in the rehearsal room.
When I realize what it is that’s causing the response then I can tell myself to jump off the damn high dive before the response consumes me. I can jump even though it’s scary. I can fake cry when I am asked to fake cry even though everything in me recoils and screams “nooooo” (not speaking from experience or anything…ya, this definitely happened my freshman year).
But other times, I don’t realize what is sparking the high dive response. I struggle to know how to cope with it. I forget how to just jump.
Today, I was working on the song “Shy” from Once Upon A Mattress with Cristi. I felt mostly prepared. I understood the given circumstances of the piece and I thought I knew what my character wanted.
For those who don’t know the song, it is a comedic piece in which Princess Winnifred tries to convince the Prince to reveal himself so she can get him to marry her. She just swam a moat to get there. She is a loud, boisterous, confident woman who pretends to be shy as an attempt to win the Prince.
We worked the song like a spoken monologue in order to get more specific about the action. As we worked, she asked me to try it in a simpler, genuine way.
Cristi said I was well trained on the comedy of the piece. But she wondered if there was something deeper that I was able to connect to in these lyrics.
Well, I didn’t realize it, but–that’s right folks– I was standing on the precipice of a new discovery, but a really vulnerable one. I was standing on the high dive and I didn’t know it.
When Cristi asked me to try something new my body recoiled. Anxiety filled my lungs. Tears filled my eyes and I struggled to talk. I kept saying “I don’t know how. I don’t know what’s happening.”
I tried to get water and recited Philippians 4:9 and 13 in my head while focusing on getting the cool water in my mouth. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. Do not be anxious about anything, but by prayer and supplication, present your requests to the Lord.
I was fine for a moment. And then I started crying again. And Cristi gently encouraged me to put what I was feeling into the words.
“But what I’m feeling doesn’t go with the words.”
“Then let it be wrong.”
And so I said them. I said the words. I said them with anxious breaths in between in a meek and tired voice.
And woah. WOAH. It was therapeutic. And freeing. Because in my mind, Cristi and I both decided this was going to be wrong, so I absolutely let go of judgment. And it was beautiful.
I made a lot of delightful discoveries. I discovered I connected to the lyrics in a scary, different way than before. I discovered how frustrated she is with this prince and her inability to get this man to marry her and give her the power and freedom she desires.
I discovered how trapped and unknown she is.
Turns out, the fear response was because there was something deeper I connected to after all. Because the lyrics of the piece are about more than I thought they were and letting myself ‘go there’ was a tad terrifying.
This experience led Cristi and I into a conversation about vulnerability and the creative process.
I was so frustrated that this keeps happening. You conquer one ‘high dive’ if you will, and then another one pops up. Another moment of fear and vulnerability.
Cristi kindly reminded me that I am no exception to the creative process and the life of an artist.
There is a well known 6 step creative process that goes like the following:
This is awesome!
This is tricky.
This is shit.
I am shit.
This might be okay…
This is awesome!
Fear and vulnerability don’t go away. Often on the precipice of discovery we freak out. Every creative process has the “this is shit, I am shit” phase. It's brutal and harsh, but true.
It’s icky. It feels gross. But often if we can push through the fear and self-judgment, we can discover something really beautiful in the vulnerability.
So, I’m gonna keep working on sharing my guts with an audience. Of letting myself feel those scary vulnerable feelings. Of trying new things even when the anxiety kicks in.
It may be shit. It may feel like shit. But it also might lead to something pretty cool.
Sincerely,
Sophi
Comments
Post a Comment