When I'm onstage, it's one of the only times in my day where I'm completely in the moment. If I think about my grocery list, what I need to get done at work the following morning, or even what my lines in the next scene are, I will lose my place and come tumbling out of that wonderful space where everything just is. I have to continually focus on what I am saying in this moment, what my scene partners are saying at this moment, and if I do that, usually the rest will take care of itself just fine. In my opinion, if you are worried about a performance, that's the single most important thing that you can focus on: just being here now, in this room with these people, really listening to what they are saying and really responding back to them. It sounds simple and feels so impossible at the same time. But you have control over it and the more you practice, the better you get.

There are so many benefits from being present. I can recall single moments onstage with more clarity than I can remember some years of my life. I need to learn to apply being present to my daily life so that I can soak in all the people and things around me. I have been building up a meditation practice, and that helps. I've got a long way to go, but the tiny slivers of peace and presence I've experienced by trying to just "be here now" have convinced me it's a path I want to keep journeying on.

I wish you a Sunday in which you relish each moment, whatever you are doing. Close this blog post, put down your phone, and just be in the space where you are, with whomever is there, even if it's just you. Really watch your child as she or he draws a picture, see your cat sleeping in the patch of sunlight on the floor, and taste the food you are eating. If you're binging on Netflix, relish each moment of that too. Don't feel guilty while you do it, or try to pay bills online, or fold laundry at the same time. Just be absorbed by whatever it is that you are doing.  If you need help with getting started, ask yourself what is it that you do that completely draws you in, an activity where you seem to lose track of time and of self-consciousness? Try to do something like that as often as you can, and let the focus and presence you have while doing a beloved activity bleed into other activites that you don't love. 

Each moment in our life is singular and we can't relive any of them again. But if we learn to be more present, we will be able to let these experiences really permeate our scattered, over-scheduled selves, and their vividness will not fade. In that way, we can keep them forever because they will become part of our selves.  

Be here now. 

A little Sunday listening--George Harrison's "Be Here Now".

No matter how many times I've acted in a play, I still experience intense fear before every performance. Anyone who assumes actors don't feel fear is dead wrong. My fear is heart-pounding, cold sweat, light-headed, tingling fear that hijacks my whole body. I silently stand in the dark, paralyzed with my fears of forgetting lines, messing up blocking, or shaking too badly to be able to continue with the play.  Being onstage is essentially like being emotionally naked in front of a large group of people. You are vulnerable and there is nowhere to hide. 

This play was no exception, I felt all these things each night before I went on. But I did have a moment on opening night when I was able to recognize how familiar this fear was. I'd felt it at dozens of performances in the past and suddenly realized that I would feel it at dozen of performances in the future. It was like an old, if unwanted, friend. I'd been reading Pema Chodron's book When Things Fall Apart, which explores a Buddhist perspective on accepting and dealing with the coming and going of hard times, anxiety, fear, and sorrow. Chodron tells us that in life, it's not a matter of if things will fall apart or become difficult, but when. Fear is a natural human emotion that has been felt since the beginning of civilization, and isn't going away. She suggests that the solution is not to banish fear, but to get familiar with it. One phrase she suggests is "Welcome, fear."

Remembering this (and still shaking), I feebly whispered "Welcome, fear." I waited and wished for magic. It didn't make my stomach knot go away or heart pound any less, but it was a tiny bit comforting somehow. I have to get comfortable with fear, it's going to show up at every performance. It's not about making fear disappear (in fact when I try to do this, it just gets worse).  It's about acknowledging the fear, looking it right in the face, and then going onstage anyway. Once I'm out there, the fear doesn't go away, but it's not the loudest voice in my head anymore. 

Choose Your Battles
We have a choice in these moments of fear: to go onward even if we are afraid, or to choose not to do whatever it was we were planning to do. There's no right or wrong answer, and every day we make decisions that represent moving forward with fear, or turning back because of fear. Maybe the point is not to do every task you set out to do, but to just notice when you are willing to march onward and when you're not able to.  I've noticed for myself, if I really love doing something, I'll be willing to do it even if I am afraid, whereas if it's something I'm not as passionate about, I'm not willing to do it. 

I am willing to perform even though it scares the daylights out of me every time, because for me, it's the most powerful way I've experienced of expressing myself and telling a story. I am not willing to go hand-gliding (yet) because the fear I feel is stronger than the desire I have to try it. I'm open for that to change, but so far, I haven't been able to go forward with it. I think that's ok, it's a process.

When you do do something despite feeling afraid, there is such a delicious thrill that comes with it. To dare to move onward even with fear is to be brave and opens up doors that were previously closed. As Lucy Maud Montgomery (the author of the beloved Anne of Green Gables series) said, 

Some of the best things I've ever experienced started off with paralyzing fear. As a kid, I remember wanting so badly to go on the roller coaster at the amusement park one summer and yet not seeing how I would ever be able to even get in line because I was so anxious. My Uncle Bill smiled down at me and said "It is a little scary. But everything fun usually is. Come on!" 

He was right. I rode the roller coaster half a dozen times with him that day, hanging on to the safety bar for dear life, but screaming out of fright and happiness at the same time. 

How do you talk to your fear? What is fear holding you back from right now?

Come back tomorrow for Life Lesson #6: Be Here Now.