Love and Fear

There are two archetypal emotions - Love and Fear. This is not a new concept. I first ran across it reading Neal Donald Walsch's Conversations with God. As I read about this idea, I was struck by the similarity between this idea and the part of the Michael Chekhov Technique dealing with expansion and contraction. I saw clearly that Love was expansion and Fear was contraction. Since that time, I have seen the idea that Love and Fear are the only two true emotions in several places.

But where did emotions such as anger, grief, joy, resentment, sadness fit?

As I pondered this question, I saw that rather than being on the same level as Love and Fear - the other "emotions" were more like subsets. Love and Fear were the archetypes from which all other emotions came. To discover which archetype an emotion fell under, all one had to do was check in with themselves with the question, "does this make me feel expansive or contractive?" If the emotional state created a sense of expansion, it fell under the archetype of Love. If the emotional state created a sense of contraction, it fell under the archetype of Fear.

The one "emotion" I couldn't reconcile with this theory was anger.

Was anger a subset of fear? When I felt angry, there was a certain sense of drawing within. But when I expressed my anger there was more of an outward movement. But could anger really be a subset of Love? that didn't seem to make sense. Then I had the thought: What if anger isn't really an emotion? I mean, the only reason I assumed it was an emotion was because everyone said it was. But what if it wasn't?

Then I remembered when I was getting counseling for ADHD (and depression, although I wasn't willing to admit that I was depressed at the time). During one of my counseling sessions I saw that when I got angry at something, there was a split second that something else was there - intense sadness. Anger seemed to be my way of avoiding the sadness I was feeling.

So maybe anger wasn't an emotion, but a physical or energetic means of avoiding whatever feeling is really there.

A recent example:
Sunday morning my wife and I had a fight. The details are unimportant, but the basic gist was that I said something and she thought I was saying something negative about her. She got angry. And then I got angry. She was angry that I would think something negative about her. I got angry because I think it's clear that I hold her in high regard and so why would she think that I would say anything negative about her.

Breaking it down later, I could see that before she got angry, she got hurt. And before I got angry, I got hurt. And rather than experience those hurt feelings, we used anger to deflect and avoid.

I have tried out this theory over and over with people and have never found a case where anger didn't come as a response to a feeling of hurt or loss or sadness. All subsets of the archetypal emotion - Fear. I invite you to try it out yourself.

To be continued....

Some thoughts on breathing...

Couple of thoughts...

First is on exhaling. We learn at an early age that when we inhale and don't release our breath - we cut off our feelings. I came across this early on in my exploration of the breath. It was refreshing to see the idea in Dennis Lewis' book, The Tao of natural Breathing as well. This happens somewhere between 2 years and 4 years old. When we're young and don't know how to handle feelings that are uncomfortable, this can be helpful. The problem is that by the time we are adults, we have forgotten that we "learned" this and we start thinking that this is "normal." As adults, (hopefully) we have the ability to process our emotions more effectively and so don't need to restrict our exhale, but as they say - old habits die hard.

What to do? One way that I've found to "jump start" our exhalations is doing an exercise that I got from Nancy Zi's book, The Art of Breathing. Imagine that there is a large, inverted eye dropper inside of you. The bulb part is in your stomach and the other end is at your head. Take a breath in and then imagine your are squeezing the bulb as you let your air out. Then “let go” of the bulb and allow the air to come back in. Sometimes just doing this once gets me back into exhaling.

Second thought regards tension. We are taught that tension is bad. I like to think of tension as neither good or bad, but just one way our body communicates with us. When we stop making tension "wrong" (which only encourages/creates more tension) - we have a better chance of dealing with it. This relates to one of Chekhov's "Four Brothers" - the Feeling of Ease. He was bothered by Stanislavki telling actors "to relax." How does one "relax"? Relaxing is a non-action and it is impossible to do a non-action. Instead, Chekhov encouraged actors to do things with a Feeling of Ease - focusing on how we do a thing rather than "trying" to relax.

Also, if we know what we're tensing up against, then the goal would be to deal with what is causing the tension rather than focusing on the symptom.

Sleepy on a Wednesday Morning

Was up late the other night with a sick child. Still trying to get back up to speed. Rehearsals are going well for my current project, "Of Mice and Men," at the Phipps Center in Hudson, WI. There are some really touching moments as well as some very funny moments. I think they're going to rock on opening night (Friday).

More later...

An exercise to try...

"Getting in touch with the breath"

This exercise is adapted from an article by Arnold Jacobs.

Take a deep breath in and then let it out at a slow, even pace. Notice how initially you have to "hold back" your breath even as you push it out just to keep it flowing evenly. At some point, equilibrium will develop and you will then notice that you need to "push" without holding back to keep the breath flowing evenly.

Purpose of the exercise: to simply get you to start noticing how you breath.

Welcome to The Actor's Breath!

Welcome to the Actor's Breath Blog. This is my first foray into blogging - feel free to drop a note with feedback. This blog will explore a variety of subjects: theatre, acting, directing, the Michael Chekhov Acting Technique and breathwork.

Some sites to check out:
TC Theatre and Film - a great resource for theatre and film folks in Minnesota.
The Actor's Breath - a collection of links and information about breathwork and how it relates to theatre.
DavidLind.com - my personal web page

Quote for the day: "Breath is life. To live fully, one must breathe fully"

Shalom. Namaste.

David