Spiritual Musings on a Chemical World

Thursday, September 20, 2012

Leaving Your Comfort Zone Despite Crippling Anxiety

So I'm wondering why I decided to continue on to intermediate acting. Actually, I know why I decided to. It wasn't because I plan on making any sort of career out of acting. I know that I am fooling myself if I thought I could be good enough to make it like that. The reason I took the class was to get myself out of my comfort zone. It sounded like a good idea about three months before classes started.

We were assigned an assignment which involved us doing something in front of the class that we only did alone and makes us slightly uncomfortable. The trouble with this particular assignment is, it doesn't matter what the hell I'm doing, if I am in front of the class alone then I am uncomfortable. On top of that, we are supposed to make ourselves vulnerable in some emotional way through what we are doing.

So I decided to do something in front of the mirror. I kind of planned it out but didn't practice. I realized as I was preparing to do this in front of the class that there was no way in hell I was going to be able to do this. So I pretended to look in the mirror, which was actually the audience, and then I sighed and then put on some makeup. I was thinking that maybe I was pretending to think I was ugly or something, like this was a moment where I was insecure about my looks. I thought that might be an okay thing to do. Trouble is, I just got so damn nervous, I thought I was going to have a repeat of the near-faint I had during my speech last spring. I was shaking and I thought it might be visible. In the middle of the performance I suddenly said I was done. For some reason I think that maybe my shaking wasn't as obvious as I thought it was, but I don't know. The teacher seemed kind of surprised and said ok that was short but ok. Anyway.

So I felt like I failed. And now I'm wondering how I am going to pursue my destiny when I get so nervous in front of people. Like, how am I going to be a public figure. Because I am going to be a public figure.

I'm having trouble getting people to appreciate the parts of my book that I want them to appreciate. So, I rewrite it. It almost seems like a lost cause sometimes, but I persist because I know that it has something that if I succeed at making other people see it will be a big deal. Trouble is that I take for granted that I understand it so well, that it is not obvious to me what parts people might not understand, so I don't necessarily explain those parts.

One of the psychics at the holistic fair said it would happen, and that I would be a speaker at places bigger than that place, meaning bigger than the holistic fair. She told me something else that I think is going to happen, but that's something secret. She was also the one that advised me to meet literary agents in person. That was good advice, despite the fact that I have only heard back from one of them, and that was a no. But I didn't have high expectations for that particular literary agent.

Anyway, so for now I just have to deal with the horrible crippling anxiety.

No comments:

Post a Comment