The Art of Dramatic Living

In Part I, I confessed to a lifelong struggle with my compulsion to make everyone “like” me. This is my curse. Before I get to the flipside of the curse, however, I would like to share with you the words of a very wise woman (to whom I am eternally grateful and will always love). These words were the wake-up call that shook me from the people-pleasing trance:

This is the “Rule of Thirds”
Whenever you walk into a room full of people,
1/3 will think you are fantastic no matter what you do,
1/3 will dislike you no matter what you do,
And the other third won’t even know you are there.

This is an article I wrote a couple of years ago. It fits very neatly into the December Theme: You Don’t Have to Prove Anything to Anybody so I thought I would republish it here.

People Pleasing Part I: The Curse

I’ll speak in the first person because I know this role so well. Being a chronic people pleaser often makes me feel as if everyone else is in charge of my behavior. It makes me feel that I have no control over my time. It makes me feel that I have very few choices.

I’ve been thinking a lot about purpose. My drive to prove myself to others and to please others – I couldn’t even identify who – so many – has lead to a constant pursuit of opportunity and a glut of activity that in some ways has lost meaning for me. I say “in some ways” because theatre has not lost all meaning to me – but I have lost my role in it. The question has become, “If I don’t have anything to prove to anybody, what role is there for me to play?” I’ve been pondering the meaning of my life. This is a time of uncertainty for me.

And this video – that I happened upon after searching for Matthew Fox and his Creation Spirituality movement – speaks to the value of uncertainty and to the larger definition of “role”. This is Joanna Macy speaking at the 2009 Bioneers Conference about Uncertainty.

Joanna Macy at Bioneers 2009 from Defend theCommons on Vimeo.

Registration is open for classes that will begin on January 30. More information about classes and contact information can be found here.

This session we will offer a Foundations Class and a Scene Study class. The Scene Study class is open to students who have completed the Foundations Class.

Both groups will run for a 12 week session meeting on Sunday mornings for two hours. Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions.

“My passions were all gathered together like fingers that made a fist. Drive is considered aggression today; I knew it then as purpose.” ~Bette Davis

I love the words in this quote:

Passions:
Desires, longings, mission, loves.

Drive:
Momentum, action, movement, pulse, breath.

Purpose:
Reason, Being, Living.

Purpose without anything to prove. That sounds good. It feels like freedom. It’s more active than peaceful. I was reviewing goals today and one thing that kept popping up was, “To write something that matters.”  I’m wondering if my pursuit of fiction is the wrong pursuit. I’m wondering if there are other ways to clear the air. What matters? To whom does it matter.

Lately I seem to be full of desires and longings that cannot be met by my relentless pursuit of activity. It is time for me to tour a different landscape. I don’t want to spend a year staring at my belly button and I don’t want to wear myself out with repetitive activity – the mindless pursuit of opportunity. It is time to draw inwards and re-think the vision.

I am listening to the wind and waiting for the whisper.

For me the most obvious answer to this question is over-commitment. I don’t draw boundaries around my time when confronted with theatrical opportunities. I believe this tendency to over-commit is fear based. I am afraid that every opportunity to perform will be my last.

There is a common saying in the theatrical community, “You are only as good as your current job.” The fact is once a show is closed you join the ranks of the unemployed no matter how successful the production was. This is more true in professional theatre than it is in community or educational theatre, but it is a truth based mindset in any artistic community. If you aren’t visible, you don’t exist.

My husband and I had an interesting conversation in the car on the way to rehearsal for Rabbit Hole. We were talking about how busy we are and how busy we’ve been since getting engaged in July, closing a show with Theatre NXS, beginning rehearsals for Rabbit Hole with CEC, getting married, me taking a playwriting class this semester, teaching an acting class on the weekends, buying a home, moving twice – and – I’m sure I left something out, but you get the idea.

The conversation went something like this: