Another week has gone by at my university in Long Beach, California. In a couple of days one month has passed since I moved here from Finland, and I am starting to feel really at home with my apartment, my roommates, the city and my studies.
I am so incredibly happy with my classes at the department of Theatre Arts at California State University Long Beach. I had heard good things about the department before I came here but it is a lot better in reality than I had ever hoped for!
The department has a strong emphasis on personal development and understanding of the self. My professors are some of the best professors I have ever had, they are very humane and do not fear embarrassing themselves in order to make the students comfortable.
We talk a lot about the inner critic, which is the voice in our head that tells us that we cannot do something, that we will embarrass ourselves or fail and look stupid. One of the main goals for one of my classes is to take control of the inner critic. We practice this by doing silly things that we normally would not do, like standing in silly poses while shouting our names or running around screaming strange things, and every time our inner critic says something like "you look stupid" or "what are the others thinking of you" we do the silly poses bigger and shout louder. As you can probably guess from this scenario - my classes are a lot of fun!
I have never felt this excited about studying before, I look forward to every class and I am starting to get filled with a energy and enthusiasm that I have not felt in a while.
I have always been somewhat of an perfectionist, but I have not really admitted it to myself until recently. Not a perfectionist in the sense that I would study until I got all A's or 10's, but in the sense that I have been (and still am to some degree) afraid of giving my best in case I would not succeed. For this reason I have often skipped studying for exams and sometimes even avoided doing something I really wanted to do, because I feared giving my everything and failing. In my mind that would mean that I did not fail because of a lack of effort, but simply because I was not good enough.
It is frightening to give your everything and open up your true self to other people. But thoughts like "what if I fail", "what if I am not good enough" or "they will not like me" and "I will look stupid" are just your inner critic trying to control you. They are not the truth.
Becoming aware of the inner critic and realizing that the things it is saying to you are not true is a good first step towards freeing yourself from the barriers of your mind and letting yourself do the things that you want to do.
My teacher keeps telling us that "it is better to fail big than to succeed small" and I do believe this is true especially when it comes to studying theatre arts but also in other aspects of your life and it is changing the way I look on failure.
I still have a long way to go before my inner critic stops nagging at me about all the things that could go wrong and all the ways I could embarrass myself, but I am working on it every day and I feel how the insults and warnings are losing intensity.
Who knew that studying acting would be this therapeutic?
I have decided to start doing things that make me embarrassed or uncomfortable on a regular basis to get rid of the inner critic. I might even film some of it and post it on steemit. Do you have any ideas on what I should start with?
It cannot be something illegal, plain stupid or something that could be insulting to others.
Thank you all for joining me on my journey!
I will soon write a post about Laguna Beach, my favourite beach in California so far. And another post about combining psychology and acting, and why I want to do that.
mialinnea
That's the mark of a teacher that truly loves what they do for a living. I had a few such professors at my university and in high school, and I will always remember them.
Glad you have such great people at your college.
Yes, you can tell that they all really love their job! :) it makes every class so much more enjoyable.
I totally understand the part about not giving you 100% in case you don´t succed. I had the same feeling a few years ago, for me it was: Ok, I consider myself very capable in a lot of areas, but to actually try to achieve something and not getting it, might show me how capable I truly am, sort of a reality check. The truth is, I didn´t. I have gotten pretty much everything I strive for and that is very fulfiling, sometimes you just have to take that leap off of your comfort zone and magical things will hapen, we are capable of so much yet we don´t do it because self doubt is always there to haunt us. The moment I realize that, my life took a sudden change which I am loving.
Well, to get rif of the inner critic, for me it works perfectly to do the things I wouldn´t do. If old Eric would never dance roomba in public because of embarrasment, present Eric actively searches for dancing situations to deal with that embarrasment; if old me would not speak with girls, present me starts conversations with every girl I see, and even if it goes horribly, you learn from everything, you become a better person, you come one step closer to being the best version of yourself you can be, and that feeling is awesome.
You don´t even need to make a list about these things. When you encounter a moment where your answer would be no, make it a yes, a hell yes, a "let´s do this now" yes.
Yeah, I've gotten better at giving my best last years but I could still improve in that sense so I am working on it. In acting I cannot really not give my everything or not commit to the role or I will definitely fail, so that is a perfect way to train. It also makes me feel very vulnerable, but that is good too.
And I am trying to get rid of the inner critic in that same way :) Yesterday I went to a ska/reggae concert with my friends and no one was dancing. There was not even really a dance floor. And my friend said that she felt a bit sorry for the band that had to play for a sitting audience and jokingly said we should go do it. My response normally would have been no, no one else is dancing - but instead I said yes and got some of my friends to join me at the dance floor. I was mostly just jumping around like a idiot, I don't really know how one is supposed to dance to ska music, but it was so much fun!!! Every time my inner critic told me I looked stupid I continued dancing even more energetically and it worked :) after a few songs we got some more people dancing with us and I am quite sure no one else would have come up and started dancing if we wouldn't have gone first. The band seemed to appreciate it as well :)
This made me feel inspired when imagining the beating of that sonofabitch(aka. the inner critic) in my head who just cringes for the things I do/I've done: "Your time has ended. Now it's time for the unleash of a new me so you can cringe yourself to death because I don't give a damn."
Anyways, good to hear of you😁
Hahah, yeah :D that's perfect! Take control!
Glad to hear you're liking your school and new city.
thank you for checking in! :)
Beautiful post! It's important to study something you like and passionate about. Good luck :)
Thank you! I am glad you enjoyed it, and yes it is indeed very important!
How to understand and conquer our ''inner critical voice'' is one of the greatest challenges of today's psychology. This voice, which is like an anti-Self, is one of the most difficult psychological hurdles we have to overcome so that we can live our most authentic version. I like what you do there as part of your psychology studies. In my country the education system was a little bit different and I had to do my personal development after graduating from the faculty of psychology , more specifically in my training as a psychotherapist that lasted for 4 years. And I remember that we did a workshop with a Canadian psychotherapist about How to behave stupidly and feel good. :)
Hi! it is indeed a challenge to overthrow that voice, but it is not impossible and it must be very freeing to conquer it! In Finland I could not study theatre either so that is why I am doing a exchange in the US so that I can combine both aspects. I bet psychotherapy training teaches you a lot! That workshop sounds interesting, and it is so much fun to deliberately do something to look really stupid and not care about it! Thank you for that wonderful comment! :)