BODY VOICES VISUALIZATION & AWARENESS EXERCISE
The following Visualization and Awareness Exercise pairs with Nathan’s “Self-Development through Monologues” series and is typically a week-two exercise. Consider using a yoga mat or finding a comfortable place in your home. You may use headphones or earbuds to do this exercise, though we do not recommend the use of Bluetooth devices as they emit interfering microwave.
Completing this monologue exercise:
- Do the guided meditation called “Body Voices.”
- Choose one or two feelings you isolated and write a narrative monologue one step removed from first person. Write as the feeling.
- As you write, creatively share where the feeling lives in the body and what affect it has on its host (you). What behavior and other feelings or sensations can and does the feeling induce?
- Tape your monologue and share back to: nathan@fwactors.com or myersnathand@gmail.com
EXAMPLES:
“I am impatience. I live everywhere in the body. That is, I move around a lot as I am very uncomfortable staying in one place for too long. I know it is better somewhere else and share the statement with Laura all the time. I invade her sense of peace and create dissatisfaction with the moment. I am really very clever in that I can always offer up a basis of comparison which automatically invalidates any positive feeling she might have. I foster agitation by tightening the muscles in her body, by accelerating the heartbeat, by creating a general state of discomfort which leads her to think that she must take immediate action to change her situation. And I always offer up the promise that it’s better somewhere else and she should act on that impatience to be in that other place.“
“I am guilt. I live in her forehead and make her run to try to prove that she is good enough. She runs when I call and will jump away from what she’s doing and will cook when she doesn’t feel like cooking. I also make her hide when she knows she has to do something important. I make her drink coffee on the subway because I know she’s afraid she’s not going to be ready for her class. I make her run to help friends even though I know she has to take her acting more seriously. I make her work harder and overextend herself at her job; make her afraid to ask for help or admit she can’t handle it. I make her ignore her sense of right and wrong and work out the “fair” solution. I make her afraid to put people in their place.“