Yesterday was the second meeting I had with my counselor and I am a little unsure of him. It almost seems that he has a predetermined prescription for me and is not very interested in the details of my thinking or my life. Well, this may be a good thing because I am interested in an objective third party and not necessarily a pal. It is, however, a little disappointing that I am not interesting enough to generate a desire to know more about me. This is the story of my life, not interesting enough to want to know more. C’est la vie, literally.
One benefit from this meeting was an exercise he/we did in visualizing an intended outcome. He had me imagine that I was in a theater, once through the doors I was to take my seat in a comfortable place, and the lights dimmed for the performance. The curtain went up and there I was on stage, acting. The role I played was of my own choosing and I took Sinclair of UTC. Acting opposite was Tiffany and she was missing her lines to me; I was catching same and getting back to her in context without allowing the audience to know that we were ad lib mode. The visual that he had me create included feelings, smells, etc. The more vivid and real I could make it the better/deeper the impression and the effect.
This morning I took it a step farther; in bed, before arising, I went through this same process for the first of my dailies, “Greeting this day with love in my heart, I am nicer.” The results were evident; I had a certain sense of being so all day, even until now. It seems that I could do this for each of my dailies in turn, one per day and keep repeating the process over and over. Eventually the desired states of mind represented by each of them will become real to me. In the meantime, I will continue to recite the entire list daily since that is what keeps me on track during the day; visualization will deepen the effect considerably.
There was more. Earlier in the session he listened to my kvetching about being unsuccessful in interviews and auditions. He said it could be that I was over or felt under-prepared and, therefore, lacked spontaneity. This rang a bell; often I am/was/have experienced a mental lock-up in an interview when I am trying to anticipate the interviewer’s direction. I let my impressions of what I think the other is after get in the way of my answers.
Jim recalled to me my successful interviews and lack of preparedness v. my unsuccessful where much time was spent in preparation. He said that perhaps I was overdoing the preparation. This fits right into a recent insight that I had. There is an analogy between this and a cross-country trial on horseback.
The rider can walk the course, measure the distances, envision the strides and the take-off points but the horse cannot see the course before the competition. He has to take each obstacle under the hand of the rider as it comes up to him. So too would the being prepare for an audition/interview; have a strategy in mind and not a script. The more strategic the preparation, i.e. less scripted, the more flexibility one has when in the audition. This is also an opportunity to apply visualization to “set” the strategy and give the personae maximum flexibility in the execution of the interview.
It is necessary to be ready to accept rejection without recrimination. IyamwotIyam and if that’s not good enough, so be it. One can’t be so focused on getting the part, job, or sale that his mind is strapped in too tightly. Some of my failed interviews fit this pattern, one failed for lack of strategy, one failed because an interviewer had an ax to grind, and for some, I just wasn’t the person for the part. The successful had a specific goal, e.g. NNS&DD Co, and then go for it.
Another analogy that works is the director of a play, in his director’s notes session at the end of each rehearsal as he makes his direction known in more than the stage direction he gave during rehearsal; then in the private sessions where he takes the actor aside and schools him in his role. The personae then know how to perform, how to act as they go about the world that day. This is that which visualization provides.
In a Gurdjieffian sense, the brain is part of the body and the personae are the riders of the analogous horse, or actors for the analogous director. The visualized states of being are those decided upon by higher level personae as desired states. The visualization is setting the mood for the performing personae.
All of this gets me closer to one of my aims, which is to have my thoughts, words, and actions reflect the ideals of my dailies. It will likewise move me to identifying more clearly what I want to do with my remaining lifetime. When I reflect on this I keep coming back to acting. I said it to Jim, I have lost my desire to trust others in organizations, but in a cast of players, it is my experience that one can trust his fellow actors to play their role as it is defined in the play. So I can participate in an organized creative activity and expect good results. The cast is dedicated to the performance and not personal aggrandizement or greed. This is one big difference between acting and business that makes it palatable to me; plus being in front of an audience and doing that of which the vast majority of others are fearful.
Like pool, golf, and sketching it is a skill that requires a lot of dedicated effort, work.
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