Incubating In The In-Between
Incubating in the in-between.
Sometimes when we pause possibilities arise.
Sometimes when we pause regrets invade.
One releases us, the other arrests us.
Possibility propels you forward, it is creativity in the making. Regret deflates energy, attaching you to the past.
What happens when you seem to have no control and can’t predict the outcome? How do you navigate?
Actors practice sending and receiving lines, this give and take binds them together.
A character sends a line because something is needed from the other. How the line is sent affects how a line is received and in turn how the next is sent.
It’s an ongoing cycle, a continuous rotation… and evolution. Between each rotation there is an in-between moment as transition happens.
In this transition there is a loss of direct navigation (a loss of control). You let go of the rudder momentarily. This can cause anxiety.
The substance inside transition is a gooey incubation. It is a melding of information from past and future, giving birth to the next expression of how we feel and how we behave.
Like sailors on the sea, we correct our course based on where we’ve come from and where we need to go. Sometimes the current forces our hand that steers the rudder, giving rise to the fear of falling off course.
So what do you do…?
Sit in the goo.
When you sit in the incubation and honor the process of change, you become alert to the polarity that brings about the change. You are a conscious participant of something becoming.
This is the most delicious and informed place to be… When you don't resist you become the active ingredient in the transformation, fluid and released. Intuition takes you.
People often retreat into remembered behavior to avoid the unknown, even as it is upon them.
As the New Year waves to you across the divide consider not throwing out the Old and bulking up for the New… consider embracing the incubation, and partnering with what is becoming.
Reinforce your creativity.
I have designed the Slow Read Exercise as a practice for actors to hold connection when anxiety comes up. It is like a meditation between two people in the give and take. After the lines have been spoken, the actor keeps connected “holding” (in the goo), staying open in the transition.
This is where creative truth hides out. It will always rise to the surface and meet you if you stay open and don’t shut down the process.
Acting is not about you or the other actor, it is this in-between. Acting is the uncontrolled moment that you tumble into. This pit is filled with mystery.
It’s a feeling of dropping off the planet, falling endlessly in the dream… if you go with the fall, through the layers of resistance, you will always land.
Your audience experiences this too. Nothing is more exciting.
This is the essence of acting… to let go and allow it to become.
As you in this moment between last year and the New Year, let go of your regrets, let go of your disappointments, and drop into the in-between.
If you don’t, you might retreat to where you feel the familiar and miss the infinite opportunities of the next moment.