Monday 12 October 2009

Engage your emotions

Now here's an exercise that is not only useful for actors but also useful for anybody in living their life. The Words of Wisdom are Engage your emotions. You can do this exercise by yourself or with a partner or, ideally, with a group of people.

Take an imaginary tablet from your pocket. You do have an imaginary tablet in your pocket, don't you? It will be red. Visualise it very strongly. When you swallow it, it will produce instant anger. Think 'eyes.' Look at the tablet. Place it on your tongue. Feel it. Taste it. Take an imaginary glass of water. Sip it and swallow the tablet. Feel it go down your throat. Feel the instant anger. Talk to yourself or the nearest person to you. You will find you are angry. After half a minute or so snap your fingers and the anger will switch itself off.

You can repeat this ritual with other emotions. Try the orange pill that produces instant energy; the pale blue capsule that makes you sad; the little green one that instantly boosts your brainpower; the maroon and black striped one that makes you cheerful, so that everything's a laugh. Then there's the yellow tablet that produces anxiety, the glittering gold capsule that makes you incredibly attractive and the little white tablet that produces instant calm. The colours are, of course, your own choice, but once you have established them, stick to them.

The emotions will seem real if they come from the inside and are not over-expressed. It's an exercise that shows the power of visualisation and it works best if the ritual is followed very carefully and always in the same way. These imaginary drugs are very powerful, but they have no side-effects and they are free and legal.

I have often asked a class which of these drugs they would most like in reality. You might suppose that they would ask to be charismatically attractive, or supremely intelligent and quick witted, but nearly always a large majority vote for instant calm. We all need calm.

Engage your emotions.

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