When our bodies “betray” us…

Have you ever been at an audition or on the job, and you’re feeling pretty good! Your thoughts are focused, your emotions calm. You prepped for this and you feel ready! Maybe even excited!

Then all of a sudden your heart starts pounding. It will not slow down no matter what you do! Or maybe your muscles get really shaky and you can’t ground into your feet. Or you enter the room and get stuck, you can’t move even though you’re internally yelling to “just take a step!!”

These are the moments when our bodies feel out of our control. When they’re not listening to us even when we’re telling them exactly what to do, exactly how to get through. And when this happens at that big audition, callback, or job, it can feel like our body is betraying us.

Or at least that’s how I thought of it. My body was betraying me and messing up my work. I would get on the old shame and blame spiral and think “what’s wrong with me?” “Why can’t I just get it together?”

What I now know, is that the heart racing, jittery muscles, physical stuck-ness… all of these are signs of a normal stress response.

A lot happens to our bodies when we’re stressed! Remember, our stress responses are self-protective and look a little different person to person based on our backgrounds, given circumstances, and dispositions. Here’s a few ways stress can show up in the body:

· Our hearts beat faster and harder · We feel numb or one note

· We lose our peripheral vision · Our vision blurs

· Our muscles feel tight · Our muscles lock up

· Our breathing gets shallow · and more!

Are any responses on this list familiar to you? I know I’ve experienced all of them.

And they would happen to me when I was feeling good! They would show up even if I didn’t think I was stressed. Turns out my body was telling me a different story. I was stressed, I just didn’t recognize the signs!

A lot of artist training focuses on “fixing” the body. For years as an actor, the only time I paid attention to my body was to identify something “wrong.” Got to get rid of that tension, unlock my jaw, release my shoulders, correct that choreography, increase my breath support, be a “blank” slate...

If we only pay attention to our bodies to “fix” or “improve” them, over time we may start to believe that there will always be something “wrong” with us. Which can make it harder for us to acknowledge what’s going well, our successes, and our growth!

Let’s complicate this further by the fact that acting is an embodied practice. We use our full selves (body, mind, and emotions) to tell a story on stage and screen. And we want to push ourselves creatively, emotionally, psychologically, and yes, physically, because we are always seeking to stretch our artistic limits.

A lot of us stretch our artistic limits by pushing through physical discomfort and distress. We push through in order to regain bodily control. Stuck in a spot on the floor? Scream at ourselves internally to “move!” and muscle through it till we do. Shaky breath support? Do a plank, push the wall, vigorously shake it out, and reframe the shakes as excitement.

And those are perfectly valid ways of coping with the stress! Sometimes we can reframe or suppress our body’s responses. The issue is that suppressing our bodily response doesn’t work every single time. Seeking control is not the same thing as seeking safety.

Anyone who has been stuck in a spot on the floor, who’s heart rate can’t slow down, we know that we can’t always beat our body into submission. And I don’t know about you, but in those moments, I would really punish myself for not being able to push through. My internal monologue was… not kind.

So what do we do?

A lot of us are just looking for that quick fix. This is where a pill, beta blockers, a shot, a cigarette, what have you, can help us cope in the short term. Which as long as it’s okay with your doctor or mental health practitioner, go for that quick fix!

The issue is if the quick fix becomes the long-term solution. When the cigarette becomes the smoking habit, the glass of wine to unwind becomes the “I can’t unwind without it,” the beta blockers at the audition becomes “I panic when I don’t take them.” Then we’re not actually repatterning the behavior, we’re just masking the response.

And if we’re only masking the response, then we’re just seeking control, not building bodily safety or trust. To truly feel safe and trust our bodies, we have to learn how to work with our responses. So if those quick fixes work for you, then great, go for them! And let’s also learn how to repattern that behavior.

Look, a lot of people aren’t going to believe me when I say you can have agency when your body “betrays” you. It is possible in times of high stress to work with our body’s responses. We can develop a felt sense of safety within ourselves while stressed. They’re not going to believe that it’s even possible.

Clients tell me this all the time. I mean, I didn’t believe it was possible myself, till I started doing this work. I thought I just needed to go to more auditions, more jobs, more exposure to stress so I can always push through and overcome it. Some days I could, and other days I couldn't. And I was really mean to myself on those days I couldn’t.

What I now know is how to reconnect to my body when it’s “betraying” me. I trust that no matter what stressful job or audition I walk into, I know how to move through it. And best of all, I’m taking all of that energy I used to spend being mean to myself, and putting that back into my work.

What would it be like to work with our body and not against it?

What internal monologue would we then be able to let go of?

What if our bodies unlocked our creativity rather than blocked it?

For more info on what this looks like in practice, reach out to me here for a free consult.