IF IT’S HYSTERICAL, THEN IT’S HISTORICAL

One of my students was having difficulty with auditions. A very good actor, he had no problem playing a scene. However, when I would give him a note or adjustment, he would shut down. If I asked him to try a scene again another way he would get stuck, confused, rattled and would be no longer able to connect to the material. He said this was always the case when someone would give him an acting note.

I asked him what getting a note felt like to him, and he said that it felt like he had “been bad”. Not that he had done a bad job, but that he had “been bad”.

So I asked him what that reminded him of from his past, and who from his past might have told him that he had “been bad”, and he replied, “nuns”. He had been raised in the Catholic School system, and was often harshly scolded by the nuns.

So, whenever someone in the present would give him a note, it would bring back painful memories from his past. He was not reacting to the situation in the present moment, but instead his inner child was reacting to a past experience.

I explained to him the theory:

“If it’s hysterical, then it’s historical.”

In other words, if your reaction to something is bigger and more emotional than the situation really calls for (“hysterical”), then you are not really reacting to the present situation, but to some situation in your past (“historical”).

Getting a note, something that most actors don’t mind at all, brought up a big emotional response from him, so it was clearly not “getting a note” that he was reacting to, but instead his harsh and unfair treatment by the nuns in his past.

Once he realized this, he was able to free himself from that issue. When the hysterical feeling came again, his self-awareness was able to immediately see it for the illusion it was, thus taking away all its power over him.

Let me give you an example of how I applied “If it’s Hysterical”, “Your Inner Child” and “Affirmations” to an issue in my life.

I used to be plagued with a fear of doing something “stupid”. And if I ever felt I had done or said something “stupid” I would feel AWFUL about it.

It was so bad that I used to begin every day with a litany of all the “stupid” things I had done the day before going through my head. The second I awoke, all this guilt would come flooding over me. I would lie awake, thinking, “I can’t believe I said that”, “How stupid of me to forget that” etc. I was miserable.

IF IT’S HYSTERICAL, IT’S HISTORICAL

My “hysterical” reaction to doing something I felt was “stupid” showed me that what I was really upset about was something “historical” from my past.

As a child I was the youngest in my family. Developmentally I was several years behind my older siblings. So, of course I wasn’t as “smart” as them. While they played hide and seek, or kick the can, I would just run around, not understanding the rules and looking like the town idiot. I was quickly labeled as less smart and it stuck for the rest of my life. It didn’t matter how good my grades were (National Honor Society, thank you). And being an artist at heart certainly didn’t help matters, as I was surrounded by a family of future businesspeople. I was always being teased with names like “dummy” and “airhead”. And I bought into it.

INNER CHILD

So, even though I was now an adult, my inner child was still terribly insecure about being “stupid”. No matter how many times I proved to myself that I wasn’t, I just couldn’t get rid of the notion.

A voice in my head was calling me “stupid”, and I accepted it, with no questions, as the truth.

The voice in my head was my family’s voice, or at least what I, as a child, imagined they thought of me. Even though my family wasn’t saying this to me anymore, I had continued. I picked up where they left off. They had handed me the baton, but I was running with it.

It was my ego/vulture that was saying it. It wasn’t the truth.

I was being a bad parent to my inner child. I wasn’t treating my inner child with loving acceptance.

AFFIRMATIONS

Once I realized that the voice was coming from my own ego/vulture, I was able to question it’s validity, and put a new, more loving thought in its place. I realized that I had the power to stop it.

So I created a new habit. The second that my vulture would squawk about something “stupid” I had done, I would think the following affirmation: “I forgive myself unconditionally”.

How liberating to think that I had the power to forgive myself, unconditionally!

But, this old belief was a very powerful habit to break. When I would awake, I would lie in bed repeating the affirmation over a hundred times, all the while drowning out the vulture’s list of my stupidities. And eventually the vulture got the point. He learned that I wasn’t interested in his blame game.

I am a good person. Do good people make mistakes sometimes? Yes. Does that change the fact that they are good people? No.

To this day, that affirmation is the first thought I have in the morning. Forgiveness. It is my new habit. What a beautiful way to start the day.

So next time you find yourself having an overly emotional response to something, ask yourself if you are truly responding to what you think you’re responding to. Most probably you can take away it’s power by exposing it for what it really is: a past set of circumstances which no longer need to have an affect on your life.