Improvised: How to create the life you really want. by Konie Robin

Author:Konie, Robin [Konie, Robin]
Language: eng
Format: azw3
Published: 2014-11-12T16:00:00+00:00

Turn Away from the Mirrors

Look in the mirror and what do you see? For many of us the response is a rash judgment about our inability to meet the ideals of society. Ask any dance teacher and they will tell you about their love/hate relationship with mirrors. Mirrors can be a useful tool to help students see what’s going on with their body, but mirrors can also be very misleading. They have a tendency to force students to rely on visual feedback instead of learning how to listen to and master the body from the inside out.

Most improvisation classes will utilize a ‘no mirror’ rule. Improvisation is less about what things look like on the outside. Contact improvisation, for example, is a wonderful practice that utilizes the laws of physics and points of contact (contact with the floor, with a partner, or even a group) to create some beautifully complex movement. If you rely on mirrors while trying to participate in a contact improv you are destined to get injured. Too many rash judgments are made from worrying about what is seen in the mirror.

Consider the ‘mirrors’ that distract us from feeling what’s really happening from the inside out. What things distort our reality and make it difficult to honestly judge or assess a situation or person? Social media, peer pressure, the news and media outlets: All of them provide selected pictures of the lives around us and we tend to compare our reality with what is presented. Never mind that we are comparing our real-time experiences with everyone’s carefully selected highlights. We make decisions on health, fashion, education, and even career choices based on what we hear and see in the outside world, even if it’s not a true reflection of our own values for our life.

The more space we give ourselves to think through big decisions (or even small decisions) the more opportunity we have to turn inward and ensure that our judgment is coming from an authentic place and not one reflected off of the mirrors of society. Turning away from these mirrors of life can be a simple tool for practicing the art of suspending judgment.

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