Listening, Curiosity, & Openness while Stressed…

On this week’s episode of The Long and the Short of It, hosts Pete Shepherd and Jen Waldman noodle on creativity, how to define it and how to practice it as a skill. Full disclosure, Jen is a mentor and I could listen to her talk anything and everything. In this rich conversation, they name three recurring themes on creativity: Listening, Curiosity, and Openness.

This got me noodling on how these themes show up in my work. As an intimacy practitioner and workshop facilitator, I help people cultivate creativity as a skill by learning about their experience of stress and learning how to settle their stress responses. Why?

Stress and trauma activation impacts creativity; it impacts our ability to listen, be curious, and be open. Here’s how:

Listening when Stressed: 

Our ability to listen and respond to other humans in the room, on stage, and on set, is directly effected by how we perceive and respond to stress. When we are activated by stress or trauma, we can tune out the sound of the human voice. We are physically not able to listen.

I can’t tell you how many times as an actor I was given an adjustment in a callback and immediately forgot what it was. Turns out, it’s not that I wasn’t listening, just that I couldn’t. Resonate with anyone else?

Curiosity when Stressed:

When we are stressed, our thinking becomes very rigid and binary. We can also get laser-focused, be unable to concentrate no matter what we do, or our minds can go completely blank. It’s hard to access our full imaginations and explore possibilities if we feel stuck like this.

I used to have a lot of trouble remaining curious when I blanked on my lines in an audition. Especially if I spent hours drilling and preparing the sides, I found it so frustrating to have done all that work and only for it to be just not in my brain!

Openness when Stressed:

Actor training is all about remaining open, remaining in that actor state of readiness. This is why we warmup our voices and bodies, go to class, train, and expand our skillset. All so that we are prepared and open during our work.

When we are activated, we go into self-protection mode. Our stress responses don’t allow us to remain fully open. Instead, our field of vision can narrow, our muscles and voices can tighten, or we lock up entirely. How we perceive and respond to stress is why it feels different when we perform in rehearsal, vs in class, vs in a coaching, vs in an audition.

Whenever I had to ask twice for an adjustment, blanked on my lines, or locked up physically while performing, I used to blame and judge myself. I saw it as me failing as an actor. What I now know, is that this is just a normal and natural stress response; it’s not at all a reflection of my talent or actor skillset. And with that knowledge, I can stop beating myself up and start shifting that response.

When we build a greater understanding of what’s going on when we feel stressed, we’re then able to have more agency in how to navigate it.

That’s what I do, I help artists and creatives build embodied self awareness and self-regulation in order to get back into connection faster. Settling or decreasing your stress (even just a micro amount), can reconnect you to your creativity, reconnect you to Listening, Curiosity, and Openness.