Sure, Committed Impulse training includes a comprehensive approach to creating a character as well as all the tools you need to craft a compelling performance from your truth.
Further, CI holds the key to being creatively invincible.
By that I mean no matter what you’re feeling or what kind of self defeating thoughts are in your head – you will be able to perform at your absolute best. This applies to actors as well as entrepreneurs.
But there are other areas of the work that I rarely talk about in blogs.
Today I want to address chronic pain.
I am not a doctor (I only play one on TV), but I have been exploring for many decades what happens in the human body when we have a low tolerance for certain sensations/emotions and how this relates to pain, and ultimately, illness.
Our culture teaches us that there are good emotions, and bad emotions. At their core, however, emotions are simply atoms that are vibrating in a particular part of our body.
Emotions are not good or bad. They’re vibrations that show up in the form of spinning, pulsating, lifting, sinking, contracting and expanding.
For example when we explore in class the actual experience of nervousness – for many people it’s a pulsating sensation in their chest cavity.
Now, here’s how all this connects to chronic pain.
Continuing to use the example of nervousness (which is energy – often a lot of energy)…
Let’s say that Susie ( All names were changed to protect the innocent), identifies the sensation of pulsating energy in her upper torso (nervousness) as bad. Maybe she believes that this sensation means she is not professional, or not fully prepared, a fraud, or makes her want to run away.
So, it’s safe to say that Susie has a low tolerance for this sensation. Not unusual for many people (before diving into CI). As a result she has come up with a way to suppress this energy so it feels less intense – and she feels more in control.
Here’s the problem with suppressing any emotion/energy.
That energy doesn’t just vanish – it gets contained in the body.
And as we continue the cycle of trying not to feel certain sensations – these sensations get locked in a particular part of the body. ( ie. the left shoulder).
The first stage of this continued suppression is tightness. Left unaddressed this tightness evolves into pain. Chronic pain. Which, when unaddressed, can evolve into illness.
What to do?
1.) When a sensation arises that you do not like – which it will – be brave and just feel the purity of the sensation without dramatizing it. In other words feel it without going into a mental drama about the vibrations.
THE RESULT: The sensation will shift within 7-12 seconds (as long as there is NO MENTAL DRAMA going on). And you will not build up tightness in your body. Expect to cry for a minute, or feel ecstatic, or frustrated, angry or calm.
2.) Take 5 minutes (set a timer), and sit with your eyes closed.
Put your attention on the area that has chronic pain – and FEEL IT.
Most of the time when we feel chronic pain we do everything we can to avoid the sensation.
This perpetuates the pain.
Aim your breath into the core of the pain and feel it exactly as it is.
Is it tight?
Is it spinning?
Does it have a color?
Is there an emotion in there?
Feel it and you will start to melt away the pain.
IMPORTANT: Know that the pain that is in there has X amount of avoided sensation in it. It is not an abyss of pain – it’s a specific amount. And it can melt away quite quickly by experiencing it – again; with NO DRAMA.
THE RESULT: After one 5 minute session you will feel the area with chronic pain start to open up and lessen. Do this 7 days in a row – and the results will be profound.
REMEMBER: There is no reason to live with chronic pain as a result of avoiding the sensations that you are designed to feel. Don’t forget – there are no bad sensations. Sometimes sensations are intense – but remember when you start to feel something you have a low tolerance for RIDE IT- DON’T HIDE IT.
The result – you’re going to feel more alive and your body will be supple, expressive and free to be the vehicle for you to do your best work.
With Love
Josh Pais
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