Understanding Emotion

Last week in Acting 2, a life coach came in and spoke to us about emotional response and how to apply what we learned to the characters that we just worked on in scenes. This information is very applicable to the process of writing characters as well. So, here's what I learned:

Emotions are our first language. When we are young we are very in tune with our emotions - how we feel is how we react - but as we grow up we cover up and disconnect from our emotions. Every feeling - both positive and negative - has great power for insight. If we are not paying attention to this process, we are missing valuable information about ourselves. The presenter highly recommended journaling to create better awareness.

My favorite thing she said was that there are laws that govern emotions. If we can master the laws, we can break them - opening the way to amazing things.

If you want to fly, the first thing you have to do is understand
gravity.

One of these laws is that the emotional response that we see or feel on the surface is not the primary emotion. Take anger. Anger is a protective emotion. We are protecting ourselves in some way. If we dig deeper, we might find embarrassment, frustration and usually at the core are the primary emotions of fear and/or pain. We are fearful or hurt when a belief we hold is not being reinforced or is being threatened.

We all hold beliefs and every event of our lives are filtered through these beliefs. If the belief is a negative one, such as "I am unloveable," this belief can be rescripted. It is difficult work, but we can change our view of ourselves and the world to something more healthy by being aware of our emotional responses and figuring out their underlying beliefs.

We also have meta-emotions and this is what sets us apart from all other living things: Meta-emotions are how we feel about how we feel. This adds more layers of emotions as we start to judge ourselves and others usually accompanied by more emotional responses.

Being aware of our emotions helps us to be more emotionally responsible. An emotionally irresponsible person:

1. Blames others "You make me so mad!"

2. Projects their own feelings on others "Why are you so irritated?" (when in fact they are the ones that are irritated.)

3. Tranfers emotions they don't know how to handle onto others. (if they didn't get the love they wanted from their father, they would transfer that need and/or anger onto someone else.)

When dealing with emotionally irresponsible people it is important to set boundaries. Clearly and calmly state what is acceptable and know that what you do will speak louder than what you say. Follow through on your stated boundaries. Don't be someone else's emotional garbage recepticle.

So how does this apply to acting and/or writing characters? Well I started immediately applying it to Leonata. It was helpful for me to understand that Leonata is not an emotionally responsible person. Her emotions are definitely out of balance - which make her hard for me to portray. It was also helpful to understand that her anger - unbridled rage, really - is masking fear. She is a woman in a man's world - in the middle of a war - and the events happening in the story, put her and her household in a very precarious position. It's much more than just loosing social face and standing. Her grief in her second monologue is also covering up a lot of stuff. Fear is still there, but also guilt and shame perhaps at how she treated her own daughter and bewilderment at how her world - and many of her beliefs - have crumbled around her.

This presentation got me looking deeper at character and realizing more fully the many layers that make up a human being.