Shownotes
In part one of this episode series on emotions in improv, we looked at what alexithymia is, who experiences it and the variety of expression, and how it affects improv performers and the shared improv practice.
This episode, part two, now explores some ideas of what students can do if they approach exercises with assigned emotions, and what teachers can do to make their classes and exercises more inclusive for those with alexithymia.
References from episode
You can find the written essay for this episode at NeurodiversityImprov.com here.
I mention “emotion charts” (moods, feelings, etc) in the episode. This is what I mean (there are tons on the interwebs, here are just a couple): Example 1, Example 2. There are many out there that you can print out, or purchase a laminated poster of and so on.
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* This week's survey on alexithymia and emotions in improv here.
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This podcast was created, and the episode was written, by Jen deHaan — an autistic + ADHD improviser.
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Transcripts
If you improvise with or teach more than 10 people, you've probably done improv with someone who experiences Alexithymia or is a lexithymic.
::So this episode will help you support yourself or others when working with emotions in scenes as a student or as a coach or a teacher.
::This is Neurodiversity and Improv, the podcast.
::I'm a Neurodivergent Improvisor who is about to dump the information all over you about the intersection of Improv and Neurodivergence.
::These episodes are intended to help all improvisers of all different neurotypes, that's you, since Neurodivergent and Neurotypical humans are all on teams and in classes together.
::But before we get started really quick, I'm only speaking for myself and my own lived experiences in these podcast episodes.
::Everyone has different experiences and are very different based on their own unique neurotype and their individual experiences and support needs, how they're raised, where they're raised, all that stuff.
::My ideas in these episodes and those of any guests or any other submitted ideas that you might find in them won't be right for everyone.
::These words that I choose to use in the things I do are just my own preferences, what works for me.
::So I'm not telling you what to do.
::Throw away or just anything if it's not right for you.
::Please don't diagnose yourself or other people using this podcast.
::Talk to someone who's much smarter.
::And finally, these points aren't excuses.
::I'm just explaining how we work or how I work really.
::Neurodivergent humans can't change how we're wired, but we can understand how we're wired better.
::You can understand us better, and we can all work on these things the best that we can.
::And finally, if you find this podcast useful, I'd really love it if you'd share it, review it, or if you can, support my work at neurodiversityimprov.com.
::All of it is really appreciated and helps.
::And with that out of the way, let's get started.
::Part two.
::So in part one, we looked at what Alexithymia is, who experiences it, and a variety of ways that it's expressed, and how it affects improv, and how it affects a scene, and the shared improv practice that we all do together.
::This part now explores some of the ideas of what students can do if they approach exercises with emotions that are assigned.
::Oh no.
::And what teachers can do to make their classes and exercises more inclusive for people who are Alexithymic.
::So I'm going to go through some tips for students doing exercises.
::In the previous part of this series, I described using emotions in a scene with a scene partner.
::This Alexithymia affects about 10% of the general population.
::So you are quite likely to improvise with someone who has Alexithymia, and you might not even realize it or you might experience it yourself.
::Maybe you haven't realized it was even a thing or why it might be challenging for you when you deal with emotions or emotional labels.
::So some of the things I described in part one is what Alexithymia is and how some people experience it.
::I include some resources to learn more in the written essay that accompanies that episode.
::There's a lot more variety in what this is expressed like and how it feels depending on the cause of the Alexithymia, which varies a lot between injury or genetics and comorbidities that might go along with it.
::Neurodivergence, for example.
::I go over how it can challenge improvisers who experience it, who are Alexithymic, and I go over what improvisers can do in performances, how teams can work together if you are Alexithymic or somebody on the team is.
::So go back to part one if you're interested in performance and doing scenes in a show.
::But for classes and jams, you might be asked to use an emotion to start a scene, or you might even be asked to start with a certain emotion and then reach a different emotion by the end of a scene.
::And there are many variables in between.
::Lots of exercises, lots of different ways of doing that.
::And just as an aside before we go any further, because I don't think it fits in anywhere else, feel free to look at an emotion chart for those times if you're asked to grab an emotion, because whenever I've been asked that to throw suggestions out or whatever of emotional words, all the labels, all the words just fall out of my brain immediately because it puts me in my head.
::So I'm sure I'm not the only.
::You don't have to be alexithymic for that to be a thing.
::I'm not sure why it helps me get 14% better at it, but grab one of those emotional charts, print it out, whatever.
::Maybe all the colors are just a distraction and it makes me feel better.
::I don't know because I have alexithymia.
::I don't know.
::And if those charts make it worse for you, put you in your head worse, just avoid them.
::Throw away that advice.
::Show, don't tell.
::Maybe you've heard this.
::So show don't tell means that we aren't going to use the words like, I feel tired.
::You're just going to act tired.
::If you try to act as tired in your body and you just can't show it physically, like all of this makes sense.
::You don't want to say the words because that's not really acting.
::So you're trying to just show what you feel.
::But for the sake of the series, remember that you can ignore those labels.
::Pick a time.
::If you're given a label to start with, in a class or a scene, you're given a word.
::Pick a time, if you can, where you physically felt something in reaction to some kind of event.
::Don't worry about the specific label.
::If you can access something, maybe that's very high level, good or bad even, that high level.
::That helps me just think of a good feeling or a bad feeling.
::That's pretty much how I roll.
::Good feeling, bad feeling.
::Just see if you can access it again, or maybe you can kind of figure out something that might fit a little bit better.
::See if you can feel that again or something that resembles it.
::So if you are given a word like that, see if you can just even find a good or a bad, or maybe a time in the past when you might have analyzed something that has felt a certain way.
::Does that label, that time that you're thinking about, make you feel something in your body?
::Does any of that happen?
::Does this label make you flash memory to an experience?
::Loosen up your brain if you can.
::See if it just automatically takes you to a time where you felt something and you might be able to access a feeling that way, to just show it and not tell it.
::See what these things do, see what it helps you access.
::For me, it really helps if I go to an experience that I've already analyzed.
::So a lot of times these are kind of bigger, more important times of your life where you've probably thought about or ruminated about it a lot and maybe you've kind of accessed at least logically how you felt.
::And these are the kind of memories that you might want to return to, as long as they're not too dramatic, don't do that to yourself, but return to those things to help you access something that you can use in the scene.
::And you can also do this as yourself or you can do this as a character.
::If I'm doing it as a character because I use hyperfantasia along with my improv, I'm oftentimes doing this kind of in my mind looking like a different character and sort of removing myself, my own person from this a little bit helps me detach and not put as much concrete meaning into my connection with that emotion.
::And it helps me a lot in the scene to not have a connection to myself quite as much.
::I'm still in there.
::I'm still in there.
::I am still that character, but I'm acting as that character.
::I'm feeling as that character.
::So that sort of helps me a bit.
::And you don't need to use the actual words that you've been assigned in the scene.
::And I don't mean the actual just don't say them.
::The show don't tell thing that I've said a few times now.
::I don't mean that.
::I mean, you don't have to try to access that exact word that you've been given for the exercise.
::You can find something adjacent to it.
::You can raise it up a whole bunch of levels into something really generic.
::Like I said, good or bad.
::You don't need to actually do that exact word in the scene, or you can if you want.
::Sometimes practicing all of this in the wrong way.
::And those air quotes again.
::I mean, what's wrong anyways in Improv?
::But I digress.
::Sometimes just practicing it this way in just finding anything that will work, will make you feel more comfortable using emotions in general because you're getting practice, accessing those emotions or finding a way to find an emotion to play with.
::And the more that you do this, the more comfortable you're going to get in Improv, accessing an emotion, any emotion.
::And that will potentially lead you to growth in this particular part of Improv.
::So if you need to do it, quote marks wrong to grow, do it wrong because that means it's actually right.
::So on this note, let's talk about accessing your own emotions to use in Improv.
::Figure out if there's a way that you can access an emotional memory that is close to or matches what you want to do in the scene.
::That's essentially what I've just been talking about.
::Or a technique that separates you from that emotion, like how being a character might separate you from concrete thinking.
::That's thinking about the emotion as yourself and assigning it.
::Oh, that's right or that's wrong or that's not quite the right label.
::If you're a character, you're not really doing that because it's a character.
::It's make-em-ups.
::It's fiction.
::So for me, it's much easier to do this as a character, but that might not work for you.
::So it's important to figure out what the best way for you to access emotions and use emotions are.
::It might be as yourself.
::It might be as a character.
::You might use flash memory a different way.
::You might not have hyperphantasia.
::You might not use the visual.
::So play around and see what technique works for you.
::So I'm going to just go over some of the things I mentioned in a little bit more detail, things that you can try.
::And again, this is not a complete list.
::These are just things that work for me.
::Flash memory.
::So what is flash memory?
::This improv technique is described, it's just quickly accessing something in your memory to use in the scene.
::For example, if you remember joy during a dog walk at a beach, you just know that is probably joy.
::I want to access probably joy or things that you experience on a dog walk.
::If that's the assignment, then you quickly remember that time you walked, dude, the dog at Pismo Beach, right?
::Like that was joy for me or I want to access things at a beach, whatever.
::So, that is flash memory.
::Just quickly going back, seeing that there, and then using what you remember from that in the scene.
::Very, very quick.
::Very, very quick.
::Flash memory can be used to access that time that you felt, an emotion that you want to use.
::Now, like I said, hyperventasia, because I use that.
::again, I've spoken about it in episode 14.
::It's called visual memory and recall if you want more information, but I'll sort of immerse myself in that experience for a second.
::And that lets me feel and I can use that feeling in the scene.
::I'm not using this all the time.
::I'm mostly using this for when I'm, say, in an exercise and being assigned something, or if I really I just know I have something good.
::I'll like during the scene, I might just quickly.
::It'll just be there.
::I won't actually think to go do that.
::It'll usually just appear.
::So you will use this in, if you can, in different ways in Improv, depending on how you need to use it.
::But this helps me feel what I felt during that experience.
::And then I use it.
::Now, this is because I've already processed whatever the emotion was after that actual experience, and then I've assigned it a word.
::So because I've done that in the in the past, that is why I can access that emotion with that memory.
::This might work for you if that's how your emotions tend to work.
::And I'm using hyperphantasia, but this might work for you too.
::Most people have some kind of visual memory.
::So your mileage might vary depending on how your brain actually works.
::So another thing I do, like I've mentioned, is I be the character.
::So what does that mean?
::I try to think as the character.
::I just assume that character.
::I am the character.
::This takes time to do this.
::You might need to do improv for quite a while before you do this, or you might do it naturally from the beginning.
::But the key here is to let go of concrete thinking around emotions.
::Because this is make-em-ups, which includes the emotions, this means that you can feel whatever, and you don't need to put all that logic and thinking around it.
::Now, we might not want to be cartoonish, unless that's your thing, then lean into it.
::But find that honest answer for your character.
::When I'm being a character, I'm being a real person.
::There's still me in that character.
::So it doesn't mean being cartoonish or outlandish or fake make-up ups or anything.
::I find the honest answer for that character, which includes their emotions.
::So for me, this removes the concrete thinking and frees me up entirely when it comes to emotions.
::And then I can feel as my character and not as myself.
::Now, this is way easier said than done, I suppose.
::And I described that a bit more in part one of this series.
::Another thing you can do is just use the physical descriptions or show it.
::So if you use physical descriptions instead of emotional labels, just run with that.
::If you want to verbalize that because you don't think what you are showing, what you're displaying to your scene partner in the exercise is, just do it.
::Even if it's against the assignment, do what works for you.
::So this might not be show, don't tell, but if it helps you be more comfortable in the scene, and that's what you'd really honestly do, then just utilize that.
::Like I said in part one of this series, just lean in to honesty whenever you can.
::How would you be outside of the scene in this scenario?
::What would you say to someone that you're talking to, like in real life?
::Or what would your character that you're playing can honestly do and start there?
::And the last thing, don't worry about looking wrong.
::If you're using a physical description instead of those labels, or you're describing how you feel using that way of description, just do it.
::If someone tells you that you're doing it wrong, throw that advice away immediately into the fiery depths into which it belongs.
::And if you get in trouble for doing so, like I don't recommend saying this out loud, but maybe just you're doing a little bit of a mimed action, you know, like you're slightly narrowing your eyes and kind of throwing that advice down on the ground.
::Maybe you kind of take your toe of your shoe and kind of grind it into the stage floor a little bit, and you get in trouble for doing that.
::Just send that person who's given you that grief, send them my email, it's jendahan at gmail.com.
::Tell them that the person at this email address was the source of such bad advice.
::I'll have your back.
::I'm going to have your back with some salty memes and completely irrelevant dog facts, because that's how my autistic ass rolls.
::And for that, you're welcome.
::So, do have something that works for you.
::And if you do have the something, if you discover it or you have it already, fill out that survey that I attached to these episodes.
::You can go to neurodiversity.com.
::There's the word survey at the top of the website.
::Go there.
::Take your mouse, drag it up to that survey menu option, click the word survey, find the survey, do the survey and send it to me.
::It's going to help me, it's going to help the improv community.
::We'll get your word out there.
::It's going to help people.
::Then you'll feel good.
::And then you'll drink a big glass of water and you'll be healthy.
::Why am I still talking?
::I don't know.
::I'm going to leave this in though.
::Hi.
::Changing emotions within a scene.
::So your teacher says to keep the same emotion throughout the scene.
::Feel free to ignore this.
::I sure do.
::You have my permission.
::again, if you want to, if they have a problem, just send them my email and I'll send them dog facts.
::So I've done this.
::It's resulted in positive notes.
::Now, this is an N of 1.
::Of course, it depends on you.
::It depends on the coach or whatever.
::I mean, the notes that I got was like, yeah, you didn't do the assignment, but the scene worked out great.
::Like it worked out great for you.
::So I guess I failed upwards for this.
::But again, this comes back to the honesty, right?
::Like let the scene go where the scene wants to go.
::I think this works even in disparate improv styles.
::Like I haven't done much dramatic narrative more than a few workshops, but they seem to like being honest with reactions too.
::I think it kind of works in a lot of different types of improv.
::If the scene wants to go somewhere emotionally, follow it.
::Even if you're not keeping that emotion the same, or maybe if you're not progressing to the emotion that you're supposed to in this exercise, just follow where the scene goes.
::The objective usually seems to just kind of roll with things and grow and change.
::So even if you don't know where that next emotion is, the label might not make sense, or this might be too hard, or put you in your head, forget it.
::Lean into what happens in that scene more than trying to get to that second label, which is oftentimes way too hard for us or even impossible.
::So just throw it away, lean into the scene and see if you can change.
::And if you can, great.
::Feel what you can, feel what you do and go with that.
::Because what happens if you try to get to that new label, right?
::Like I said, you end up in your head and no one wants to be there in improv.
::I mean, I shouldn't assume unless you do.
::I mean, but if so, email me why.
::Like, I want to understand and I promise that I'm not going to respond with irrelevant dog facts if you email me that.
::If your teacher says to go from one emotion to another and you can't access it, just do the scene.
::Ignore the label.
::Do the scene and try to feel something if you can and see where it goes.
::Maybe the feeling changes and that would be great.
::That's like kind of the purpose of those kind of exercises.
::Anyways, just do a scene.
::Tangent story.
::Early on in my Improv learning adventure journey, Sojourn, a Zoom teacher's exercise, that they repeated for four straight classes nonstop.
::The same one absolutely melted my autistic brain.
::They wanted eight, eight, I counted them, specific steps off the top of a scene in order, steps that I could not process at all.
::I mean, I like structured Improv, I like rules, but eight things to make up a base reality in a specific order, and I'm a rules follower, I couldn't.
::I talked to the classmate who also had difficulty with this same class series, and I described myself to them as lying on the floor, staring at the underside of my desk, because this is a Zoom prop, trying not to cry too much.
::So if the teacher asked me to turn on the camera again, I still could.
::And my friend who is also taking the class said, oh shit, I mean, I have no clue what the teacher wants either, but I gave up the first class, so I'm just doing scenes.
::My response was like, you can do that?
::Yes, you can always just do a scene.
::This next part is for teachers.
::Tips for adjusting exercises.
::So while many students won't find assigned emotions a challenge, they might love it because it gives them something to work with.
::Some of us students will, especially when it's a word label.
::So teachers, make the labels an option if you can.
::Avoid forcing the label.
::Accept physical descriptions.
::Once I was asked to take any emotion and use it to start a scene, and after the scene was over, like the word was up to me, I was supposed to have it in my head and then everyone could guess it.
::Anyways, after the scene was over, the teacher asked what that emotion word was, and I ended up describing the physicality.
::I didn't even notice that I was doing it.
::And the teacher told me in response to that, Jen, it might be easier to just feel or do an emotion that starts with a word.
::So for like what you just described, I might use the word anxious.
::And I responded without thinking at all.
::Like it just naturally, oh, I, I felt it.
::I just, it was easy.
::I remembered a time I just felt that thing and that was the only way, that's the only way I can do an emotion.
::And, and I felt it.
::When I said that, I was like just figuring out while I was saying that to the teacher, like how I did emotions and improv in that very moment.
::I was just like in my head, I'm like, oh, that's, that's how I do it.
::I never noticed that's how I did it.
::And the teacher responded, oh, well, if you can, if you can do that, just keep doing that then.
::Yeah.
::In other words, both ways of getting there is valid.
::Their note that they responded to me, like I was happy in retrospect that I actually said that out loud.
::I wasn't even thinking I might be questioning their advice, which I kind of was.
::I was very inadvertent about it.
::And thank goodness they didn't get mad.
::Their note back to me, like what they said, oh, yeah, well, if you can do that, do that.
::That validated how I did improv for me.
::And I discovered in that moment when I was responding to them, I discovered how I did emotions.
::I finally understood it.
::So it was a win-win situation.
::It was great.
::It was great that the teacher did that.
::I'm kind of glad in retrospect I actually spoke up.
::Thing two, remember those lived experiences.
::Instead of emotional labels, lived experiences might help a student.
::We might not want to encourage the bad ones, the bad stressful ones, but if they have trouble with labels, remind them about that flash memory.
::See if they can access emotions a different way.
::If the words don't work.
::Remember, another thing, remember, emotions might not be accessible in general, especially if they are needing to assess the emotions of a scene partner in order to react to a specific emotion.
::Say, react when your scene partner does a big emotional something.
::Like maybe that will be hard for somebody to access, or maybe that will help them actually.
::Maybe they will need that in order for them to react.
::So if the point is for the person with Alexithymia to do a big reaction, maybe they need their scene partner to have emotions to do that in these stages of learning.
::So try to provide alternatives if you can.
::See if there's, you know, if this doesn't work for you, maybe try this or speak up or whatever.
::See if there's alternatives or other ways that you can structure things, options that you can give if your exercise deals with labeled emotions.
::Another thing that you might want to try for some of your exercises is to suggest being someone else.
::So if people seem to have trouble accessing emotions, get them to try doing so as a character.
::If you're in a situation where you do a lot of sort of reality based as yourself, Improv suggests that they maybe do a character further from themselves than they've tried in the past.
::See if that person, if they have visual imagination available to them, see if they can use that to help them access how their character feels or even how they feel.
::This might take some of the concrete thinking of Alexithymia that can be quite common out of the equation of your exercise.
::And that's all I have.
::So thank you very much for joining me on this two-parter about people who have Alexithymia, who are Alexithymic.
::Hopefully, it's been helpful and has given you a few ideas of things that you can help, at least from this episode, in your classes and jams and coaching.
::So podcast episodes are going to be every second week.
::I'm alternating a written article for the paid supporters with the podcast, which is free for everyone.
::They come every two weeks.
::So next week, another essay.
::The week after that, another podcast episode.
::The next episode is going to be about icebreakers, when they're used with new groups of people, groups of people with new strangers in them, to help everyone get to know who's in the room.
::So very relevant for classes and teachers again, and jams and teams who are new to each other.
::So, that's going to be next week.
::You can find all of these written essays and these podcast episodes on neurodiversityimprov.com, the website.
::You can sign up for newsletter there and get notifications every time that I drop something new.
::You can also use that website to support the labor of this effort.
::And if you do, you get the written essays on these subjects with some additional links available to you.
::So consider supporting the labor of the writing, the recording, the editing, the production of these episodes, which is a lot.
::It also helps me know that you want a third season.
::So try to consider if you can.
::That would be great.
::I really appreciate it.
::And as always, please share this work with anyone that you know in the improv community that might find it useful.
::Reading and reviewing on Apple Podcasts would also help out a lot, as would doing the survey.
::That's going to help the improv community, not just hear what I think, it's going to add in what you think, which is very important for people to understand because I'm an N of one.
::I am just wired the way I am, which is unique.
::We're all unique.
::So if you can do the survey, it really would help get some alternate perspectives on these topics out to the improv community.
::That would be great.
::I would love it.
::I would love to start reading what you say on here, if someone can send me something.
::Anyways, MBIT, let's say that I created and write this podcast because I do.
::Let's say it because it's true.
::I edit and produce them as stereoforest.com, and I'm about to drop a bunch of improvised podcasts and shows on there.
::So check it out if you like Improv.
::Hopefully you do.
::And all these links will be in the show notes.
::And thank you so much for joining me.
::I'll talk in your ears later.
::Bye.
