4. Imagination rehab

In the Meisner acting technique, I do what’s called an emotional preparation before a scene or exercise. I take myself on an emotional roller coaster, eyes closed and headphones in, visualizing scenarios that get me activated. Sometimes the activation is anger, other times joy or guilt, all depending on the situation and what’s going on for me that day.

The tendency here is to draw upon the past, such as a fight with an ex for a confrontational scene,  or your grandparent’s funeral for a sad scene. Stewing in the past, however, is not only unhealthy, but limits the range of emotion and experience I can access. I’ve worked on scenes where I’m a banker, expectant mom, or divorcee - none of which I have firsthand experience with - but I’ve still had to commit and make it work. A good actor can stretch in a multitude of directions – Meryl Streep as a Holocaust survivor, Simu Liu as a Marvel Superhero – in ways that transcend their own life experiences.

In class, I found myself continually calling upon the past. I experimented with imaginary situations, but they just didn’t do it for me, so I went back to lived experiences. My teacher kept calling me out on this, and I shared how I had tried imaginary things but they just didn’t feel “real”, and that I have a bias towards events that have happened because they are “real data” and they are “objectively true”.

Melissa stared back at me with eyes of sadness. “It’s almost as if… because something didn’t already happen to you, you don’t believe that it ever could.”

Hearing that broke my heart. The implications of this were huge: if this were true, it meant that I would always be stuck in the comfort of familiarity. That I would never be able to dream big dreams and go after it. That I would always be a creature of habit. THAT I WOULD NEVER GROW.

“Because something didn’t already happen to you, you don’t believe that it ever could.”

Since that conversation, I have pushed myself to only use imaginary situations for my emotional preparation. I’ve learned the following three things.

First, I have a mental saboteur whose one liner is always “this is dumb”.  I dismiss things as dumb to not engage with them, to not engage with what I actually want because deep down I’m scared. I’m scared of what extraordinary things could happen if I let myself dream and feel my feels.

Second, attention and focus are trained not innate. I will often give up on a visualization because an anxious thought creeps in or I overhear my dog barking and think “dang well it’s all ruined might as well give up and stop here”. This fatalistic perfectionist thinking sets me up for failure. Start with 1 minute of imagining something that moves you, then increase to 5 minutes. As an aside for anyone who has experienced a traumatic brain injury: having an imagination requires complex cerebral processes, but the brain is incredibly malleable. Post concussion I noticed my ability to visualize decline and so any time I tried a visualization exercise I grew really discouraged by how faint the image was or how difficult the image was to access. I’ve learned to embrace that incremental progress is still progress.  

Lastly, life informs imagination and imagination directs life. There’s a bidirectional relationship between what we do and what we dream. In my dreams, I’m a well-dressed creative. In my life, I’ll thrift pieces that catch my eye and fit well. That neon green sweater vest might show up in my next dream where I’m directing a film. And that in turn may materialize into me actually directing a film. You can’t be what you can’t see! And what you allow yourself to see shapes what you might be!

My prompt for you is the following: what is one small thing you can do to nourish your imagination? Journal on it, and if you get stuck, join me on a poppy trip below.

A Poppy Trip 🌸

Come with me on a guided visualization: part meditation, part field trip. Listen below.

A few other imagination ideas 💡:

• Where is somewhere you’ve always wanted to go? Look up a lonely planet article on it. Now close your eyes and try to picture yourself eating at the recommended restaurants, walking down the coast, etc. Note: stick to static images so you can really “work” your imagination muscles. I find videos give away the answers too easily.

• What’s something you’ve always wanted for yourself? Let yourself fantasize about the future for a few minutes. Don’t overthink it - pick something, a person place or career, and run with it.

Mindful Consumption

• 🍿📽:  I was stunned by all the vibrant qipaos and cinematography in In the Mood for Love, also peep Ryan Gosling’s range in Blue Valentine

• 📺 Shrinking on AppleTV. Also finally starting White Lotus (I’m on season 2)

• 📚 We Were Dreamers by Simu Liu. His family is from my parents’ hometown, and his coming of age story contained so many similarities to my own. We both ran away from home, and survived the intensity of business school with the creativity of marketing. I recommend his audio narration: there are many touching moments as he recounts his relationship with his family.

• 🍵 Genmaicha tea from Berkeley Bowl (alt here), 🌶 Sriracha almonds

That’s it for this month’s edition. If something resonated be sure to like or subscribe so you don’t miss the next.

Your time and attention mean the world to me, and I always welcome your feedback.

Thanks for reading!

XOXO JZ