Tomorrow’s the Big Day… Get Excited!
After about a two-month hiatus, I will be returning to the stage this Thursday at Smörgåsbord. I’ve been told that if you don’t have some anxiety, it means you don’t care about the show. I still don’t like it: The heart racing, a lump in my throat, dry mouth, sweating… loss of appetite, nausea.
Suppose you were gearing up to run a triathlon. After the starting gun, your heart would race, you sweat, your body diverts resources from your gastrointestinal system. You may experience a loss of appetite and… I’m seeing a pattern here.
In his comedy classes, Keary McCutchen of Creative Veins explains that what we call “anxiety” is just a collection of sensations, including those listed above. Depending on the context, we may decide to call it “anxiety” or “nervousness” but the sensations all fall under the same umbrella: Excitement.
Not only can excitement be misattributed as anxiety, fear can be misattributed at sexual arousal (See link below). It’s surprising to know how many things we label as emotions all use the same mechanisms.
I’ve seen a therapist for the last several years. In the beginning, it was frustrating to speak with him because I would say things like “I get nervous” or “I have anxiety about asking her out…” He would redirect me to talk about what thoughts and sensations I’m having. It seemed pointless, but as time went on it helped a lot. My guess is this serves two purposes:
If you are focused on noticing and labeling each thought and sensation, your mind is now preoccupied on this task and not whatever is the cause of the sensations. This allows you to analyze it more objectively and prevents you from perpetually wallowing in your misery.
If you separate out all the individual sensations, you will be less likely to conflate them with the thoughts. Thoughts can have many faulty assumptions built in and can be much more readily analyzed then sensations or emotions.
I remember getting “angry” when I was in an life drawing class a couple years ago. I’d slip up a drawing, and I would feel my temperature rising and my jaw tensing. So I stopped and recognized those sensations. Then I analyzed: What was upsetting me? I’m frustrated because this drawing is not coming out well. Why does the drawing have to be good? Because if I’m not good, then I won’t be as good as other artists I’ve seen. How do I think they got to where they are? They probably sucked at it for a while, but they just kept doing it. That’s where I am now.
The analysis is a very helpful process that’s helped me work through other pursuits: “This joke isn’t coming around the way I want it, obviously these things take time.” It’s allowed me to be a lot more patient with myself.
So what will I do tomorrow? I’ll probably call my sensations “nervousness” but I hope the day will come where I interpret it as excitement.
Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o268qbb_0BM
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Misattribution_of_arousal
