You’re falling from an incredible height.
You scream,
your arms jerking without control, your legs twitching and kicking in the desperate hope to find something that will halt the fall.
How did you get here? It’s not fair.
When You’re Falling Dive by Cheri Huber is one of the books I keep in my library and I would advise as a must-read to any performer and producer in the making, especially if engaged in comedy.
I actually have other books by Cheri Huber (another one which I think is worth reading is ‘regardless what you were thought to believe… There is Nothing Wrong with You‘) but the title of this particular book perfectly summarizes in one sentence the biggest obstacle you will have to face if you truly want to untap your potential. That obstacle is YOU.
Because the sordid truth is, as life does not go according to your plans, that how you react to events has been engrained in your brain since early childhood. In other words, at an emotional level, deep, deep inside, there is a programme that kicks in automatically whenever a particular switch is triggered. Accepting this, the fact that you may be no different from a washing machine when a particular situation occurs is what truly opens an infinite number of possibilities.
However, many people will not accept that and will kick and scream during the fall, telling themselves it’s just not fair. They will keep waiting for the perfect moment, the perfect situation… which of course will never come.
It’s not the right audience
I need more free time to develop my solo show
I have never rehearsed a show so quickly
Unfortunately, for a lot of them there is no hope. As they safely remain within their confort zone, carefully avoiding any trouble, they will never complete the transformation from caterpillar to butterfly.
Deconstructing your ego is the hardest thing ever. Usually a major crisis, a defining moment, is needed to short-circuit all the useless wiring that keep you blocked.
For Cheri Huber that defining moment was taking a rifle and shooting herself in the stomach, for a friend of mine it was a car accident and 2 months spent in a coma (when she woke up she left her job and became a puppeteer), for Cain it was killing his brother Abel, for Saint Paul it was the sudden realization he was a mass murderer. OK. It sounds really drastic, in reality it doesn’t have to be that way. Even a heartburn after a breakup can do miracles.
But it any case it starts from you.
Funny thing, once you learn to detach from yourself, at times you will look for those situations you always dreaded on purpose, just to observe yourself and see how you react.
You’re falling from an incredible height.
You scream.
Your arms jerking without control. How did you get there?
Then you suddenly realize that’s not important. You close your eyes and you dive in, head first, into the darkness.
Just wondering with stupor what’s on the other side.
