The Warmup

“It (spontaneity) propels the individual towards an adequate response to a new situation or a new response to an old situation. Thus, while creativity is related to the act itself, spontaneity is related to the warming up to the readiness of the act.”  Moreno ^[ii]

In traditional psychodrama, we must get roused before a drama takes that place. We call this the Warmup. As in all effective approaches to our Work, I believe some fire must ignite first. We will need all of the energy we can tap in order to travel to the deepest levels and to make change.

If you are to consider a regular Heart-drama inquiry, it can be helpful to develop a routine to get yourself in the mood. For me, as I seek to stir these energies in my visual art or writing sessions, this always involves brewing a cup of coffee in one of my favorite mugs and making a quiet way to my studio. This brief but well-rehearsed pattern lets my Heart know that I am inviting an opening.

If an energetic opening (excitement? willingness? playfulness?) does not occur, then, as I get further into my creative work some lesser part of me will interrupt or to even stop the show. If I do not access Inspiration, my fears and doubts will start and restart and restart again. Fear feels like stress, and it shows up for me as procrastination, never landing on a piece of art or writing, never starting, or never finishing. All of these I’ve experienced when fear triggers blocking voices that are critical, at worst, self-loathing.

In Warmup, you will begin to illicit answers to important questions, maybe ones you have never asked. But in Warming Up we are far from deciding on a drama, never mind seeking resolutions or interpretations. We want first to move energy from survival to Inspired, to throw off reservations and to begin. As I have explained, these purposeful energies I call by different names depending on the paradigm I associate them with: Loving-Playfulness, Loving-Work, Powerful-Work and Powerful-Play.

Summary: Inspired Modes of Attention

In Warmup we hope to shift into any helpful mode(s) of attention. I have previously discussed them but to summarize:

• Evolving out of the energy of Loving-Playfulness, in the being I call the Awakened Child, an internal mode of attention is Dual Awareness, where we are present, and, also, aware of multiple parts of us. This arises in the experience we typically call Mindfulness. A guided meditation that supports attention to the multiplicity of our inner world is Dan Siegle’s Wheel of Awareness. As he guides us, we can sit in the center of “awareness of awareness” while focusing attention on parts of the “rim” (the physical, the mental, the emotional and relational knowledge we have in the moment)

• Eventually, in Loving-Playfulness, we grow a mode of attention I call With Dual Awareness we can choose who to focus on and who invite on stage, with some ability to shift from role-state or role-state, from inner person to inner person, to simultaneously stay connected (present) to our intention and to dampen down impulses that are not loving toward ourselves. In this effortless play, Integration is the effortless process that occurs. It cannot be forced. At core it creates a harmonious balance and union.

• Evolving out of the energy I call Loving-Work, in the created being I call the Artist, an external mode of attention is Negative Capability, where I am aware of egoic pushes but I can inhabit the muse. Time is suspended, in an experience often called Flow; I am able to rely on skills and experiences, but the art (the action I perform) is not exclusively It is a collaboration of my intentional actions and skills and what is given to me.

• Reinforcing this Inspired energy through rituals and practices allows eventually for a mode of attention that I call Fulfillment. This is the Artist’s vision endowed with a realization that this did not come from me Each act in the moment has a sense of a trajectory that seems purposeful (though I may only see it when looking backward into a body of work). It has meaning for me but is not exclusively about me, which elevates the act from self-expression to True and Beautiful Art.

• Evolving out of energy I call Powerful-Work, in the created being I call the Lover, a relational mode of attention is Unconditional Love. In the experience sometimes called Attunement, there is awareness of me and not me. I can be in you and in me, which invites empathy and has the power to heal attachment wounds. In this way of attending, there is less projection or pressure and more heart-felt awareness.

• Discernment is an elaboration of this mode of attention, a higher level if you will. You can distinguish what is Inspired and what is Fallen, growing a more refined and astute alertness to relationships. With such consciousness, you can use your power to protect what is important and to set boundaries. It is my knowledge in this moment with the other; yet, paradoxically, what I know is also greater, beyond what “I know.” Discernment is at depth intuitive—of the Heart and gut and natural to the Inspired Self.

• Evolving out of the energy I call Powerful-Play, in the created being I call the Visionary, a spiritual mode of attention is Sacred Perception. In an experience sometimes called Spiritual (blending internal/external/relational wisdom), there is awareness of me and not me. I am endowed with my own insight, oriented to what I deem to be purposeful action, and relationally empathic, while what I attend to is also greater than me, encompassing a larger sacred vision of Beauty and Truth. My attention recognizes the world is connected and yet not me.

• Arising out of Powerful-Play Inspired energy is a depth of enlightenment which I will call Intergenerational Responsibility. With this mode of attention, I am watchful. I notice that how I act is important, but it is also of diminutive value in the unfolding of reality in this infinite universe. Still, even in my humility, I am responsible for what will unfold (even though I am not choosing it). I act compassionately and in alignment with my vision.

Even in Warmup, the Resistance

“The more important a call or action to our soul’s evolution, the more resistance we will feel toward pursuing it.” Steven Pressfield, War of Art

What the Abnormal might think is safe is often avoidance, not taking any risk. And it is sneaky. if you dwell on reasonable questions about “the point of this is . . . ,” then, I warn you, that any logical answer to the question is truly pointless. It only acts as a distraction and raises skepticism and doubt.

The Warmup is pointedly pointless. I say this because it is not seeking an outcome. It is not a lesson, nor a place for the editor and critic to poke their nose in. It’s not an intellectual exercise to demonstrate something preconceived.

If we tell well-rehearsed stories or ask intellectual questions, sediment clogs the filter to the moment, starving the enlivened heart of oxygen. The mind returns to make its usual judgments.

The only goal is to encourage disclosure. In the Warming up, I encourage you to work against that pull of the usual. The normal. Keep moving. Don’t spend too much time thinking or trying to settle on a topic.

“Complete the sentence, I’m angry at . . ..” “What else are you angry at?” “What are you worried about? Complete the sentence, “I’m worried about . . ..: “What else are you’re worried about?”

Emotional muscles may be frozen from lack of use. So, you may need to stimulate some heat by pushing, perturbing, bringing up the disturbing. Speak the unrehearsed, create some confusion, and prompt enough anxiety to better allow yourself to slip the confines of passive experience.

The Stage

Enlarging must be treated as sacred—at the very least protected from the Inside-out and the Upside down.

On whatever special platform you have chosen (a studio, a path in Nature, a journal exercise in a quiet place, maybe a group if you are lucky) we call the stage. Here, resolve to stir the pot. Imagine this chosen place and method has the spaciousness to encompass everything the drama needs to enact. You don’t know exactly what that is at the start. But you must have the freedom to do whatever needs to be done. The inquiry to come is a lot like opening a mysterious box in a safe place, safe because its contents are met with Love not because it feels emotionally safe to open.

II do believe it is helpful to have a special arena for your practice. There’s a notion in behavioral psychology of a stimulus environment. This is a place where you associate with specific behaviors. For example, going to the gym can be a stimulus environment; eventually just walking through the door puts you in an exercising mood. Body memories get prompted, and your unconscious readies you. Alcoholics know something similar when they have a specific room or a comfy chair where they do their drinking. Sobriety may require lugging that favorite piece of furniture to the dump to keep from being triggered into cravings.

In hypnosis they call this anchoring.

The point is that to EXPAND you will require a stage from which to explore, and if you use the same physical space, a desk in a quiet spot, a studio, a table on a deck overlooking a backyard full of birds, it can provoke you more quickly on a creative expedition. If you identify a special arena, then you must protect it from anybody around you or your own voice of the Abnormal that comes with self-serving lectures and dismissive attitudes. Don’t let anyone muddy it up. Don’t do your taxes on the same desk as your Art (unless doing taxes is your Art).

Continual Movement

“All emotion uses the body as their theatre.” Antonio Damasio

To Warmup, get your body in motion. Walk around the room, randomly, avoid an organized pattern. Move slower, faster. Play at changing the pace to invite yourself out of stasis. Walk with your elbows leading the way. Now move with your head out front.

I’ve used dance clips, mash ups, exercise videos, ridiculous dances, or alternative music with a fast beat, bands like Rancid for instance or The Distillers. to energize the body until the brain gets convinced (because it often cannot tell the difference) that I am resuscitating my emotional life.

As you wake to your energy, allow yourself to enact anger, amplifying it to rage, then softening to irritation. Shifting from one state to another. Enact Joy. Try out different laughs, belly laughs, fake laughs, smug or dismissive laughs. Always seek to stay out of the Abnormal domain, out of the intellect. Remain open to new thoughts, inviting the creative and even the irrational, use expressive methods, play with points of view.

Role Play

“Play behavior transforms the physical environment into an enriched environment.”

Dr. Allan Shore

Experiment playfully with different roles. Sit in a chair and imagine you are on stage for some improv. Become a family member or act out your best portrayal of a co-worker or an ex-lover; then move to a different chair and respond to them. There’s an unlimited number of possible such experiments. Identify who unconditionally supports you (or has in the past)? Be that person. Now become someone who is angry at you or has communicated disdain or disappointment. Someone who brings a uniquely different or opposite opinion. Be that person talking about you.

Do you have two voices like that sometimes internally? Is there a Ying and Yang in your inner world?  Do you ever feel tension between these two voices? Be that part of you that speaks with self-loathing. Then be that part of you who loves you unconditionally.

Be your dog. Be Buddha. Be Jesus. Be your mentor. Become a relative who helps you see something important about who you truly are . . .Raise the temperature of your imagination.