Happy Monday! I have been studying improv for almost three years. While I have noticed and written about my growth in my daily life as a result of improv, I have failed to see my growth inside the class room.

In the beginning, I often had to remind myself that I am a novice in the craft and I am studying improv with actors who have been studying acting for years. Yet even in that awareness, I have still been hard on myself and judged myself for my inability to let go in class.

I took time off of improv in March to focus on my motivational speaking in April. I just started a new improv class two weekends ago and I love it. The time away has shown me my grown as an improvisor and I can see that my improvisor self is aligning with my social self.

I felt this alignment when I started my new job and see and feel it in the classroom. I no longer fear volunteering to go first in improv exercises, playing characters that differ from me or even starting and speaking first in a scene. I was terrified to do these things when I started studying improv. My inner work has brought me here and I am so happy.

All my growth this year has been internal and I can only see it when I think of me in relation to my environment. I think this is why I have been a lot of situations this year, that are call backs to former experiences in my life. What has been different is my response to these experiences with my deepened sense of self and the full range of my voice.

I don’t know if it’s all improvisors or just the improv company that I study with, but they often drop spiritual wisdom as a result of what they have learned in their years of improvising. This weekend my improv instructor had us do a voice exercise that related to our chakras, but she focused more on getting us to think about character in terms of the different places in our body where the voice can come from. There is a quote from class that really spoke to me, that I wanted to share for today’s Mindful Monday.

“We were born to resonate, but rarely use the full range of our voices.” – Jo McGinly