Blocked onstage

[Monty888]

I’m an actor and suspect by superego is Blocking essential ID desires that need to manifest onstage. My over perfectionist attitude is keeping me from having a powerful onstage presence. 

[Arman]

The power of performance ability and your on-stage presence is going to be a direct measure of how free you are from negative feelings and 'me-ness'. The major barriers are outcome dependence and focusing on yourself instead of on the audience or on service. Basically put, the more you care about 'me', the less effective you'll be. If you care how you look and what people will think of you then it will start to stifle you. You've likely recognized themes of 'neediness, cravingness, wanting to be seen, wanting to succeed' within the acting community. Examine these feelings and energies and their impact on the performers.

Perfectionism is usually just based in fear. If you examine with honesty all your negative feelings, beliefs and thoughts about being on stage, that can be helpful. You can then dive into the negative feelings and start to dismantle and relinquish them. Then automatically will your stage presence improve dramatically. 

The audience sees and feels perfectly the degree of authenticity and freedom a performer is coming from and they respond accordingly. This is much easier to experience first hand when performing stand-up comedy because you're getting constant immediate feedback as opposed to a silent audience. If you get in your head and care too much about yourself, the audience will immediately feel that contraction and feel discomfort themselves and laugh less. If you are totally and completely at ease with yourself and have no expectations other than to serve the audience, then they are way more relaxed and laugh more. You can literally feel the dynamic shift from moment to moment and watch the audience mirror back the energy even when you aren't talking. I suggest open-mic stand up as a way to really penetrate all your bullshit.  

The shorthand to increasing stage presence: start to recognize the emotional and feeling patterns that emerge during the following stages:

Anticipation of performance
Rehearsal
Before performing
During performing
After performing 
Feelings about yourself as a performer
Feelings when thinking about the audience
Feelings about how acting relates to your identity

Great amounts of energy will start to emerge if you can surrender the small feelings, and you will start to experience joy, happiness and increased creativity on stage. Start by becoming mindful of the feelings and beliefs, and then start to relinquish them by choosing to penetrate and allow them to be when they come up. The great thing about this method is that your 'practice' and ability to improve isn't limited to rehearsal and being on stage as you will find that these feelings can and will come up all the time, and each time they do it is an opportunity to grow. 

Edited April 29, 2018 by Arman

[Nahm]

@Monty888 You are literally alone. There is no audience, no other human being, no other being. You are free. 

[Monty888]

5 hours ago, Arman said:

The power of performance ability and your on-stage presence is going to be a direct measure of how free you are from negative feelings and 'me-ness'. The major barriers are outcome dependence and focusing on yourself instead of on the audience or on service. Basically put, the more you care about 'me', the less effective you'll be. If you care how you look and what people will think of you then it will start to stifle you. You've likely recognized themes of 'neediness, cravingness, wanting to be seen, wanting to succeed' within the acting community. Examine these feelings and energies and their impact on the performers.

Perfectionism is usually just based in fear. If you examine with honesty all your negative feelings, beliefs and thoughts about being on stage, that can be helpful. You can then dive into the negative feelings and start to dismantle and relinquish them. Then automatically will your stage presence improve dramatically. 

The audience sees and feels perfectly the degree of authenticity and freedom a performer is coming from and they respond accordingly. This is much easier to experience first hand when performing stand-up comedy because you're getting constant immediate feedback as opposed to a silent audience. If you get in your head and care too much about yourself, the audience will immediately feel that contraction and feel discomfort themselves and laugh less. If you are totally and completely at ease with yourself and have no expectations other than to serve the audience, then they are way more relaxed and laugh more. You can literally feel the dynamic shift from moment to moment and watch the audience mirror back the energy even when you aren't talking. I suggest open-mic stand up as a way to really penetrate all your bullshit.  

The shorthand to increasing stage presence: start to recognize the emotional and feeling patterns that emerge during the following stages:

Anticipation of performance
Rehearsal
Before performing
During performing
After performing 
Feelings about yourself as a performer
Feelings when thinking about the audience
Feelings about how acting relates to your identity

Great amounts of energy will start to emerge if you can surrender the small feelings, and you will start to experience joy, happiness and increased creativity on stage. Start by becoming mindful of the feelings and beliefs, and then start to relinquish them by choosing to penetrate and allow them to be when they come up. The great thing about this method is that your 'practice' and ability to improve isn't limited to rehearsal and being on stage as you will find that these feelings can and will come up all the time, and each time they do it is an opportunity to grow. 

Thank you. That was detailed and insightful of my personality. Going forward I want to concentrate more on my fellow actors and audience. Indeed, I was only focused on how I looked or sounded instead of being considerate of my stage performance.