This post is available as a podcast here: https://spotifyanchor-web.app.link/e/BNt1b09BSzb

I have embraced “Yes, and…” in life. My time doing improvisational theatre was honestly the best training for all the things I do. Social conversation, teaching, parenting – anything. This post is intimately connected to the sense of flow in my life. I might go as far as saying that “Yes, and…” is the motto of flow. Accept what comes to you and build on it, the same way we do in improvisational theatre.

As someone with expressions of ASD, I struggle a lot in conversations. It’s taken years for me to stop feeling like a computer overanalyzing every possible path of conversation and responses. Naturally, this created a rather awkward framework for social conversation which only feels good when it flows. I still catch myself acting like a computer, feeling rigid and awkward. However, I am able to step out of that shell now and relax in conversations by letting go of the desire to impress or meet expectations and embracing my own weirdness. By finding fun in the interaction instead of treating it like a puzzle.

I love puzzles. When I was working through infertility and I was super depressed, I did puzzles. Puzzles unwind my mind and make me feel productive when the rest of my life feels like shambles. I love rock climbing because it’s a body puzzle; it has a similar mental challenge, but it’s also a form of exercise that suits my strengths. I think it’s important to know what unwinds your mind. Puzzles, or similar tasks like crocheting, have simple repeated patterns that allow my brain to process while working. Such things bring me a sense of peace.

Dance is different. Dance brings peace to my soul, but both are incredibly valuable. When we find our peace we can open ourselves to the flow of each moment. It’s a lot easier to say “Yes, and…” when we’re grounded. In improvisational theatre this idea keeps the story moving forward, so it’s naturally going to keep the conversation going in social interactions as well. In teaching, “Yes, and…” keeps the students engaged and learning. I learned early in my teacher training that the word “No” can shut down a lot of the learning process. I haven’t eliminated it entirely while teaching, but I use it sparingly. I always look for some part of the students’ work or question that is in the right direction to build on, rather than scrapping the entire foundation through the word “No.” We make collaboration when we use “Yes, and…” and collaboration is where my heart is.

Parenting a child is a new realm of “Yes, and…” for me, but I use it more in parenting than any other aspect of my life. It’s so important to me that my child feels supported that I want to embrace their ideas, interests, and goals. So, when they ask me “Mama, will you be a kitty cat with me?” Of course, my answer is “Yes.” We then proceed to meow at each other for a while, sometimes we even curl up and purr together. We are kitty cats a lot. Something I’ve realized since becoming a parent is that a lot of adults embrace a “Yes, and…” with kids creativity in a way that I don’t see in daily interactions between adults. What would happen if we took this approach with other adults, and not just children?

Naturally, I’ll tell you a story from my days of improvisational theatre…

I started doing improvisational theatre as a child. I went to an arts-themed elementary school and did a lot of camps for theatre, so I got to do a lot of cool performance art from a young age. This involved improv, but also mask work and commedia dell’arte. I was taught about ways to move my body to match a mask’s expression and we were given spontaneous prompts and props to create scenes on the spot when I was in elementary school. Without that training at such a young age, I probably wouldn’t have adapted so well to all the life changes I experienced. That was a grand time in my childhood.

When I was studying theatre in high school and undergrad, I was far more self-conscious. So, while the training was still there, the freedom to be myself had been lost to the bullying and teasing of childhood. When I was in graduate school, I cast some of that aside to do improvisational theatre again. I took classes for a bit, and started performing with a troupe in town. I was also back on stage doing dance and Shakespeare, so it was another peak time in my performance career. My funny story is just a regular day in class where the goal of the scene is to make the other person/people laugh. If you started laughing, you had to make an excuse to leave the scene and someone else would come in to create a new scene.

I’m a physical comedy person: I make silly faces, gestures, etc. I get laughs on being ridiculous; I’ve never had the wit to say something hilarious on the spot. So, this game was going to be a challenge for me. I get up there, we end up “sitting in a car,” trying to push each other verbally to laugh. We pretend to see ridiculous things out the window, we create scenarios that we’re hearing over the radio, we start pushing on each other to laugh. So, finally, I start the physical comedy of pushing the physical boundaries. But, this guy is not budging. I can stick my foot over his shoulder, pretend to lick myself as a form of bathing, nothing was working. So, I finally just lean into him and say “Would you mind if I – lick your face?” He turned bright red, but didn’t laugh – I did! Darnit. I got some high-fives for my efforts, but I couldn’t break him.

Lean into the world with “Yes, and…” and see what happens. It reminds me of the quote “Move, and the way will open.”

Get some laughs and find some flow, love to you this week -S.