Reframing and Reimagining Anxiety Through Applied Improvisation

Living in the networked world has all the features of an experiment — an improvisation — in that we are thinking up new social foundations at the same time we are trying them out. Like actors with neither scripts nor direction who discover the story they are telling at the same time they are performing it, we are improvising our responses to the pressures and opportunities of life in this crazy, brave, new world by interacting with them. Unlike a scripted piece of theater, in improvisation the interactions advance the story, just as the very nature of complex systems in the culture –economic, educational, social systems among others — means that interactions are driving the consequences. As the time between action and result grows shorter, the space between choice and consequence gets smaller. Stresses and pressures heighten anxiety at the very moment we most need to strengthen our ability to learn, adapt and think creatively.

Anxiety has a vital function for human beings, who evolved with almost none of the physical survival capacities of other mammals — like big claws, the ability to run and climb at amazing speed, thick fur or razor sharp teeth — but instead are endowed with this big thinking brain that can design a probe to land on an asteroid flying through space but sometimes cannot tell the difference between a real or imagined threat. Psychologist and researcher Todd Kashdan makes a compelling case, based on a decade of research, for a parallel between anxiety, which is a search for potential threats, and curiosity, which drives attention to what is new and interesting.

Uncertainty is inherent to the improvisation and creative process. When we are fully engaged in the act of playing — just as when we are fully engaged in the unfolding of a story — we are okay with the fact that we do not know how things are going to turn out. The willingness to be curious, explore both complex and simple ideas and things, and express intense interest in other people are central to the rules and principles of improvisation. When involved with this kind of activity, we are riding the same track that anxiety can take but aiming it in a new and different direction — knowing that we don’t know and accepting this is an expansive state of mind. We are open to noticing more, taking in more and seeking to understand what is offered, the innate search for novelty and discovery engages the “reward” chemistry of the brain. The new neural patterns laid down by choosing the path of curiosity through improvisation trigger more of the brain chemistry of joy, so we can learn to tolerate the unfamiliar and having fun doing it. Beyond that, we are learning to move through discomfort for a higher purpose or long-term goal, which is key to sustainable change.

In “Curiosity: The Killer Catalyst” journalist Tom Jacobs reports Kashdan’s argument that “curiosity and anxiety work together — one propelling us to explore, the other putting on the brakes so that we don’t take unwise risks. The problem, in his view, is that we have devalued curiosity, putting the bulk of our energy — as individuals, communities, nations — into anxiety avoidance.” When engaged in an unfolding creative process, we are navigating through uncertainty but rather than avoidance we engage with the questions and explore the unfamiliar. “Our curiosity and threat detection systems evolved together, and they function to ensure optimal decisions are made in an unpredictable, uncertain world,” he writes in his book Curious? Discovering The Missing Ingredient To A Fulfilling Life. “We are all motivated by the pull toward safety and seek to avoid danger, but we also possess a fundamental motivation to expand and grow as human beings.”

IMPROV GAMES AND EXERCISES that promote the reframing and reimagining of anxiety:

Paradox Group Warmup

Objectives:

Practice listening to others without judgement;

Take a manageable emotional risk in a group;

Increase the degree of familiarity within the group by sharing and listening on a theme that is novel and interesting;

Group sits in a circle. Each person shares 2 things about him/herself that are true but seem like they would not co-exist in the same person, e.g. “I don’t eat sugar but I love to bake cookies and brownies,” or “I am terrified of heights and hate being out in the cold but am obsessed with reading about people climbing Mt. Everest.

Debrief: How has this sharing exercise impacted the social-emotional connection within the group? Increasing familiarity reduces some of the natural self-protectiveness people feel in social situations, especially in therapy or learning environments where there is an expectation to behave and respond in a certain way and a degree of social exposure. Creating conscious connections among the group members can make it possible for members to deepen their honesty with one another. Reduced anxiety means increased spontaneity.

Status Walk

The group is instructed to walk about the space in 3 different ways:

Walk as if you know what is happening and how to deal with it and you know that you know;

Walk as if you don’t know what is happening nor how to deal with it, and you know that you don’t know;

Walk as if you don’t know what is happening nor how to deal with it, but you are intensely interested in figuring it all out;

Objectives:

• Experience the physical and internal state associated with confidence and high-status navigation of a social situation;
• Experience the physical and internal state associated with low confidence and low-status navigation of a social situation;
• Experience the physical and internal state associated with curiosity about how to navigate a social situation;

Discuss what each of these walks felt like for group members. How did the different ways of walking impact emotions? How did they impact potential contact with others in the room? How might we apply those perceptions to clinical work — people have different need for space and may not be aware of what others need, or may be very attuned to what others express in terms of wanting space and allow themselves to be impacted.

Discuss self-observations with the group. What do group members have in common in terms of their internal experience? What is it like to shift into curiosity simply by choosing it?

Research: Curiosity is defined as a positive emotional-motivational system associated with the recognition, pursuit, and self-regulation of novel and challenging opportunities. It “prompts proactive, intentional behaviors in response to stimuli and activity with the following properties: novelty, complexity, uncertainty and conflict.” Creativity and Exploration: Facilitating PositiveSubjective Experiences and Personal Growth Opportunities Journal of Personality Assessment 2004

WHAT ARE YOU DOING?

Objectives:

• Practice a simple form of “yes…and” by receiving an idea from a partner and immediately acting upon it;
• Experience and play through the cognitive dissonance between miming an action and naming it as something else;
• Get out of lateral thinking mode;
• Connecting to partners in a novel fashion;

The first player starts miming an activity. As soon as the activity is clear, player 2 asks “What are you doing?” The first player answers something that has nothing to do with what he`s actually doing. E.g. if player 1 is cutting someone`s hair, when asked what he`s doing he might say “I`m reading the newspaper”. The second player starts miming the activity stated by the previous player. Player 3 asks Player 2 “what are you doing?” and so on around the circle. Play until everyone has mimed something, and has answered the question. Do a few rounds and see if the group can pick up the speed.

RESEARCH: An article in Scientific American — A New Tool For Creative Thinking: Mind-Body Dissonance — describes findings that show the dissonance between mind — feeling dominant in a game — and body — sitting in a constricted position — lead to more expansive thinking. These curious findings have some significant implications. They back up a growing body of evidence that cognition is “embodied,” meaning that our physical actions directly influence the way we think.” The research shows that adopting different facial expressions and physical postures and labeling them in dissonant ways leads us to think more flexibly and aids in creative problem-solving.

HERE’S WHAT YOU ARE DOING (Gifting)

Objectives:

• Practice the improvisation skill of “gifting” which is to give a partner a behavior or trait for them to play;
• Experience receiving a “gift” from another player and embracing the uncertainty of not knowing what it will be;
• Practice a simple “yes…and” that produces the psychological safety to play and create in the group;

Participants stand in a circle. Player 1 turns to player 2 and says “Oh I see that you’re (doing yoga, mowing the lawn, practicing cheerleading, any physical behavior). Player 2 begins to do that activity, and after 10–12 seconds can add a line, saying “Yes.. I am doing yoga, and it is really opening up my chakras!” Then Player 2 assigns an activity to Player 3, e.g. “I see you are running in place!” Player 2 begins to run in place and after a few seconds says “Yes I am running in place and its not getting me anywhere.” And so one until everyone has assigned another player an activity and received one.

Round 2 — players assign an action to a partner, partner does the action, and “yes…ands” it, and then a third line is added to the scene.

Debrief: What was it like to “gift” something to a partner? What are the responsibilities of this role? Connect this to the improv principle “make your partner look good” which is a pathway to rapidly develop enough trust among members for creative risks to be taken together. What was it like to receive an unexpected “gift” that instructs us on how to behave? Be aware of any internal resistance to any element of this exercise. This is often anxiety about the experience that heightens defensiveness. The whole point is to become aware of what comes up and reframe what we think of as resistance as the natural self-protective mechanisms that kick in to ensure psychological safety. Accepting these responses is an important step toward redirecting the need for safety through closing off to exploration and connection.

REFRAMING THROUGH RENAMING

Objectives:

• Practice looking at the same thing in different ways;
• Experience the novelty of others’ take on the same things;
• Find new uses for ordinary items;
• Explore a concrete way to conceptualize reframing;

An ordinary household item is chosen, e.g. an umbrella, a flashlight, a water bottle. Player 1 uses the item in some way that transforms it into something, e.g. an umbrella becomes a police baton, a large microphone, opened up and reversed it becomes a bird bath. The idea is to let the imagination lead us to see the same item in some new way and relate to it that way. Try to do a few rounds with the same item, then find a new one. Using the same item in a novel way triggers the curiosity/reward system in the brain.

Round 2 — Players assume a specific physical posture. Other group members label it, looking at it from different perspectives. The exercise can be expanded into putting the character inspired by the pose into a context, based on the specifics of the pose.

IMAGINATION BOOK CLUB

Objectives:

• Explore a unrealized vision or hope through a collaborative, improvised process;
• Imagine a possible future through embodying it;
• Accept ideas and support from other players in the exploration of this imagined reality;
• Reframe and reimagine the concept of goal-setting;
• Examine the steps involved with moving toward a goal from a reversed-engineered improvised process;

The group is to imagine that they are a book club. The name of the book under discussion, one that all the group members are to imagine they have read, is “You Can Have It All.” A group member plays the role of the author of this book, and begins by giving an overview of their book, which reflects a goal or dream he/she has as if it has already been realized. After sharing for a few minutes about this, the group members conduct an improvised interview of the “author” based on their understanding of the book’s themes as explained by the author. The conversation is an improvised way of exploring how the author made his/her dream happen, by taking on the perspective of looking back on the pathway to its realization.

The reframe is to look at possibilities and strengths rather than obstacles, and to be imagine how it feels to succeed. The collaborative creative process will almost always evoke imaginative solutions to the obstacles that can be transformative in how we think and feel about change. It is also a reframed way to look at our fear or dread of moving toward goals and dreams that are real meaning for us.

Debrief: How did the collaborative, improvised process impact discovery? What was it like to imagine a desired success and embrace it? How did this process reframe thinking about what we bring to the process of change?

UNCERTAIN DIALOGUES (from the chapter “Making Sense Of Science: Applied Improvisation For Public Communication of Science and Health” in Applied Improvisation: Leading, Collaborating, and Creating Beyond The Theatre (p. 265)

Objectives: Experience the same conversation from a variety of perspectives;

Examine how context shapes emotion;

Reframe the same dynamic by exploring it from different contexts.

2 players read the following dialogue aloud:

A.

Hello.

B.

Hello.

A.

So, uh, here we are! This is it.

B.

Yes…I thought you might have something to tell me.

A.

Has anything changed?

B.

Not that I know of. Do you know of a change?

A.

No. No.

B.

So, what do you think we should do now?

A.

I suppose we could go ahead and…

B.

Yeah…sure, that sounds good.

A.

Are you sure?

B.

As sure as we ever can be in situations like this.

A.

Are you changing your mind? I mean, there is a lot at stake.

B.

No, I’m ready. Let’s do it.

The next pair of players is given a specific context for having this conversation, e.g. “You are about to rob a bank” “You are about to take a pregnancy test” “You are 2 kids about to take your parents car for a drive without permission.”

Debrief: Explore how the different contexts or frame impacted the roles. What is it like to discover the variety of stories that can develop through reframing the same dialogue in various ways?

Jude Treder-Wolff is a consultant/trainer and writer/performer, who conducted this workshop recently in NYC. She is president of Lifestage, Inc and host/creator of (mostly) TRUE THINGS, a game wrapped in a storytelling show.