DB

While in rehearsals for my first bout of scripted theatre, which is quite a recent story, I knew that I was mostly off book. This meant that I knew the gist of my lines, although I wasn’t necessarily word for word. I knew the ideas that I needed to convey to carry ideas to my scene partners. However, while in a run through, I wasn’t word perfect, and my scene partner didn’t pick up that I thought I was done. There was a large enough pause that I didn’t think I was being supported, and I immediately tilted. The rest of the run through I couldn’t stay in character. I didn’t feel safe, and so I went back to my script. I got out the words, because that’s what I thought that my scene partners needed. I lost confidence in myself that I had built up, and which I had previously displayed in prior runs of the scene on that same day.

When going home, I could only think about how I had screwed up and how I could do better. I am a recovering perfectionist, so the best thing that I could do was to fix my mistakes. Then, when the mistakes are fixed, then everything will go perfectly. My scene partner would know their lines, respond in turn as we rehearsed, and there would be no hiccups in timing on the stage.

That’s an illusion, of course. As much as you can control for yourself, you are bound to make mistakes for whatever reason. Perhaps you weren’t able to clear your mind of the stresses of the day, week, or year, and they finally catch up to you with a look that someone gives you, or a word that someone says to you, or a “hello” that isn’t given to you. If you’re doing something with others, you can’t guarantee and control their own mastery. You have to trust their skills, and cover up for them with the trust that they will cover up for you. In most things that you do as a group, you play as a team. You cover each other’s weaknesses.

Despite all this problem solving, and the acknowledgement that perfection is not reachable…what do you with that pit in your stomach? What do you do with that grief, that sadness, disappointment, and anger that you feel after messing something up? I sometimes feel it strongly if I feel like a game or project has gone terribly wrong. This is what I did in this moment, and what I try to do in most moments where I feel terribly.

Well, you can acknowledge the feeling and how it’s making your body feel. You can acknowledge and think about when you started feeling that way–was it something that someone said? Was it after you did something? What was that thing?

After acknowledging the feeling and the supposed reason, you need to acknowledge what the feeling is a reaction to. Be it anger, disappointment, sadness, grief…why is it there? Is it because your ego is hurt ? Is it because you care about your own performance? Is it because you care about the presentation of the group, and being a burden to others? Only you, your close peers, and therapists know these things.

When you find how that emotion makes your body physically feel, why and when it occurred, note the self talk that you had to yourself. Don’t immediately punish yourself (like I do).

“I screwed up, and because I care about these people and this project, I feel like I let them down, and that hurts. Despite that, I am not a villain, and everyone makes mistakes. I will do what I can, and fix what I can in the moment. I will improve myself afterwards. And before all of this, I will give myself appropriate time to grieve and feel these feelings.”

It can be helpful to talk about your day in this abstraction with a licensed therapist or counselor, as they can better help you work out your own psyche. By breaking your own thinking down, you can better approach it, more consciously be aware of how you are either helping, or hurting yourself, and make adjustments as necessary.

Hopefully this helps, friends.

It doesn’t always help me, but it does get better.

Keep fighting.