Chapter - 18

The Truth Shall Make You Free

(JOHN 8:32)

Remember the following words from Chapter 10:

Your subconscious is a vast, natural reservoir of creativeness, inspiration and emotional power.

Imagination releases the creativeness, inspiration and emotional power of that reservoir.

To prepare your imagination in the mechanics of tapping your emotional reservoir, you are going to get a series of emotional flexibility and control exercises.

If you were standing at the bottom of an empty swimming pool and I started to fill the pool with water, you would first feel the water with your feet, then your ankles, your calves, your knees, thighs, stomach, chest, neck, mouth, nose—until the water finally reached your eyes. Use this imagination formula for the following series of exercises.

While doing the exercises, let your body respond naturally to your imagination. Don't try to force yourself into a particular physical mold. Let any mold and movement be the result of your thoughts. No superimposed attitudes and gestures. You are not being told "what to do." You are being told "to do" what you might imagine under these selected circumstances.

EMOTIONAL FLEXIBILITY EXERCISE

FIRST EXERCISE—Anger

Concentrate fully and imagine you are angry .... You have never been so angry in your life .... Let this feeling of anger travel slowly up your body. Feel it first with your feet .... When you are angry your feet will grip the floor .... Then feel the anger travel up through your ankles .... Your calves .... legs .... Your knees will flex as you get set to give or take a blow .... Anger travels on up your thighs .... your stomach .... your chest .... pouring out through your arms to your hands, which will probably become fists or claws .... On goes the anger, up through your neck to your lips, which will very likely become thin and hard .... Then to your nose .... Finally it reaches your eyes, where your audience looks straight into your imagined feelings.

Slowly come out of the exercise.

SECOND EXERCISE—Sadness

You are sad .... You have never been so sad in your life .... Your feet are heavy and tired .... Your arches are sore .... Your ankles are swollen .... Your knees are so weak they will hardly support the weight of your body .... Your stomach is sick and there is that black, heavy feeling in the pit of it .... Your heart aches .... Your breathing is labored .... Your hands are so heavy your arms can hardly carry their weight

.... Your throat is dry and sore …Your mouth is dry … Your lips are parched .... The breath almost whistles through your dry, parched throat .... Your nostrils are dry .... Your eyes are tired and bloodshot .... Let the strength drain out of you into the earth, until you can hardly take a step.

When you have gone as far as you can without breaking into a sob, slowly come out of the exercise.

THIRD EXERCISE—Pride

You are proud .... You have never been so tall and proud in your life .... Your feet are firm on earth .... Your legs are straight and lithe .... Your hips are taut and slender .... Your chest is high and bouyant .... Your face is bright and shining .... Your eyes are clear and clean .... The wind blows through your hair as you stand there in your great pride.

Come out of the exercise gradually.

FOURTH EXERCISE—Fear

You are frightened .... More frightened than you have ever been before in all your life .... You may be killed in a few moments .... Your feet want to run, but they can't because they're so heavy .... Your flesh creeps .... Your knees almost buckle .... Your entire being tries to hide within itself .... Your words stick in your throat .... You may die now at any moment.

When you have taken this exercise as far as you can, slowly come out of it.

FIFTH EXERCISE—Happiness

You are happy .... Your feet are eager, alert.... Your legs almost dance with joy .... Your chest is light and bouyant .... You can almost float away .... Your smile is happy .... Your face shines .... Your eyes sparkle.

Carry the exercise as far as you can; then slowly come out of it.

After every exercise, take a few steps around the room to clear your head.

You may not notice the difference in your muscular responses when you first do these exercises, but in a short time you'll become aware that your muscular reactions are as varied as the emotions that stimulate them. You'll find that when you are angry your feet grip the ground in a manner entirely different from the way they grip the ground when you're imagining the emotion of sorrow.

You will discover that you cannot penetrate very deeply into any of the emotions when you first start practicing them. Gradually, as you continue to practice the exercises, you'll be able to go further into the emotions. You will confirm how far you can delve into different emotions and still retain dependable control of yourself and your technique.

After practicing the emotion exercises for several days, you will grow aware of each emotion producing a definite delineation. You'll see each one standing clean, clear, completely definable, despite any similarity of muscular action in the exercises. In time, your sensitivity and control will increase and you will see each delineation becoming clearer and clearer; more and more cleanly defined.

While performing these emotion scales, take careful note. Be acutely aware of how they affect your heartbeat and the rhythm of your breathing. You are forging a key that will open one of the most important doors to the art of acting.

Return to each of the emotional flexibility and control exercises; this time, when you reach the top of each emotion—right at the peak—speak a line of dialogue. Whatever the emotion you're working on, it's best to use a very short line with it.

For example, in the emotion of anger, use the line, "I'll kill you!" Or, for the emotion of pride, use the line, "That's my dad!"

A word of warning: Don't think of how you are going to say the line, or of how it should sound. Let your interpretation of the speech be entirely the result of your controlled emotion.
It will be difficult at first. Eventually, you will be able to speak the line spontaneously, allowing the emotion itself to give the words their interpretation.

You will develop daring. You won't care how the line sounds, so long as it has the controlled emotion under it.

You are ready now for your next exercise. This is the transference from one emotion to another. It is called emotional transition.

EXERCISE

(EMOTIONAL TRANSITION)

Using your emotion of anger, build it up as high as you can go. When you reach the top, instead of coming out of the anger emotion as you did previously, transfer it to the high peak of your emotion of sorrow.

Slowly come out of the exercise.

Keep trying. You will soon perform the emotional transition with the ease born of skill.

Practice making various series of transitions, using all the emotions and situations in the preceding exercises, plus others you make up for yourself.

Invent many variations of these exercises. They will give great range and flexibility to your emotional scale. They will provide you with a dependable and substantial set of emotion tools which you can count on whenever you need them.

These exercises will, in short, give you CONTROLLED EMOTIONAL FLEXIBILITY.

Are You Ready To Move Onto The Next Lesson? Click Here...