So, I'm trying this. It's an approach to life and happiness that's based on the improvisation game, "Yes, And." If you've never played it, it's an exercise where two people act out a scene without a script by building on each other's statements. The setting, the conflict and the resolution are all established on the spot, one line at a time as the actors go back and forth telling the story. The rule is, you can't reject any ideas, you can only say yes and build on the idea.
Character 1: "You look like you're about to come unglued..."
Character 2: "Yeah, and you look like you're enjoying the hell out of it..."
It teaches actors to go with the flow on stage and practice responding quickly when unexpected things happen during a show.
I learned this game during my voice-over coaching program. My coach, Chelsea Spirito, is an actress who does a lot of improv so I tried to emulate her confidence and quick-decision making when we played the game. It really gets your brain into this mode of adaptation rather than argument. You have to go with whatever idea is presented. When I introduced my son to the game, it went to a new level of ridiculousness – dragons in grocery stores and climbing mountains in costumes. You can't say no! You have to go with every idea while creating a story that has a beginning, a middle and an end. It's a collaboration that you don't have any time to edit.
The idea of integrating this game into my personal philosophy dawned on me after one too many arguments with my son about completely inconsequential topics. I thought, "what the heck am I doing?" If he doesn't want to share the raw pie with his class I do not to need to spend fifteen minutes trying to argue the merits of sharing. I can just let him not share, feel what that feels like, and discover on his own that it's always more fun to share.
The Yes, And way:
Kid: "I don't want to share my pie cause it's mine and no one is going to share with me so why should I share with them?"
Mom: "Sounds good, hunny."
Done! No argument, no conflict, no spiral of other things across life that are not ideal.
- You want to keep your pie? Yes, and I hope you enjoy it.
- You want to stay in the car at the lake because it's a man-made lake and it must be terrible so you'll just blow up the floaties and let everyone play without you? Sounds good! And I'm sure the car will be happy to have you.
- You're definitely going to be slow at your mountain biking camp because you've taken a month off with your broken wrist? Yes, that's a possibility. And it's also a possibility that you'll be fast because you've been swimming and hiking so much.
Our children are the best at showing us our weaknesses. One of my favorite weaknesses is resistance – just general rebellion toward anything that does not jive with my inner compass. Partly it's cool because I have an inner compass and I'm in touch with it, but partly it sucks because along the road of my ruthless hunt for "the truth" I've picked up this habit of arguing, fighting and pushing against ideas, circumstances and especially societal norms that I don't like. But resistance just breeds more things to resist. – Thank you, many hours of listening to Abraham-Hicks, it is finally clicking.
So my new working title? "How to get everything by not fighting anything." Instead of actively resisting, I (try to remember to) move out of the way and let things play out without being attached to the outcome. It's not apathy, it's active choosing. I choose what to spend my energy on. Instead of spending energy convincing my child that the lake will be fun and all his friends are expecting him and he should be thankful to be going, I simply, feel that way myself and keep packing the car. I stay in my lane of feeling and go toward what I want instead of trying to convince anyone else that they should feel anything different.
The thing is, I'm obsessed with harmony. I want everything and everyone to work together toward the joy and evolution of all. 🙌
But if I leave harmony and enter conflict in order to reject conflict and bring about harmony... I have LEFT harmony and ENTERED conflict.💡
Baaack up – "Yes, And." Acknowledge the unwanted feeling or circumstance or future possibility. Let it be. And build on it with a feeling or circumstance or future possibility that feels better.
Even within myself, I'm just not going to fight certain things anymore. If I feel powerless and depressed one day, OK. I feel powerless and depressed that day. I'm not going to fight it. I don't feel that way every day. I don't have to fight it. I probably need to take a nap and replenish some hormone that is lacking because I stayed up too late working and looking at screens while hardly breathing and definitely not moving. Not a big deal. Instead of fighting against feeling powerless and depressed, I can stay focused on knowing that ups and downs are part of the scene and something within me needs some more attention. I can even explore the feelings and find out where they are stemming from. Those stems are like jewels. Once you find them they never have the same power again. They start to diminish based solely on awareness. Powerless? Depressed? Yes, and willing to find the opportunity presented.
It's not a "positive" thing
It's a choice thing. It's deciding to adapt and build on what is showing up, instead of pushing it away. Pushing things away doesn't work anyway! It literally does not work. I have tried for SO LONG, with gusto and cunning, to push things away. And I get more and more enmeshed with them because I am putting all my energy into moving the thing instead of moving myself. I have waaay more power over myself than other people, outside circumstances or the collective decisions of a society I have very little in common with.
It's the freedom to choose that I think I have forgotten so well along these forty years. "Yes, And..." It's a new experiment, but it feels like relief and that is a body high of a sustainable kind.