I’m in a process of letting go of a lot of habits related to people pleasing (or at least I hope I am, I’ll have to check back in a few months). One of the big ones is this desire to always say yes. That if I’m not always agreeing I will not have the love that I want.

As soon as I saw that as a pattern of mine, I immediately started thinking about improv theater. Improv has been so transformative for me, it has allowed me to go out into the world and be in relationship in a way that is inconceivable to me of ten or fifteen years ago. It’s also something that feeds my shadow, makes it intensely easy to slip into unthinking yes.

At first thought, I wondered if this was a failing of the art form or my progress through it. There is a huge emphasis on yes in improv, because we all have to relearn how to play together and the first barrier is everyone’s instinctive no.

This emphasis on yes is also where the shadow of the art form lives, where people build fiefdoms of control and abuse out of theaters that they run. So I wondered if maybe some teacher could have seen this in me and encouraged me to say no$^{1}$.

I think that improv can do a better job of stressing boundaries once we begin teaching intermediate and advanced improvisors. That’s part of why I am so fascinated by contact improv, because there is no option but to include boundaries from the beginning of the art form.

My real takeaway is on the joy of seeing your own shadow. There’s a great gift here I hope. I have the option to play with my shadow in this contained space. I can see how I take this space into the world and how the world (and the work I’m doing out there to let go of these habits) makes it into my improv.

Bringing compassion and awareness to my shadow and the spaces that engage it has been a big lesson of the past year. In the past, I would have been tempted to stop improvising or try to fundamentally change my relationship to the art form. But improv is a deep part of who I am, the good and the bad. I might as well try to cut off my arm to remove the temptation to eat junk food. Now that I’m starting this dance, it feels like the real move towards wholeness can begin.

1. Shout out to Matt Higbee who did do this for me during the iO intensive but I only worked with him for a week and I wasn’t ready to hear it.