Know Your Role

Memories of my acting training truly warm my heart. When I was in undergrad, I learned a lot in that black box theatre. It was so much fun for me to learn how to portray different characters in different circumstances, and to tell stories that way. That will forever be a part of me. I especially remember an exercise I did with my classmates in my Intro to Acting class. The assignment was that we needed to go to the zoo, choose an animal, and then come back to class with the ability to embody whatever animal we chose.

I honestly don’t remember what animal I chose. I just remember that it was similar to a deer or a gazelle. What I also remember is what I needed to do in order to embody that animal. I fulfilled a role by controlling the quality of my movement when I walked, looked around, jumped, sat, or ran, in order to recapture that animal is if it were a part of me. For the sake of conversation, let’s just say that the animal was a gazelle. I would tell myself, “I am a gazelle,” and that is the role that I played. I learned how to transfer that lesson into portraying different people on stage. I would tell myself, “I am the cab driver,” “I am Samuel,” or, “I am Floyd.” I fulfilled different roles, and yet those roles were not who I am. I invite you to consider the idea that it is the same with everyday life. We all fulfill different roles, but are those roles really who we are?

Who’s Behind the Role?

In various circumstances, you may answer the question, “Who would you say that you are?” with an answer like, “I’m a mother,” I’m a father,” I’m an artist,” “I’m a teacher,” “I’m a model,” “I’m an athlete,” What if these are all just roles and expressions of who you are, and not who you are at the core? We all have different roles that we fulfill. For example, I fulfill a role as a therapist, and a therapist is not who I am. I don’t have cardigan sweaters filling my entire closet (no shade against cardigans) or hold up the line at the grocery store asking the cashier, “What would you like to share about what happened with you over the past week?”.I’m a human being fulfilling a role as a human being. If the person working as a cashier decided that they wanted me to fulfill the role of a therapist for them, that would be completely different. There would be an allotted time and place for me to hold space for tears, laughter, and a myriad of different feelings, both pleasant and unpleasant.

Let’s say I over-identified with my role as a therapist. That I made “therapist” my identity. Then that means I would need to stick to that role all the time, and more importantly, I would need to abandon any sort of self-care to fulfill that role. If “therapist” was my identity while playing board games with friends, for example, it wouldn’t be fun for me at all. In order to fulfill that “role,” I would constantly be attuned to everyone else’s needs, asking questions like, “when you jammed your forehead into your palm after you had to draw 8 cards, what were you feeling in that moment?” And I would lose myself in the role instead of being present in the moment with friends, having fun, and enjoying their company. It’s the same thing with all of our different roles. If “instructor” was your identity, it could be very hard to be your authentic self outside of the role of “instructor.” It also would be challenging to take good care of yourself if that was the only expression of yourself, because there is a constant outward focus without regard to your Self. But who’s the person behind the role? Who is the authentic Self, which belongs to you, behind the role?

Dinner Rolls!

I like to think about “roles” a little differently. I equate “roles” to “dinner rolls.” So what if “firefighter,” “doctor,” or “student” were all dinner rolls? That means that the “rolls” were pinched off from a big batch of dough. The dough hasn’t quite been molded into anything yet, but it could be anything. Let’s call the dough your, “True Self.” If the dough is your True Self, then all of the rolls are merely expressions of who you truly are. And in order for those rolls to be flaky, soft, and tasty, the dough has to be fresh. Imagine if you left the dough out all night and didn’t cover it. When you try to make rolls, they would be hard, stale, and chewy. The dough is what’s important. Not the rolls in of themselves. When thinking about “rolls” that you fulfill, then, I invite you to consider what is more important for you today. Is it the role being fulfilled? Or the dough being fresh? How do you feel about your answer? What would you like to do to make your dough fresher?

Self-Care

It is so easy to over-identify with the different roles that we all have as human beings. And behind those roles, that is who we are at our foundation. Human beings. And if as a human being, you are the dough, what are you doing to keep your dough fresh so you can fulfill your roles well? Is it walking in nature? Listening to an album? Playing sports? Sculpting? Painting? Joining a book club? Faith? Being part of a community? Whatever it is, I invite you to take note and do it!

The next time that someone asks you, “What would you say about yourself?” there’s an opportunity to whisper the phrase to yourself “I am me, a human being,” and see how that impacts your answer, as well as all the different roles that you fulfill. Does it make you more curious about your True Self?

With that I invite you to keep this question at the forefront of your mind, “What can I do to keep my dough fresh?