Jon Kabat-Zinn is the Bomb Diggety

So, first off, I was super excited about the 'raisin' exercise because I've done it before, and found it to be a really great exercise about mindfulness if the person is open to acknowledging how unique something as random as a raisin (or in our case an almond) can be. I actually practice mindfulness when I eat really often, because taking a moment to look at, smell, examine, thoroughly chew, taste, and experience the swallowing of your food is described in no better way than orgasmic. I tell you, you go to Louies, and you get some potatoes and you just sit there for  like, thirty minutes. Just revel. You don't have anywhere to be, you don't need to talk to anyone, and eating is not just about fuel ( obviously if you're eating potatoes, that's just starch you silly goose)-- but I guarantee, you do that, you look at those potatoes and smell them and chew them bit by bit, and you're not gonna forget how amazing those potatoes were for like, a week!

Besides the joys of food, which of course to me are very important, Jon Kabat-Zinn's approach to mindfulness has less of the monk like meditation you would expect, and is more comparable to a child-like wonder about the things we don't normally pay attention to. There's an exercise on his website ( and on the app he has if you're interested in that) where all you do is focus on your hands, and their purposes. If you're open and mindful truly to the experience, it's almost heart warming, because your hands to do a lot of amazing things. And they're beautiful, and unique. Just as much as looking at and tasting something dear to you can make you feel warm and safe, stopping to examine the hands you use every day to accomplish your goals can give you a real confidence boost about your capabilities.

I think that Jon-Kabat-Zinn's work with mindfulness is so useful to an actor because it allows for there to be a consistent method to a new discovery every time. Tim mentioned it really beautifully in class when it comes to people (and in an actor's sense, characters). If you assume when you're examining a text that after reading it twice you know not only who your character is, but who all the other characters are than you close yourself off from the in the moment discoveries you may have and that you can react to from your partner. Walking into a rehearsal and expecting a "raisin" but being open to finding an "almond" in your partner, and understanding how the raisin and almond are different in this person's interpretation allows for something so repetitive as rehearsals to be a new and thrilling experiencing every time.

It also drags a person out of the "first circle" mentality, which can be very very healthy for people who have turbulent emotions. I personally have suffered from anxiety since my late teens, and while I had thought I had it under control, college's challenges brought on a whole new gang of stressors with which for me to sufficiently freak the fuck out all the time over. So, after some things that if you'd like to know about them you should ask me personally, I decided that I needed therapy. And I was recommended to a group that essentially specialized in practicing mindfulness which allows a person who is suffering from anxiousness and stress to briefly focus on something else entirely, discover it, attend to it, and then when they are more calm because they're not running a hamster wheel over their problems in their head, they can come back and figure out a plan of action.

Now, this post, is long. But I think that this is important for me to say, because let's be real, this is so applicable to life, and I am really passionate about it. If you ask anyone who knows me pretty well, last semester I spent a lot of time in Louies, alone or otherwise, and food and focus and relaxation and mindfulness all played a part in me keeping my shit together last semester. Now also, I'm like, 30 lbs heavier (I should've found comfort in salads some how) but am I a calmer, more prepared person? Oh hell yeah.

So yeah, now you know quite a bit about me. And what mindfulness means to me.


Feeling all tingly and emotionally connected yet?

Rio