Acting Classes Are the Most Practical Life Skill Nobody Talks About

Acting classes are not just for actors.

No, you won't be judged for going to one.

However, a lot of acting classes are typically tailored to actors who already have some training, but that doesn't mean only actors can enjoy it.

That's why I created Workshops For Humanity! A workshop that is personalized for you to enjoy and fully express yourself. Those who experience the workshops feel lighter afterwards because humans are meant to express themselves in a variety of ways and we barely do it in this era of work, work, work.

Raise your hand if you work at an enclosed space most of your day where you have to talk to mostly strangers/ people you dislike and dread going there every Monday....

Acting training can help you deal with these sort of encounters AND enlighten you with a new perspective.

I know humanity can benefit from taking training that will develop their communication skills and be fully themselves without judgement.

Here are 7 ways acting has helped me (and in my opinion is way better than therapy):

1. Communication: Because of acting I was able to communicate with other people. It used to be difficult for me to get close to anyone for fear of saying the wrong thing or for being judged, even though this still happens to me it is much less intense and I can guide myself to a mental space where I can push myself to the next level in a healthy way. My diction is much better because of the exercises I implement prior to important meetings/conversations, acting has helped me be more prepared for any "real world" experience.
   

2. Physical movement: I feel lighter every time I move my body. This not only happens in acting, it also happens in the world of fitness, however, in the acting workshop scenario the movement is intentional expressing something my body has been hiding, similar to dance (they are related). I'll go into greater detail on this in another blog post and Youtube video. My body feels lighter after each session, hence, making my mind clearer.
   

3. Empathy: humanity needs this A LOT! everyone is so focused on the self and forget about having empathy of others. Acting has helped me get into other people's shoes and see life from their perspective. I'm not talking about "omg that is so sad, I feel so bad for that person and everything they went through" NO, I'm talking about living the experience as the person tells me their story, going through every part of their story while the tell it and actually feeling the pain and understanding their view on life. I can feel it so well BECAUSE in acting you embody the characters you play and you have to do a lot of research about where the character came from, how was their life before the play is going on, what time period were they from and what events did they go through that shaped who they are today. A lot goes into building a character which I'll also dive deeper in another post.
   

4. Reading between the lines: this is one of my favorite things. I used the think reading people's subtext was a curse because I can almost instantly tell if the person is being truthful and authentic or if they are being incongruent. Subtext is important on stage and off stage, every conversation has subtext, some people are able to read it naturally, others can acquire the skill. If you don't know what subtext in acting is, it is when someone is saying one thing but there is a much deeper message being transmitted, here is an example from a situation that happened to me. I recently was taking something to someone and their words were "oh my god that's great thank you" but I knew from before I walked in the door that they were displeased to see me, their micro-expression revealed them immediately and I caught it because I was trained for it, they said one thing but meant a completely different thing.
   

5. Reading people: I'm no CIA expert who reads into people and can tell from a mile away what their next move is, however, acting has trained me to read people and play around with ideas. For example, acting has trained me to analyze someone and guess who they are as a person by the way they sit, what they do while sitting/standing/walking, how they dress, how they communicate with other people, what hand gestures they do, how they speak, and many more things that can define a person's character, it taught me to experiment by making assumptions and then validating those assumptions based on what they do next. There is beauty in that because you start understanding and reading people better each time. My brain has registered so many patterns that I can now read people much better. You can play around with this, just get off your phone and start looking at people (without looking strange) I'll teach you more about this in future blogs and workshops.
   

6. Pain: acting has taught me to express my pain so that I can cope with it. Pain may not fully go away, however, you can channel it so that you feel it less intensely. Acting definitely helped me with the pains that come with being an adolescent with divorced parents living very difficult times with little resources, the pain was there but I was taught to work with it. I will not go into detail but had it not been for acting I would have spiraled into depression, however, because I let me body express itself and used the pain to fuel my work the storm was easier to get through.
   

7. Fear: I learned that fear is normal, practically nobody is exempt from it. I learned to use fear to fuel my soul and do the work I came here to do. Acting taught me to befriend fear, although I still fear fear, I can navigate the feeling much better. Because of acting, I can feel scared and down one day and the next few days I'm back up and running. More techniques and exercises to come.

My advice to everyone is to take acting classes, it will open your eyes in ways you never thought of before. You will see life from a new perspective and understand the world a little better.

Be human.

As always I speak from experience, may it help somebody.

Disclaimer: this is for informational purposes only, everything in this blog post is from personal experience and opinions and in no way is this meant to be medical or scientific advice. Please seek the appropriate professional for your needs. Do or do not do any of what was said here, the responsibility is yours.