Kinesthetic Response

November ‘25: The Gate of Wisdom
Edition 10

being moved....

Kinesthetic Response.

This is the act of movement, or being moved, in response to someone or something. Kinesthetic, simply meaning your senses are engaged, your physically active in your experience.

A response, the reply.
The ouch to the pinch. The pull to the push.
A true indicator if you are listening, if you are engaged.

This ViewPoint lives in the realm of time, as it can only be experienced in the moment that is happening.
You cannot force or manufacture a true kinesthetic response.

And the beauty of this in acting is you CAN USE EVERYTHING that is happening to you.

Meaning, are you nervous? Put that energy into the moment. Find some way of making that realtime experience as an artist make sense for the world your character is in and use it.

Did someone step on your line? Are you frustrated because they were not listening? USE it, can you let your actual response to not being taken in live inside the words of the script? As opposed to ignoring what is happening within you as a human, can you let it exsist without fighting and turn it into creative kindling?

The most honest thing an actor can do is be present to what is and respond to what is actually happening. Everything else is just tricks. tricks and unneeded effort.

Sounds simple. It is. But it is not easy.

Not when:

• We spend most of our time in the day to day suppressing and redirecting our truest impulses as a way to be polite, palatable and function in certain environments. Which is absolutely necessary for some moments.

• We have so many thoughts spinning and stimuli swirling that to focus and listen to one person or to be present in one situation feels like an impossible ask.

• We have been conditioned that humor will win favor, or piousness will save us… when it would be more honest to show how embarrassed we were and say “fuck” a little.

So when asked to respond honestly in a moment for the sake of being present, Without a role to play or an objective to achieve?

It can take some practice allowing. Listening and allowing…. then listening… and allowing…

However, it can be really inconvenient if I allow for myself to be an open channel all the time. I can’t be honestly responding to all the things that cross my doorway. There are social norms. I may have other things to do with my time that require me to swallow my natural impulse and choose a reaction that more closely fits with what is expected so we may carry on carrying on. I may be required to dettach and not really be present because “I just can’t right now”.

In art, however, if my muscle for swallowing my natural impulses is stronger than my muscle for allowing them, I can find myself in an uninspired lull.

I can make conventional choices as opposed to honest choices and wonder why my character choices are boring, or I am just bored in the process.

In just the last few years I have seen how my own muscle for swallowing my impulses has been wildly left unchecked, leaving me feeling abandoned (by myself). Over time, I have had to reevaluate what brings me joy, what excites me, even what my own opinions ARE.

I surrender to the burnout that wasn’t only exhausting me, it was taking away all the parts of me that helped me define myself as a stand alone individual. I didn’t even know how far away I got from myself until I started the very awkward process of walking back the path to find me. Who I am in this moment, with my own needs and opinions in this unraveled world?

I think at times it felt unsafe to have my own goals…. it felt unsafe to enjoy things in my preferred pace or pattern… somewhere along the way I told myself that that wasn’t good enough to live a “well lived life”… I told myself I should play along so I can belong.

And slowly slowly slowly as I buried my own responses to the world around me. I found myself in a life I did not quite understand because it was built through a series of inauthentic choices. Which is heartbreaking to admit. And while I didnt know quite how to start finding my way back. I hear the voice of my friend Collette say “teaspoon by teaspoon we move the mountain”.

So this writing, these practices, are my little commitments to making more authentic choices. My little teaspoons moving the mountain of “protection” in the name of play, curiosity and kindness with the hopes of honoring my own experience.

And not everyone has issues accessing their own points of view.

Some folks have very strong connections to their opinions and preferences. So this ViewPoint may be easy to access, but from the opposite end, we can explore how those responses arise.

Are they coming from presence, or protection? Is there coherence between my internal world and my external expression, or am I trying to control the situation?

How much of my reactions to life are conditioned responses, and can I take the space to choose not just what comes naturally but what is honestly true in the moment, beyond what the world expects from me, or what I expect from myself.

This brings me back to the beauty of practicing Kinesthetic response.

As a human giving me relationship to my impulse and responses.

As an actor to nurture my capacity for listening and being present with what is.

It is a gift to explore these things, however, it is not exactly healthy to walk around so open to everything all of the time allowing everything to effect you.

I have seen empathy turn in a toxic fashion, and the very beautiful intent of connection devolves into a co-dependant confusion.

Every person needs to know their own apeture for taking in the world around them, and the company that it is safe to do so in….

We all need tools for grounding and coming back into center so we do not get lost.

Taking time to mindfully explore Kinesthetic Response can be a powerful practice, especially in a social structure that is often desensitized, hidden behind screens and handles, in service to remembering that we do not live nor do we create art in a vacuum.

And while I may not be able to control how others will take me in, or the responses I get while expressing myself, it is the only way for me to learn how my actions and my intentions actually land outside of myself.

To have the courage to be responsible for the consequences, even when they are good.

To cultivate the humility and stamina to continue to show up open and honest and remember, like a chain reaction…. we are all just results of the kinesthetic responses of those who just left our presence… and we carry forward the imprint of those moments to those who are just stepping in.

Until soon….
See you at the next threshold,
Kirstin

“Where you are tender, you speak your plural.”
-Roland Barthes,

A Lover’s Discourse: Fragments

Embodied Response.

This week I am going to ask you to go on a little exploration with me using music as our “stimulus”.

As in all of our explorations, I will ask you to set aside preference and keep an open mind.

You may struggle to access your first impulse.

Then this practice is a rekindling, or an invitation to notice the preference you’ve learned to override. Your work is permission: letting yourself hear the initial “yes,” or “no,” that first “I am open” or “I am not interested”.

Or, Your first impulse may be the kind that arrives fast and loud.

Then this week becomes an invitation into nuance — noticing the quality of your reaction. Is it preference or protection? Reflex or resonance? This work is also discernment: letting your impulses be information rather than identity. Some of us don’t have trouble finding our first impulse — we have trouble allowing space around it.

You may want some privacy, and if you need headphones grab a pair, or a device where you can stream music from. (I am sorry I am using Spotify I have not found my alternative platform to make an accessible playlist yet.)

You will want a notebook + pen.

We start, as always, finding neutral…

Stand or sit comfortably.

Let your eyes soften.

Feel the weight of your body—its temperature, its effort, its edges.

Without changing anything, simply notice:

• What is present in my body… right now?

• What sensations are already happening without me engaging?

This is your baseline, your pre-response.

The Invitation: To allow something new in.

For this exploration, I have curated 10 different songs that we are going to use as the stimuli that comes into the room. I did this so you won’t be able to know what is necessarily coming next.

Again, I ask that you try not to listen from a place of “I like this song” or “I don’t like this song” as music preference. Listen to the sounds… allow them to create a response within you. You wont need to listen to each song from start to finish.

Before you hit play, read the exercise through…

But after reading this through, the first step is…

You are going to hit play.

And as each track begins, within the first 5 or 10 seconds, I want you to ask:

• “What is my honest first impulse? Where do I feel this in my body?”

  Before rationalizing, before self-editing, before imagining what your choice “means.”… do you want to skip, fast forward… do you want to lie down or get up… You don’t need to justify, just let it in.

Then

• “What is the very first shape my body wants to make in response?”
  And then make it. Small is fine. Strange is welcome.
  Just follow the first honest impulse.
  
  

• Before you move to the next song see if you cant determine:
  What makes this response true for me?
  Where do I edit myself or where am I resisting being honest?

When ready…. Skip to the next song.

And as you cycle through the 10 songs,
moving from impulse to impulse,

If you can, allow yourself to stay with one song a little longer.

Give that a try… If your body flinches, let it travel.
If your shoulders drop, melt into the drop.
If your eyes want to close, close them.
Let the response go past the polite version, and exaggerate the impulse.

Finally, Once you have gone through them all…
Take a deep breath in…. shake your shoulders out a little…

Give yourself a little gratitude for taking this time to try something new.

Integration

If you’d like, open your notebook and write for 3–5 minutes using one or some of the following prompts,

• “If I listened to my impulses more honestly, I would…”

• Where was my impulse a true yes/no vs a conditioned yes/no?

• Where did I react quickly because I “always” do?

• Where did I skip something without even hearing it?

• Am I choosing quickly because I know… or because I want to stay in control?

• Where do my impulses surprise me, contradict me, or reveal something softer underneath?

Let the writing be unfiltered. It doesn’t have to make sense, here is where you can let your “plurals” have voice.

And maybe one final prompt to complete this practice with a finishing sentence:

“Today my body taught me that…”

Can I allow my body to become the threshold
for the present moment this week…

Not a hotel for things to linger for long periods,
not a trampoline where things deflect and bounce away…
but may each moment meet me,
and as it passes through my senses,
may I have the courange to honestly respond
in ways that honor my own needs and wants of this moment.
Not needing to direct or control where it is headed,
but simply “thank you, next”, “or ye shall not pass” as I allow it to move along….
available to meet the next moment as it approaches.