Improv and Listening w/ Grace Smith
“My therapist then gently suggested that my version of “regular listening” might not actually constitute much…. listening.”
As part of Mental Health Awareness Week 2021 – which runs from 10-16 May – we’ve
commissioned a mini series of blog posts from writers in our improv community, in the UK
and internationally, who are living with anxiety, on the ways improv has improved their
mental health.
Grace Smith (@gracectomy on Twitter) is a comedian, writer, and lapsed academic from Toronto, Canada. She is a regular contributor for Canada’s foremost political satire website The Beaverton; her words have also appeared in Slackjaw, Points in Case, and The Broadway Beat.
I’ve known I have social anxiety since I was 6 years old; that’s when I got locked on a school bus because the driver didn’t realize I was onboard. I would learn later that the driver mistakenly thought I was home sick that day, and my anxiety kept me from piping up as he drove past my stop, past every stop, into a different city, and finally dropped the bus off at the big school bus depot. “I didn’t know the right thing to say,” I would later explain to my terrified mother, when she asked why I hadn’t told the driver I was there.
I’ve also always known I was forgetful. I would forget people’s names with embarrassing frequency. I forgot whole assignments at school. I forgot where my friends went to university. I forgot whether my co-workers had kids. Even more reason to avoid talking to people.
What I did not know until recently, until I started taking improv classes, was that these two inconvenient qualities are related. What I learned from improv was that I haven’t been forgetting - I had not heard any of it in the first place.
As a socially anxious child who had grown into a socially anxious adult, I had never properly learned to listen.
I started taking improv classes at Second City in Toronto in 2015. At the time, I was on year five of an eight year doctorate in Theatre Studies; after several lonely years spent writing and researching at the library, even my introverted self admitted I needed to be around people more.
I am embarrassed to say now, especially after repeatedly mentioning my own social anxiety, but I really thought I was going to be excellent at improv immediately. I was studying theatre, after all! The mature older brother of improv! Plus, I assumed most of the other people in my classes would be corporate shills who were “the funny guy” at their office.
Maybe I had a slight advantage at first. I knew basic stuff, like how to stand on stage so you’re not blocking your scene partner. But the further we got into scene work, the more I found myself entering a sort of panicky, rambling dissociative state during shows. Dissociation causes you to feel disconnected from your sensory experience of the world - like you’re watching yourself from outside your body. And I watched myself ignore locations my scene partners had established. I watched myself forget their character’s names. I watched myself talk over them. I was too worried about finding the right thing to say to think about anything else.
Teachers pointed out again and again how I would blow past my scene partners offers, like I hadn’t even heard them. I remember one improv audition in which I don’t think I let my scene partner get a full sentence out. The audition panel sent me the feedback: “You didn’t hear your partner. Relax and try to listen.” I thought of myself as a caring, thoughtful person. Someone who valued other people’s ideas. How had I so quickly become the worst kind of improviser?
I took this to my therapist to unpack. I had been seeing her for almost a year at that point, and she had saved me from a complete impasse in my dissertation process, caused by (you guessed it) mind-numbing anxiety.
“What does it feel like when you try to take that advice - to ‘relax and listen’?” she asked.
I thought for a moment. “I mean, regular listening is relaxing... but then I forget half of what the other person says. If I listen to really hear everything they say, it’s a lot of effort. Who can keep that up?”
My therapist then gently suggested that my version of “regular listening” might not actually constitute much…. listening.
This hit me like a sack of bricks. My mind raced back through long conversations with dear friends - how much I had let my thoughts wander as they talked. I’m sure most people will occasionally get distracted when others speak, especially when you do have a touch of anxiety and need to plan what to say next. But I fully mentally left the room when other people were talking. It was too painful, too vulnerable to stay with them.
Of course as I had this series of epiphanies about being a bad listener, my therapist had been talking the entire time about how I might not be great at listening.
“I’m sorry, I missed that - what were you saying?”
The truth is: social anxiety can make you into an asshole. That helpless kid who doesn’t know how to ask the bus driver for help grows into a solitary adult who doesn’t know how to help others. You feel so incapable and everyone else feels so capable; you feel fortunate to make it through a conversation unscathed, unembarrassed, and so you never stop to think about the other person. Why should I think about them? They’re fine - I’m the one that needs help here!
The best conversationalists make you feel heard. They’re in the moment with you. They care more about what you’re saying than whether they’ll have the right thing to say in response. When you have social anxiety, you think everyone is having an easier time than you, so it doesn’t occur to you to care what they’re saying. Your goal in this conversation is way more important: SURVIVE.
After this epiphany, my therapist charged me to use improv as a listening training ground. To practice really hearing everything. Listening felt like leaning forward, after I had spent my life leaning back - keeping one foot out of the conversation, in case I needed to make a break for it.
I dove into improv with the newly developed listening skills of a toddler. I was straining my ears at the adults around me, trying to decipher their advanced speech. It was effortful and awkward. I said some painfully sincere things. Sometimes one of my scene partners would give me an offer that hit me so hard in the heart, I could only gape back at them, mouth open - like a goldfish. For the first time, I was hearing people around me and having an emotional response to what they were saying. Which is fucking embarrassing, honestly.
But the only way to get better at improv is to be a bit embarrassing.
The bigger change has been outside of improv. I still feel like I’m actively leaning forward every time I listen to another person speak. It still doesn’t quite happen naturally. Listening is not relaxing. It’s an effort - a muscle straining to hold up a weight. But it’s a strain that is finally starting to feel familiar. And I now can definitely tell when I’m not doing it. Every time I feel myself start to put one foot outside the conversation to take a little break from being with the other person to think “what’s the right thing to say next?”, I kick my butt and tell myself “Care about what they’re saying.” And then I lean forward again.
If you are struggling with your mental health, you are not alone. You can find help and support at MIND – their confidential infoline is 0300 123 3393, CALM or you can visit this NHS Page for a list of other mental health charities, organisations and support groups for urgent help.
If you want to hear more about our improv classes - click here for info on our next term! We offer diversity scholarships for every level, so money is no object.
If you have an interesting story on how improv has helped or is helping you in the real world, please complete the form at www.thefreeassociation.co.uk/improv-in-real-life
