Am I Feeling Things Wrong?

Somewhere in China, sitting on her bed with the air conditioning running, Stephanie catches herself wondering if she's feeling things wrong. Not too much — just... not enough. She knows she feels deeply. But something isn't getting through.

Years later, in London during her MFA, an improv exercise cracks everything open. She collapses. Her knees give out. She sobs for 15 minutes straight. Which, if you know her, is not a thing she does.

This one's for anyone who's ever had to push it down to get it done. You know who you are.

• 00:00 Intro
• 00:54 Something's Wrong in China
• 01:33 The Improv That Broke the Dam
• 02:47 Too Good at Compartmentalizing
• 03:07 Finding the Way Back
• 04:11 Reintegrating Emotion
• 06:03 I See You
• 07:19 Until Next Time

Transcript

0:01

Hello, I'm Stephanie Arapian and this is The Centered Creator Podcast. I tell stories from my creative life, my travels, my many questionable decisions, and what I've learned about being human along the way. This one starts in China, ends in London, and somewhere in the middle I broke down sobbing in an improv class, which if you know me, is not a thing I do.

Stephanie 0:35

I would like to share a story that might make some of you feel a little too seen. But it kind of starts with this moment where I seriously asked myself, am I feeling wrong? Am I feeling things wrong? I had this moment when I was living and working in China. I was a teacher and I remember sitting on my bed in the flat, air conditioning is rolling. It's really hot. And thinking to myself after reading a story and watching a show that I wasn't reacting the right way, I could tell that there should be more there and I'm should-ing myself, but there's a reason for it this time. I wasn't getting deep. I wasn't getting it. And it was just a moment, but it stuck with me and I knew, I did know that I do feel things deeply. There were still stories that I read that I would cry at. There are moments of like laughter and joy, but there was something wrong and it wasn't until many years later, like a couple countries later, I was living in England and I was working on my MFA in acting, in London, and I was working on an improv for a show that we were doing. Tony Kushner's, A Bright Room Called Day. I was playing Agnes and I was doing an improv with two other actors and we were working on our relationship building and we were all in a scenario and there was a big argument happening between two of my really good friends who had very opposite opinions and idealistic ways of going about life. And I was caught in the middle. My job in the improv was, how do I navigate this? And we crescendo to a point where people are just ready to walk out and I'm so frustrated at end of like just literally I collapsed. My body gave out. I was crying, my knees went weak. I literally could not lift myself up and I sobbed for 15 minutes straight. I don't do that. I, if you know me, I do not do that. I am very controlled. I'm a person who appreciates the public and the private, to an almost unhealthy degree, and this kind of forced me to recognize where my high functioning personality worked against me. I had gotten too good at compartmentalizing. And I knew that I wanted to be an actor. It's always kind of played in the back of my mind, like second grade pageant. I was in front of the entire school, narrating the Christmas pageant. Go figure. But I knew from a very young age that I was some kind of storyteller, some kind of performer, and the fact that I hadn't done it to that point, kind of worried me. And that moment in China, I'm feeling things wrong, and after those floodgates happened, that improv. It was actually only months after that I could really understand what had happened, and years after that I could put it in context that I had shut off parts of my ability to feel to deal with life. Like just to deal. Because I've always been a very responsible, very practical, very organized, very nurturing listening type of person. And anybody who's probably a woman, but anybody who does multitasking or is very intelligent and highly driven, has probably learned to do that. I see you. I see you. I'm giving you a hug right now. And I, that was the moment where I started the very long process, like years long, still doing it, process of reintegrating emotion into my life in a healthy way because, oh my God, still had a lot of stumbling blocks and ups and downs on that journey. But I remember thinking, oh, this is what was missing. This is what was missing. I felt that inkling of something's wrong and still found my way back to performance -long roundabout route, we could talk about that later- but I found my way back to it because it was never gonna leave me, that need to be a storyteller, to share stories, to go on emotional journeys, even if I knew I wasn't feeling it right or enough, or I was not open to it. There was a switch that turned on that allowed the flood gates to open, and I wasn't suddenly oversensitive to everything, but it felt like I broke through the biggest block that I had put in my own way. I put it in my own way to make sure that I could survive the world because I was being called upon to do so many things. To live such a life, to be an independent person, to go off and live independently in a foreign country where I don't speak the language, not once, not twice, but three times, three fucking times I did that. Yeah, 25,000 miles. Wow. And that began my journey to being able to call myself an actor and to where I am now. And I feel like I've come, like even leaps and bounds where I am now. I could not conceive of where I am now back when I was in acting school. And I'm so grateful that I'm here and it just makes me so intrigued by all the possibilities of what is next. And I'm sharing this story because I feel like so many people, like they have to push it down to get it done. And that's literally been my life. I've kind of feel like I've been trained from childhood to push it down, get it done. There's something you want, you wanna go do it, you have to get it done. Well, you can't feel your way through that, Stephanie, but you can, you can. I just didn't know how at the time. And once I at least broke free of that boundary, then it was a long journey to figuring out how to balance this new emotion that I had access to, or being a fully feeling person and bringing it into my craft and still surviving in this world today. Hoo. Ongoing process. But yeah, I just wanna share that it is possible. If you feel like there is something more, that there is a deeper feeling, I invite you to lean into that and that there are ways to not let it overtake you, but to still live a fuller life, not that you aren't already. Yeah, because high functioning doesn't necessarily mean that you have to be unfeeling. I'm still working on it, work in progress, but it's getting a lot better. Thank you for tuning in and I'll see you next time. Until then, take care.