Director, Gabriele Muccino and Will Smith
I am one of those people who watches the dvd extras and I mean all of them. There's always a gem. While watching the extras for "Seven Pounds" something in particular resonated with me and I found it truly inspiring. I really loved the insight that everyone gave about Gabriele, the Director. He is an emotionally in tune guy and asks for that extra bit from his actors. It reminded me of an exercise Shak suggested a little while ago. She suggested we ask people what they saw as our natural talent/gift. I asked and kept hearing, empathetic...and that I'm incredibly intense but more on that later.... lol What this translates into for me as a Director is the ability to understand where a character is coming from and getting that depth from my actor by being able to articulate what he/she needs to feel and what I need to feel from them. Awesome. The hard work is in conveying it in a manner that can be understood. A part of being the best is understanding your strengths and weaknesses.
So, what exactly is Empathy? There are several forms of empathy but let's start with the origin of the word. Hmmmm the origin of Empathy is from the Greek word empatheia which means literally, passion.
Definition: : the action of understanding, being aware of, being sensitive to, and vicariously experiencing the feelings, thoughts, and experience of another of either the past or present without having the feelings, thoughts, and experience fully communicated in an objectively explicit manner; also : the capacity for this
Ha! I love it. Yep, that pretty much sums me up. Passion, sensitivity, intense emotions.... I think we all relate with the world outside of us from within in a manner that is most natural. Some people see rigid lines whilst others see equations. Others still, see a cornucopia of colors or wavelengths. I am sensitive to my surroundings. I sometimes still battle whether or not this is a "good" thing. Kindness and beauty will bring me to tears. Joy wells up inside of me and bursts from my spirit and eyes. The other side of that coin is true, as well. When I see/feel sadness or despair it strikes a deep cord. What I am working on is experiencing those things without holding on to them. All of that... joy, pain, despair, beauty and graciousness are a part of life but we are ingrained to believe that joy is fleeting and pain is forever. Think about the saying, "through rose colored glasses". Its origin is to describe someone who has a positive optimistic view of life and/or a situation. Currently, I hear it used commonly to describe someone who isn't seeing life clearly. That person is forgetting the pain they endured. SMH. Why? Why are we taught to "wait for the other shoe to drop"? That something is "too good to be true"? Well, my guess is the answer is the saying "misery loves company". lol I believe we are supposed to forget the pain. Too often, myself included, we wear it around like badges of honor for experiencing life. But I am learning that that is just another way of playing the victim card. When I had that "aha!" moment, I almost fell out of my seat. Wow. What is truly healthy empathy? I believe it's using those deep feelings to help get others through their current pain by whatever medium suits you a film, play, song, poem, blog etc. Not to hold on to it and relive it on a daily basis or when an experience creates a trigger.
Release. Release the pain. How? Through forgiveness. How do you forgive? Start with yourself. We must forgive ourselves and recognize that we learned from the experience (joy point!) and did the best we could at that time (another joy point!). When we forgive ourselves everyone else involved becomes easier to forgive. We don't secretly blame ourselves and try to pass it off on someone else. We extend them the same courtesy, they did the best they could with what they had at that point. I'd like to be like a duck in this instance. A duck gets wet but the water also rolls off it's back.
*Puts on her rose colored glasses and smiles*
100.
