In moments of pure delight, our bodies know what to do. Notice the absolute freedom of movement in this photo by Telma Terra.

In this series about freeing us from habits that might cloud our presence, we talked last week about habits of gesture: hands and arms. This week, we look at habits in our bodies—how we stand. We’ll get to how we use the space and move, next week.

The most common habits of the body involve swaying back and forth or to and fro on our feet. Other habits include…Read on.

I’m going to say two things that may seem completely contradictory:

1) The audience, the other, in any communication, is our raison d’etre, our only reason for communicating.

2) Wondering if the audience likes us, is a red-herring; whether they like us or not is irrelevant. We are not there to be liked. We are there to communicate something and that thing, is what is important.

A few years ago I found myself standing just outside the spotlight, costumed, made up, warmed up, and about to walk on stage for the first time in over 20 years. My thoughts were something like:

“Shit. Shit. The dress is riding up my butt. I don’t remember my first line! Is that the critic sitting there? What if they hate me? What if I’m awful?”

Then I remembered…Read on…