Happy Old Year!

How are you starting your new year? Because I’m not. Starting things is hard. A blank canvas, a blank screen, an empty stage, it all feels daunting. So instead, I’m going to keep my current year going. Treating January as a continuation of what I was doing in December. Sure, I might add some new exercises, new foods, learn new things, but that’s on top of everything that’s already going on. I’m not starting fresh in the new year. That’s too much work. I’m just riding the momentum of life into another day.

Happy day just like any other day!

If you’re feeling the pressure to do something special today, and come up with a bunch of resolutions, and generally fix everything that you feel is wrong with you, maybe take the day off. Especially if you have mental health goals, because that all sounds like a lot. Yes, January 1st feels like a good deadline to start some new habits, but January 2nd is also fine. Jan. 3rd is another day. In fact, each new day is just as special as the last.

If anything, the designated special days (birthdays, holidays, national pizza day) often end up feeling more stressful to live up to the hype than the fun they’re supposed to be. So take New Year’s off its pedestal and just be okay being okay today. You can start becoming that fitter, happier, richer, artier, chefier, sportier, decoratier, smurfier person on Jan… 11th...ish.

Two Imperfect Ships Passing in the Night

I was waiting at a stoplight last night, when I watched a guy walk up to the grocery store sliding doors and almost bump into them. He looked around, confused. It was just after 10pm, so the Loblaws was closed. I could tell he was embarrassed. We’ve all been there. Hard not to beat yourself up when you’ve done something silly in public. Just as he was walking away in shame, another person did basically the same thing. They started talking to each other. They laughed together. A shared embarrassment. It was nice. Mistakes can be beautiful.

Goal Setting for Anxiety

Well, it’s that time of year again, when we all set goals to fix everything that’s wrong in our lives. And each year, I think more and more of those goals are becoming about mental health. You know, because “to travel the world” and “to hug more people” and “to get out of bed” got crossed off. The goal setting tip I want to talk about today is: setting your goal in the positive. Meaning, making a plan to move towards what you want, instead of away from what you don’t.

Before we talk about anxiety goals, let’s use an analogy that most people can relate to: weight. Let’s say you think of yourself as overweight, you might set the goal “to be less fat.” Sounds super harsh, so we might soften it to “to lose 10 pounds.” But that’s still written like a solution to a problem. Meaning, we’re still focused on the problem. What is it we want? Like, what’s the real end goal of losing those 10 pounds?

Set the goal in the positive. Like, literally. Set the goal to something that will make you feel positive when you achieve it, AND make you feel positive on the journey. That’s key. Achieving goals doesn’t have to be a struggle. So you set it to something like, “to feel healthy and happy and good about myself.” That way, instead of just hitting the gym and pushing yourself/punish yourself, you also do activities that bring you joy.

And now anxiety. Let’s say you think of yourself as anxious, you might set the goal “to be less anxious.” Doesn’t sound as harsh as “less overweight,” but it’s still focusing on the idea that there’s something wrong with us that needs fixing. It’s a goal built out of fear. And yet, most of us stop there. I did.

For years my goal was to feel less anxious. So I did all the things I could think of to help me feel less anxious. Meditation, self-help, therapy, podcasts about anxiety, weed… and those were all great, but they also kept me focused on my anxiety. Because my anxiety was the reason I was doing them. I wasn’t meditating for fun, I was mediating to feel less anxious. So I wasn’t enjoying the journey. In fact, I was just constantly checking my anxiety level, which often goes up when you check it.

So I changed the goal to the positive and made it “to increase my joy” or “to feel happy and healthy” or something like that. Whatever it is, that’s the goal to aim for.

It doesn’t just change your mindset, it also changes how you might tackle the goal. You might still meditate to feel less anxious, but does meditating increase your joy? So you start coming up with addition plans to achieve your new goal. Doing improv, and softball, and watching cat videos, and weed.

What makes you smile? What makes you laugh? Those things are now a part of your mental health journey. Is watching Netflix a waste of time when you should be trying to feel less anxious? Maybe, if you’re watching something that sucks. But if you’re actually laughing and enjoying what you’re watching, well, my friend, you’re working on yourself right there!

To recap, set your mental health goals in the positive. Focus on the life you want, instead of focusing on fixing the one you don’t. And remember, you’re great.

Interview: Women's Circle

Honoured to have been interviewed by Marie-Josee Borduas, Life Coach & Health Practitioner & Writer & Fellow Lover of Improv!

We talk about the work, the play, and living on the moon.

Anxious Thoughts: The Ironic Mistake of Perfectionism.

Shout out to all the “A types” out there, who’ve been trained to believe that making a mistake is bad, and you should feel bad for making them. In fact, feel so bad, that you dedicate your life to avoiding the feeling of embarrassment. And what’s the furthest thing from embarrassment? Perfection. I mean, how can you feel bad for a mistake if you never make one?

Thing is, mistakes happen. And when you go into a situation expecting perfection, and you don’t get it (you say the wrong word, pause for over a second, breathe wrong), it’s even more jarring. So jarring, that you dread it even more next time. 

I’m bringing this up now, because we have our Fearless Presentations class starting this Thursday, so it’s on my mind. A lot of Public Speaking classes focus on helping you get better at presenting. (Obvs.) They try to teach the perfect way of standing and talking. (Or in Zoom world, sitting and talking.) But we like to come at it from the other side. We help you practice failing presentations. And teach you how to recover when things don’t go perfectly. 

Because it doesn’t matter how perfectly you learn to use your hands, voice, sentence structure, if every time you go to talk, you panic and blank because you fear everything might not go perfectly! 

It’s okay to be nervous, and make mistakes, and not be a perfect, formal, presentation robot. It’s okay to be human. Go into your next presentation confident. Not because you know you’re perfect. But because you know how to handle it, and recover, when you’re not. 

If you’re interested in classes, sign up today. If not, just promise to go a little easier on yourself. 

Anxious Thoughts: Positive Goals

For over a decade, my goal was to have less anxiety. So every second of every day, I did the things that would help me feel less anxious: meditation, therapy, self-help books, audio seminars, more therapy, breathing, all that good stuff. It helped. But I was also aware that even though I was focused on having less anxiety, I was still focusing on my anxiety. 

When I started doing improv, it introduced me to this other emotion called joy. One I’d forgotten, or didn’t know I had. We got along quite well. I noticed when I was laughing, I didn’t feel as anxious. Which was my goal! Same goal, different path. So now, instead of always trying to feel less anxiety, I do things that help me feel more joy.

Sound fun? Here's 365 ways to get you started.

Improv was always Improv for Anxiety

When you think about improv, the first thing to come to mind is often SCTV, Who’s Line Is It Anyway? and Curb Your Enthusiasm. Improv is so often used for comedy and entertainment, most people assume that’s how it started. In fact, improv in North America was first developed for its ability to help people and only later was it taken by the entertainment industry.

Viola Spolin is widely considered to be the creator of improvised theatre training in North America (Keith Johnstone was doing something similar at the same time in Canada, but that is for another post). Spolin was an actor and settlement worker who ran a program for groups of immigrant children and adults The Hull House, Chicago. (The Hull House is also where the field of Social Work developed in America.) Her mentor, Neva Boyd, pioneered the idea that games and play can provide a framework that would help children act creatively and collaboratively in a way that they were unable to outside of the game. For example, 11 children who were unable to work together were suddenly transformed into collaborative creative team members when put on a soccer field and given the rules and aims of the soccer match. Spolin used this idea and her personal history as an actor to develop theatre games that would also use rules and aims as a framework for creative spontaneity. She created hundreds of games and eventually wrote them in her book, the improv “bible” Improvisation for the Theatre.

Spolin used these games to help children and adults who were not finding success socializing in their new surroundings. Positive mental health was her goal, and the rules and ideas of improv grew out of that ideal. She also noticed that when the groups played her games, they were incredibly funny and entertaining. She invited her son, Paul Sills, to bring some friends around to play, the games and found that they too became incredibly creative while playing.

Sills and his friends went on to found The Second City using his mother’s games, and the rest is history. Improv started to be seen as a form of comedic theatre, and shed its origins as a tool for positive mental health. 

Improv for growth is where improv started. Improv games were built for this. It’s why Improv for Anxiety is a natural fit, because the games were originally made for this type of work (or should I say, play).

Anxious Thoughts: New Year's Edition

The new year comes with a lot of pressure to be “better.” Earn more money, be less anxious, not eat the whole cake in one sitting. It feels like being enough isn’t good enough. There’s nothing wrong with growth, or goals, or resolutions, but always pushing to be better can often feel worse. So when you set your goals for 2021 (to dunk on a basketball net), know that they’re exactly that, goals. They’re not things that need to happen, or need to change, for you to be worthy and enough.

5 Things To Love About Online Improv

Having taught Improv for Anxiety classes in person for so many years, I’ll admit I was a little sceptical about moving them online. Scared, even. I hated the idea. It was going to suck for sure.

But, like I’ve told my students hundreds of times, “Yes!” Be open to the idea, accept that improv is going online, and move forward. So I did. And you know what? It didn’t suck as much as I thought it would. In fact, I’ve seen some real benefits.

1) Commute time

Honestly, it’s just so much easier and quicker to get to class now. Oh, I have class in one minute? Guess I should change out of my pyjamas.

We had a student mention last class that sometimes they had to work late, and the travel time would make them late so they wouldn’t go. Now it’s pretty much switching Zoom meetings.

Also, getting to that first improv class is the scariest part for a lot of people. Now you can put off going to class till literally the last minute.

(Also works at the end of class, where any potential for awkward chit chat is thwarted by a simple “Leave Meeting.”)

2) No hygiene requirements

Listen, I’ll be honest here, I’m not showering as much as I was when things were opened up. On top of that, I’ve really been going heavy on the garlic dishes. Could be for medicinal purposes, or maybe I’ve been eating so much of it that it takes more for me to taste it. The point is, I smell. And you know, you won’t know that. Unless I use some sort of “stink lines” filter, which I still haven’t figured out how to use.

Just rolled out of bed? Welcome to class.
Just stress sweated your way through a marathon of meetings? Welcome to class.
Just got sprayed by a skunk while tarring your roof and changing your baby’s diaper? Be careful, and welcome to class.

3) Comfortable environment

Things that are new can feel scary. If you sign up for a class, you’re trying something new, with new people, but now it’s not also at a new place. You’re doing it from the comfort of your own home.

Which also means bathroom access. Don't know about you, but when I get nervous, I feel like I need to pee. And knowing the toilet is close by, and available, actually helps me need to pee less.

4) It’s international!

Not only is there no commute time, there’s no commute distance. An improv class in Toronto used to have mostly people from Toronto. Or the occasional person who drove in from Oakville. Not anymore. Our last drop-in had people from all over the States, England, Mexico, and even a couple from Australia (which is further than Oakville).

5) The laughs

My fear was that online improv would be a lesser version of in-class improv. I was focused on what would suck about it, instead of what’s great. Which is that it exists. It can happen anywhere, anytime. In a time when we could all use a laugh or two, online improv provides that.

It’s great to laugh. How could I have ever questioned that?

And now if you’ll excuse me, I could probably use a shower.

5 Expert Tips To Achieve Nothing

It’s always the same, you set out to waste the day on the couch, but your brain ends up pressuring you into doing stuff. Things to make you feel like you’re not wasting the day.

But if you follow these 5 simple steps that all successful people do, or not, practice or not, or dedicate yourself, or don’t bother at all, you too can waste the day in style.

1) Write your Goal in Present Tense.

It’s helpful to write your goal as though you’ve already achieved it. Instead of “I’d like to try and be okay with not doing much today,” try “I’m doing nothing, and I’m loving it!” (Shirt idea that I won’t follow through on.)

2) Dream Big, but Start Realistic.

You’re not going to go from successful CEO-type person to casual layabout in one day. While you might not be able to stare at the wall for an hour straight with a smile (sober) like a Buddhist monk, you could start out with 30 seconds and see how it goes.

Take baby steps, like clicking “Watch Credits,” instead of automatically rushing to achieve the next episode.

3) Hold Yourself Accountable.

If you tell your friends you’re writing a book, they’ll ask how the book is going, which should shame you into action. (I’m working on it, I swear.) The same thing can happen with doing nothing.

A simple “I’m not going to grow as a person today” post, and you’ll feel pressured to not let your friends and family down by learning a new recipe, dance, college credit. And don’t fall victim to the irony of replying to their comments. That counts as achieving something.

4) Know what Success Looks Like to You.

Close your eyes. Picture yourself waking up in bed, and not getting out of bed all day or night (bonus expert tip: keep a bucket nearby). If you’re thinking, um, that’s my day every day, here’s the difference: in this version, you don’t feel pressure to get up and start the day, or nagging thoughts that it’s wrong to stay in bed. You know the truth. It’s okay to just be.

As a famous monk once said, “Just be. Be at one with the universe. In this moment. Somewhere comfy. Like your bed.”

If you’re allowed to do nothing, then anything you do is because you want to do it, not because you have to keep your brain busy. Shower because showers are warm and nice, not because you '“should” or because it’s “hygienic” or “you’re starting to smell to the point where people on video calls can sense it.”

5) Reward Yourself. 

If you’re doing nothing, and suddenly realize you’re not calling yourself lazy, or feeling like a loser, celebrate! Give your brain the gift of a crossword puzzle, an instructional video on coding, clean the house, write another blog post about doing nothing, or whatever else your brain thinks is “productive.”

Now stop reading this and get back to just breathing like a champ.

Netflix and Chill Out: How to be unproductive, and mentally okay with it.

Right now, we all have all the time in the world to do all the things we’ve always wanted to do. Like make cooking videos, write posts about productivity, and build toilet paper forts. But with all that time comes all the pressure to do those things. We’ve run out of excuses.

in fact, there’s so much pressure to produce content/achieve greatness, that there’s a second wave of people letting us know that we don’t have to give in to the pressure. You’re enough as you are, and you don’t need to prove anything with your latest TikTok.

But pressure isn’t that simple to turn off. I appreciate the sentiment behind taking it easy, but that’s not going to stop my brain from calling me a lazy piece of shit. Or even worse, saying something mean. For many of us, we can’t just turn off that drive to improve, grow, be better — or at least think about doing those things.

So here’s a little life hack to help you take some time off, while still feeling like you’re achieving something. I present you…

How to watch Netflix and not feel like you’re a useless waste of a life

Here’s what I do:

Start watching Netflix.

Start to feel guilt, like I’m wasting my life and should be doing something productive.

Keep watching Netflix, but with a nagging voice in my head. Both battling for my attention.

The voice wins. Always.

Okay, let’s do something productive. To me, productive is working on my mental health. If I’m feeling anxious, and I do something to feel less anxious, that’s a huge achievement. A win so big, it’d earn me some Netflix time.

Am I saying do something like meditate, or read self-help books? Nope, still Netflix. ‘Cause here’s the trick:

If you wanna achieve less anxiety, achieve more joy.

Simple, I know. Angeringly simple to anyone with anxiety, but hear me out.

Every second I laugh, I don’t feel anxious. Any moment I feel joy, I’m pushing anxiety into the background, ‘cause joy has my attention right now.

But what sucks for us anxious-types is, on those rare times when we’re able to feel joy, it’s only a fleeting moment, and then anxiety comes back.

So here’s what you need to do. Be vigilant with joy. Force joy into your life. If anxiety comes back, you hit it again with laughter and joy.

And you can do it by watching something on Netflix that makes you laugh.

Then you’re doing something productive. You’re working on your mental health!

The one caveat is you have to enjoy what you’re watching. Sure, Tiger King is popular. But does it really make you feel joy and laughter?

Watch something that makes you feel good. The Good Life, Love, Queer Eye… I’ll stop telling you what to enjoy.

When your brain pipes up and says you should be doing something productive, tell your brain that by bringing joy into your life you’re feeling less anxious, and that’s a huge step towards a calmer, happier mind.

And your brain will be like, “That's all I needed to hear, let’s binge, baby!”

To all the self-help books I've loved before...

I was interviewed recently by Jason Byzantium for the Toronto Public Library’s podcast: Shelve Under. This one is shelved under “Anxiety.” It was fun to talk about the self-help books that helped me, the joy of improv, and my personal story. I mean, what else am I going to talk about?

Softball. I probably could’ve also talked about softball. Wouldn’t have been as helpful, but I don’t want people to think I’m limited to three things. It’s four.

Improv for The Marilyn Denis Show

What happens when you email your anxiety class students and ask them to be on national TV, playing silly games, in the middle of a workday, on two days’ notice? Well, if they’ve done improv, apparently they say “Yes!” “And… “ they’ll even be interviewed!

I’m always a little nervous about being on TV, but it helps to have a supportive group of friends playing silly games and laughing behind you.

The Work & The Play: Getting Dressed

I was very anxious and depressed, so I did “the work” and it helped. I also joined an improv class and starting doing “the play” and it helped, too. Together they changed my life. Here's the first in a series of ways to work/play in everyday situations.

Getting Dressed. 

Okay, maybe I’m insecure and don’t feel worthy or enough, but if I can dress cool, my hope is that you’ll compliment me and make me feel complete. 

The Work:

Dress wrong. 

Button up your shirt off by one button. Or leave your laces untied. Or wear that shirt with the mustard stain. Practice being imperfect. You’ll spend all day feeling the fear of someone saying something. But they won’t, because they don't want to embarrass you. If they do say something, you can say “How embarrassing, thank you!” and make them feel like a hero. Making others feel like a hero, that’s what heroes do.  

The Play: 

Wear fun socks.

Two different, multi-coloured socks. Wear some with cartoons, or messages on them. For an even more hidden playful side, wear wild underwear. Something to make you feel fun, and it’s just for you, and I guess, anyone that sees your underwear.

The Work & The Play: Getting Out of Bed

I was very anxious and depressed, so I did “the work” and it helped. I also joined an improv class and starting doing “the play” and it helped, too. Together they changed my life. Here are some ways to work/play in everyday situations.

Getting Out of Bed.

If I stay in bed, the day won’t start. Days are so full of potential pain and suffering, and beds are so comfy and warm. Honestly, why would anyone leave here? To pee? I’ll get a bucket. To eat? I’ll order in. To go to work? Pfffft, they’re not paying me enough. Avoidance for the win.

But if you stay in bed long enough, the thoughts will come in about how you’re late for work and you can’t just stay in bed all day and waste your life like a loser with no goals and die a failure all alone, and suddenly the bed is pain, too. Way to ruin beds, brain!

The Work:

Put your alarm out of reach.

You want a practical solution for the struggle to get up? This is it. Force yourself to get up and get that alarm. I’m not saying it’ll put you in a good mood, but you’ll be out of bed. Even just for the amount of time it takes to turn it off and collapse back into bed. Then get annoyed again when you realize you hit snooze instead of turning it off. 

The Play: 

Get up on the wrong side of bed.

When people say, “Someone got out the wrong side of the bed this morning,” they’re referring to grumpy people. But you’ll start your day less grumpy if you get up in a fun way. In fact, get out of the bottom of your bed. Wriggle under the covers until you just fall out the bottom.

Or for bonus points: just stay in bed. 'Cause beds are comfy!

The Work & The Play: Waking Up

I was very anxious and depressed, so I did “the work” and it helped. I also joined an improv class and starting doing “the play” and it helped, too. Together they changed my life. Here's the first in a series of ways to work/play in everyday situations.

Waking Up.

Some people wake up with a smile and jump out of bed laughing and throw the curtains wide open to look at their ocean view and take a deep smell of the world. Others wake up with disappointment that another day of pain and suffering has been forced upon them, already knowing what this world smells like.

The Work:

Be grateful.

Specifically find 5 things to be grateful for. Take a moment to focus on a few good things before you set to work focusing on what’s wrong, or could go wrong. They don’t need to be huge. Be grateful that you have a bed and sheets and a pillow. That’s three. Two more and you’re good to go.

The Play: 

Masturbate.

No, this isn't my answer to everything. But it is a way to have fun, and this is the last we’ll speak of it. Wake up and play. With yourself.