Earlier this week I arrived to an improv class that had new faces.

This always stresses me out, because I’ll learn new names I need to remember despite brain-melting exercises and scenes.

It didn’t help that more and more people kept filtering in. Another new face! Familiar ones I hadn’t seen in a while!

The small room buzzed with a cheerful din of conversation.

It was the largest class I’ve been in. Lots of names to get wrong. Lots of people to embarrass myself in front of. Enough bodies that someone opened the door to vent heat.

Familiar warmup exercises were tricky with so many people trying to stay focused while zipping around the room avoiding collisions.

I have a perpetual awareness of the many ways I can screw up, so it’s a fight to keep my attention on the very few and very specific things I need to do right.

I could see my frazzle on other faces. When one exercise got twice as hard, we started clashing and fumbling.

Then something amazing happened.

Our instructor told us to stand firmly and comfortably and breathe. From a calm, attentive place, trust that we could absolutely handle the exercise and be good at it.

And then we were.

Not just a few people, but the whole group. We moved more calmly, more fluidly, fierce and relaxed and smiling. We were good at what we were doing together.

It continued into other exercises, then into scenes.

If you had been in the room, you would have noticed the change after that simple direction.

After a break, we ended up talking together about calm and fear. Each person was tuned in.

People representing an eclectic mix of ages and professions shared how comfortable they are with conventionally-terrifying parts of their work and how afraid they are to show up and do improv. It demands complete attention for something you have no control over, where the only hope of success lies in being present and attentive and creative and keeping fear from pumping the brakes.

“Oh that’s silly, you shouldn’t be afraid because you’re very good at this,” I would repeat to myself as different people spoke. “I’ve watched you feel your way to something spontaneous and smart that made us all laugh.”

And yet from each person who actually was very funny, fear.

How curious.

Fear of forgetting a name, tanking a scene, failing to be a good partner, plunging into confusion few could follow and fewer could laugh at.

We’ve each done those things, but they should not be afraid because look at what they managed to pull off!

The realization came to me, as it so often does, very slowly.

If we had microphones sensitive enough to capture the sounds of inner thought, we might have heard the cold, reverberating “thunk” as something shifted in my mind:

I should be asking myself, too. Why are you afraid?

I have had the same fears, but I have also had my better moments.

What if I am exactly the same?

What if it’s silly that I let fear be such an obstacle that I alone bring with me when others are rooting for me to succeed?

What if calm really does come from practice against stress, and I’ve already been improving at something I don’t need to be so afraid of?

I wouldn’t have arrived at this rush of calm and affection without hearing others describe what I feel—and reacting with the quiet bewilderment of “oh but surely you should not be afraid!”

I write here with the hope of finding something that connects us even if we never write or speak to one another. It’s why I like reading what you write, too.

I also write here, on this sparing little side blog, because I’m afraid to be wrong or rambling or detailing the obvious too close to wherever I’m supposed to be professional and confident and succinct. Ready with answers instead of wondering aloud at what they might be.

Maybe that’s a pointless division of selves that robs energy from something stronger and more unique. Maybe if it’s a distinction rooted in more fear than prudence, it should go. Maybe if it’s a smart and practical division for my work, I should find another line of work.

I don’t know yet, and I can’t dismantle every wall at once.

I’ve been uncharacteristically calm since I left that class.

I’ll be on stage for the first time this weekend and I’m finally less anxious about how I could screw up because I’m excited at what fun it could be.

Please do whatever you do with love and bravery, and share it if you can.

Imagine what we could do together.