Breaking Character

You are an actor, stuck in character

By Sonia Barrett

As we face challenges in our private realities, on our private stage, we are caught in the performance, the drama and intrigue of the experience. The actor now believes that he or she is the character, the role being played. This is the dilemma that we all face. The characters we play are created from archetypes written into the script of this collective version of reality—we simply add uniqueness to these characters based on the stories we select to play out as our experience. Most of our characters are largely based on deficiencies. We are always in lack of something. This sets the stage for us to spend great effort seeking to fill a void. But in the process of filling that void a vast array of experiences are created to further support these deficiencies, leaving us most often with short-lived substitutions.

Breaking character is about removing oneself from the performance. This is the purpose of deep meditation, but you need not always be in deep meditation to achieve this experience, at least not in the standard manner of achieving deep meditation. To break character is to stop the theater of performances in your head. After all, your experiences are really happening in your head. You process everything in your head, you experience it all up there and your conclusions become the basis for the character you play, as you continue adding to it. An example of this would be questions that you may ask yourself about one person’s feelings towards you. In your head you begin to gather evidence from previous interactions, then before you know it you have created a storysupporting yourconclusion that this person doesn’t like you. What do you do with this assessment? You then create a series of conditions and signals to alert you to more of this coming your way. Suddenly this has developed into a handicap for you, limiting you from being more engaging, perhaps. As you become less engaging in your interaction with other or just in general your world has to adjust to accommodate your fears. This of course spills over into your entire reality. It becomes clear that you never break character. You never leave the stage because you are compelled to maintain the experience.

Experiencing our characters is so hypnotic that the thought of breaking character is unappealing. In breaking character we run the risk of change. We are typecast in our roles. It is challenging to switch characters. We have become the role. We believe that we are our poverty, our illnesses, our professions, our social status, our education, our spiritual identities, our success, our so-called failures, our human status; they are simply all characters traits. What are we if we are not that? We feel we must identify ourselves as something. To be undefined is a fearful position for most, for if you cannot be identified then do you really exist? What will people say?

PIXABAY

When we break character by stepping away from the performance, we become centered. We are not this thing or that thing, and in this space of centeredness we can re-create the manner in which we would like to return to our play, our adventure. You can change the construct of the role you play. To see the manner in which you acquired this role is of great significance in removing yourself from the hamster-wheel of experiences. Consciously breaking character as needed allows you to simplify and resolve issues without the interference of the limitations of the character you have been playing. How was your character shaped? Is it from the traditions woven in your family’s character tree? Are you shaped from your bloodline’s character addictions? Have you inherited the character you now accept as who you are, is it final in your mind? Is your character woven from the shadows of the past? Have you convinced yourself that you are “just this way”? Have you confined yourself to a concept that you do not know how to change? What you think you are on the stage of life is only a character. To believe that this is who you are is simply part of the agreement in taking on your character. A great actor must make the part believable. This you have done so well that even you are convinced, and to convince you otherwise could be a dangerous feat to the one who attempts to do the convincing. However, there is no need to convince anyone that they are trapped in a character, for they must play out these roles. When we become tired of playing the same part repeatedly, only then are we ready to return on occasion to who we are beyond these roles. Our acknowledgment of this theatrical experience returns us to our creative space as writers of reality.

To recognize the dynamics involved in character building according to the script of this reality is to gain tremendous power over your material and mental manifestations. Ultimately this collective script has character evolution written into it, where one can experience mind over matter, a role quite opposite the limitations of mind interacting with matter, at least on a conscious level. The roles commonly played come equipped with boundaries allowing one to be blind to their existence. When we are ill we are in character.When I had an allergy attack I was in character, but when important projects arose I had to break character and put the sneezing on hold. However, once I was finished with the project, the sneezing returned! We have all experienced such moments. Falling in and out of love is part of the role we play. Disliking one another for reasons imagined or unimaginable is part of the role we play. We believe in all of our reasons for being what we are when we are performing. We believe in our financial dilemmas as we struggle, either withour riches or our deficits, while at opposite ends these characters are built of the same principle. One sees money as an end-all and another sees money as a means to soothe the many plaguing deficiencies experienced by the character, the role being played. Are both characters wealthy? Yes! They are wealthy in unseen possibilities and the power to shift their experiences. Our houses, our jobs, organizations we belong to, money, banking systems, businesses, cities, cultural expressions, relationships of all kinds—they are all props and background with a supporting cast for your performance. We have established amazing set designs according to the requirements of the character we are playing. Living in a shack or a mansion—it’s still all a set or stage with props. The true essence of who you are does not experience lack or deficiencies of any kind, but rather dives into vehicles such as this body to experience variety and possibilities. The mortgage or rent that your character might struggle to pay does not really exist but exists only as an emotional experience tied to conditions within your character’s role. We are experiencing the theater within the game. The game is about these grand performances. Each one of us is the star of our production. Your issues, imprints and programs are all tied to the character according to what the role calls for. Your character is your automated self!

PIXABAY

“One of Bohm’s most startling assertions is that the tangible reality of our everyday lives is really a kind of illusion, like a holographic image. Underlying it is a deeper order of existence, a vast and more primary level of reality that gives birth to all the objects and appearances of our physical world in much the same way that a piece of holographic film gives birth to a hologram.

Bohm calls this deeper level of reality the implicate (which means enfolded or hidden) order, and he refers to our own level or existence as the explicate, or unfolded order. Put another way, electrons and all other particles are no more substantive or permanent than the form a geyser of water takes as it gushes out of a fountain. They are sustained by a constant influx from the implicate order, and when a particle appears to be destroyed, it is not lost. It has merely enfolded back into the deeper order from which it sprang.

“GH – The central point here is that our mind represents our senses (due to our evolution based on survival) rather than providing a true picture of reality. However, reason tells us that matter is clearly interconnected (e.g. the earth orbits the sun) and that there must be knowledge flowing into matter to explain how we can see things around us. This is correct, and explained by the Spherical In-Waves which form the ‘particle’ effect of matter at their Wave-Center.”

“Sonia, that all sounds good, but I am here, struggling! I understand all kinds of struggle and I also understand that we have the power to leave the stage, to break character for but a moment in order to change the game, the play. If you never break character you will never be able to change your circumstances. Certain actions ensure that you are always in character and that you never leave the stage. There are those who want to continuously talk about how severe their situation is. They don’t really want solutions, and will generally shoot down any solutions presented to them.They see only obstacles to changing their situation—their attention span is short, and when attempting to break character they bring the character with them, and then complain that they can’t focus.

How do you know that you have brought your character with you? When you notice that you keep thinking about all of your external conditions when you sit to meditate or to focus, when you can’t stop thinking about your problems, when the dialog is relentless in your head—this is how you confirm that you have brought your character with you. STOP BRINGING YOUR CHARACTER WITH YOU!!! STOP SAYING WHAT YOU CAN’T DO!!! (This, of course, is only being said to those who wish to experience moments without the running script.) Even if you are at work you have the power to leave the stage, break character, go to the restroom for a minute or two. You enter that bathroom stall with the realization that “I am only playing a character, this is not who I really am.” Say this with conviction, then you go silent, nothing needs to be said, and all that is left is a feeling of creating something new. You can do this anywhere, at any time. To convince yourself that you must sit in the lotus position in silence in order to break character and connect inwards is simply another part of the character you play. You can leave the stage at any time and in any crowd. It allows you to be the observer, without thought, without judgment, without the echoing of your character. From this space you can move into experiencing yourself as a conscious creator. Here you have the opportunity to observe a different character, a different role that you will play when engaging on stage.

PIXABAY

For some the idea that we are playing a role is jolting. For them to accept such concepts may provide a sense of invalidation of their existence, perhaps bringing a sense of insignificance to those things that they had placed importance on. “What will become of me?” Well, you will continue to exist, but perhaps taking on a new character submerged in confusion about who you are, or perhaps you will find the courage to see a wealth of possibilities in what can be experienced. Perhaps you will no longer feel trapped by the life you have been living based your old character. These characters allow us a rich array of experiences.

So whatever it is that you are experiencing at this time, remind yourself that whatever challenge lies before you is but a result of the components of the role or roles you have played. Don’t become lost in your head, for when you do you cannot see clearly, and you will only become more of the character you have been. Stop and take a break from the stage…it will all be there when you return, if you so choose. Break character and rewrite the script, not with old solutions from a worn-out role, but with fresh insight and a desire for change. Don’t spend time energizing what you don’t want, and if you don’t want solutions, don’t pretend that you do by complaining. When you are ready for change you will no longer complain, but you will simply begin to take character breaks; you will leave your role behind, along with the entire supporting cast. When you return to the stage you may find that all that had supported your production is slowly fading. Not to worry, no cause for alarm. If you have indeed reshaped your character, then so must everything around you be reshaped. Whatever you are dealing with, it’s temporary, unless you choose to create an illusion of permanence. Breaking character is your ticket to change, for you are not your character, but simply an actor in your own production.