Film Courage: Jocelyn, you say we are not our emotions? Can you explain? It
certainly feels like it. Jocelyn Jones, Acting Teacher/Author: People really don't
like it when I take away their emotions. No, we're not our emotions…we do love them.
If you think about this, if you accept the fact that we are spiritual beings in bodies,
we are energetic beings in bodies. So we gave ourselves this body. We have sense. We have touch,
taste, sight, all a miracle, right? With all this, we can make other babies, new people. We can do
all these things, and we have this emotion. We are here as energetic beings. The universe has created
itself in all of these (now, I don't know how many people are on the planet but it's way too many)
to experience itself. What better way to experience anything than emotion?
We love emotion. But emotion is a product of our thinking. If we're not thinking,
we're not emotional. We get emotional because we think, "I lost it. They left me. I don't
have my man anymore." We cry. We're emotional. "I didn't get the job. They don't like me." We're
emotional because I'm afraid I'm going to die. You're not dead, but the bear is coming, and so
your body goes, "I'm afraid. I'm going to die. I'm going to die." It's kicked up by thoughts.
If we're not our thoughts, we're not our emotions. We are energetic beings in bodies here to have
an experience, and emotion is a great way to do it. Emotion also produces energy.
I saw this with both my parents in their latter years when they were getting close to leaving.
My mother was very dramatic. She could be dramatic over eggs, over butter. I mean, big drama. It's
not right. She was a little affected. It's not right. I can't believe they sent me this. They
know how long they've known me. I think it's hostile, hostile to send me this kind of ... And
I would watch her, and it's like when people kick that up, it splatters on you, and then you, it's
very infectious. And then you get mad at them, and you go, "Do you have to, really? Seriously, does
it have to be like this I mean you've done this my whole life I don't like it" and now you're in
this emotional thing so I think I write about it one day I was in the kitchen my mother was really
carrying on about something she was also blind I mean not completely but almost and she she was old
and she was alone and cranky and she was carrying on and I was getting so mad at her because I
was just home for a trip and trying to have a good time and really we were just making eggs
and I decided because I had had so much training with meditation I decided I'm
just going to observe her which is also what I teach just watch her without being her daughter
without having this history together we all have our history with our parents and we're
so judgmental and out to be you're wrong and I'm right and you're worse than I am and I'm
better and whatever it is so I decided I'm just going to observer and I just went into
that space and she was carrying on and and I began to see that she was unhappy and that she was old
and that she was kicking up this emotion because it gave her energy and it made her feel more
energetic and alive because otherwise she wanted to feel like I just I'm almost gone I'm not here
so we're not our emotions but we will utilize them in different ways we'll use them to make other
people feel guilty we'll use them to get sympathy we'll use them to convince ourselves of certain
things mostly we're just using them for the experience of them love this neutral space that
I'm talking about kind of is love but it's not like the love that we think about because most of
the time with love that we think about we're all wrapped up with emotion do they love me back as
much as I love them love gets all complicated but this space of no thinking no emotion this space of
stillness where higher consciousness inspiration and you can connect to your soul same space
where this other kind of language can occur that has no emotion and it has no thinking
so as an actor or a writer filmmaker don't we need those emotions though because we're going
to at some point put a project out there that's going to affect people in some way so we need to
really tap into that well yeah I mean everybody loves emotion nobody's going to want to give up
their emotion and we're never going to give up our emotion we love our emotion I think we've
taken advantage of of filmmakers have taken advantage of our emotions by same thing as
corporate I want to I'm going to sell this movie on fear I'm going to I listen did a horror movie
I hate to say this because maybe somebody will go look it up I don't like horror movies I was
sent this script when I was young and my husband I closed the script my husband came in and I was
crying and he said why are you crying and I said oh because they're going to ask me to do
this movie they're going to ask me to leave this movie and I'm going to probably say yes
and he goes well you don't have to me I know but it's leading the movie so I made the movie
and then it's that has a cult following but then the director made another movie like
that and then he made another movie like that and then he made another movie like that and I
think when you make one genre movie like that to sort of get yourself known and show I can do a
structure within a this kind of filmmaking this genre of filmmaking and I can put a structure
together in actors and direct them and here's my camera and show off those things by entering a
genre of picture like that where women are because most of them are about women I think you get one
I mean this is sort of like a little opinionated there but I think you get one you get one okay
you got you on the map you can't go on making movies about women without making a pretty
crappy statement so I think that they're taking advantage of but this is all part of us kind of
rising up and above because once you see that you go I'm not going to you're not going to manipulate
my emotions because I'm the only one who can do that I can have them and I can leave them or I if
I can't leave them I can at least look at them I can at least separate myself out and look at
them and going boy I'm crying so hard there is not coming out of my nose and running down my lip and
I'm just looking at that just that separation alone will make you realize I am not that
that emotion it's just part of this life in a body that I'm creating
and it's kind of cool it's kind of cool it's not like oh no it's kind of cool that's why we're
watching the movies oh it's cool cool and oh look they're they're they're emulating that emotion
look oh he's scared she looks really scared oh screaming she's really screaming it's anyway did
I answer that yeah I think so but one good thing is then we know once we leave the theater or we
turn it off at home that it's over it's not but but I just wondered how does an artist separate
their need for emotion to put it into their projects versus dealing with them every day
well I think it's great you brought it up again because the the be on end all of it is they honor
the fact that they're creating it we're creating it in life and we're creating it for the film and
we're creating it for the play We're creating it an actor has to bring that life out of nothing he
creates that before your very eyes I am not just going to pretend that I'm crying I'm going to cry
I'm going to do the things that I would do if I was crying and I'm going to stimulate that and
then you're going to enter that and doesn't that show us both that we're just creating emotions we
can create them we can uncreate them we can create them we can walk away from them the actors get in
trouble when they create it and then they go they think they've had their part they think they look
like better actors if they say I have trouble getting rid of the emotions of this part I have
to take them home I have to live in the emotions you know you don't have to do that you create it
you enter and you exit freely that's what I tell my students enter it and exit it freely
then you can go as far in as you want because you're going to exit.