It is scary to write about something real. It might be dark, or shameful, or just plain ridiculous, yet I feel that the best plays come from this “scary” place. Many plays require great courage to be written, and even more courage to be brought to life on stage. These plays are transformational, not just for the playwright, but for all involved in the production, and the audience too.

What will it take for you to write that “scary” play?

It took me two years to write my “scary” play, and another 4 months to bring it to life, and I have never been more frightened in my life on an opening night.

When I was 45, I was in a 200 hour Yoga Teacher Training, and as I studied Yoga and lived in Yoga, I started to “feel” very strange things in Yoga class. Some days I would start to sob in class, but there was no feeling connected to it, yet my body would be sobbing somatically. Other times, in class I would suddenly feel the emotional pain as I entered into a hip opener asana, and my head would literally vibrate from side to side.

So I decided to leave the training, and work privately with a brilliant and compassionate Yogi from my training, to dig into my body and figure out what the HECK was going on. As I explored the memories somehow trapped in my body, things got worse. I started to feel random anxiety outside of doing Yoga and experienced severe and random muscle cramping.

And then all Hell broke loose! I re-traumatized my nervous system from a forgotten traumatic event from my childhood. I developed severe PTSD and bizarre somatic reactions. Sometimes with just a thought, I would find myself thrown against a wall. And at other times, my body would flap and bounced uncontrollably.

In a nutshell, it was NOT fun.

So I decided I would heal myself and write a play and/or a movie about this crazy experience, and how I healed myself, because I needed a reason for all of this.

And that is what kept me going day after day. I would tell this story of how I healed myself to help others with similar problems. And that commitment to telling my story SAVED me. I focused on living my story and healing, so I could someday share that story on stage.

So I started videoing everything, my Yoga sessions, my therapy sessions and personal somatic events that would manifest daily. Over a period of 3 years, I worked with every type of physical and mental doctor, practitioner, or shaman in my quest to figure out what happened to me, and how I could end the madness, and remarkably after 3 years, I cured myself 100% of my PTSD.

And then two years later, I finally found the courage to tell this story.

I remember on opening night, when I was on stage showing one of the real life videos where I “bounced” around my living room from my insane PTSD, I thought to myself, “What the hell am I doing?” I wanted to run out of the theatre. “How can I share this? This video is so disturbing and frightening, and will anyone ever even talk to me again for I look crazy?”

But the show must go on.

And remarkably, the audience loved it.

For it was scathingly real.

I got the best reviews in my life, and the best part of the experience was talking personally with the audiences afterward for many had similar experiences, maybe not as extreme.

It was utterly fantastic for me to bring something so DARK in my life, into the LIGHT.

So I invite you to write that play that frightens you, that you know you need to write. It will be your best work, and it will transform your life, and probably the lives of those who come to see it.

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