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BRAINSPOTTING FOR ACTORS, WHAT’S THAT?

 

Brainspotting: Unlocking Creativity for Actors and Creators

Brainspotting, discovered in 2003 by trauma expert David Grand, PhD, is a neuroprocessing technique originally developed for trauma therapy and emotional resolution.

In its expansion model, it becomes a powerful tool for any creator—actors, presenters, athletes, or anyone aiming for focus, flow, clarity, and emotional creativity.

For actors, it offers a unique advantage: actors can use Brainspotting to work with any character.

It helps bring clarity, focus, emotion, memory, and flow to the character. True understanding, however, comes through experience.

How Brainspotting Works

Brainspotting relies on eye position and body sensations. David Grand discovered that where you look affects how you feel.

Try this simple exercise: recall a memory and notice the sensations in your body. Observe how your gaze naturally fixes on a point in space. Moving your eyes changes the intensity of the feeling. That point activates the neural network connected to the memory. Humans do Brainspotting all the time, without realizing it.

Our memories are not stored in boxes. Each experience is linked to multiple neural networks—visual, auditory, locomotor. Remembering reactivates these networks, triggering sensory memory, the foundation actors use to relive past emotions for character work.

Brainspotting reverses this process: by focusing on Character Spots, actors access the character’s sensations in the body, creating sensory memory from the inside out.

The Character Spot

When you focus on the character and locate its sensations in your body, your eyes naturally fixate on a point in space. This is the Character Spot—the “doorway” to the character.

Traditional methods rely on rational thought—analyzing, designing, and describing. Brainspotting bypasses the rational brain, allowing fluid, authentic creation.

Brainspotting is to acting what lasers or X-rays are to surgery.

It reveals the character purely and accurately, both microscopically and holistically.

Actors can explore any aspect of a character—personal history, body, significant people, places, recurring thoughts… the character’s universe opens creatively.

Safety and Emotional Regulation

Brainspotting ensures actor safety:

  • Release tension and deactivate conditioned reflexes

  • Access a calm point to prevent confusion

Actors in constant emotional dysregulation may block or lose creative potential.
Actors with emotional regulation can simulate dysregulated characters creatively, without losing themselves.

The process “stores” the character in the body, allowing access without overwhelming the actor’s personal self.

Presence and Confidence

Brainspotting enhances stage or camera presence and self-confidence. When the character guides you:

  • You do not push the character—it flows naturally

  • The audience perceives authenticity

  • Confidence builds as the need to control decreases

David Grand explains: Brainspotting doesn’t make a bad actor good, but it makes a good actor “better.”

Testimonials

  • “I was amazed—it was not a tool, it was alchemy. The actor’s emotions became the character’s, effortlessly.” – Alicia Merino

  • “Emotions arise naturally, nothing is forced. You flow with the scene.” – Marian Huélamo

  • “Brainspotting gave me incredible depth. Relaxed and confident, I could fully live the character.” – Julio Mascaraque

  • “I felt close to the character I was addressing. That intimacy left less space for me, and I liked it.” – Layla González

  • “I felt free in the scene. No expectations, no pressure.” – Elsa Chaves

  • “A masterclass on Brainspotting was amazing. A new, deeper approach to acting.” – Héctor Jenz

  • “Brainspotting was transformative in creating a character. Effective and inspiring!” – Maty Gómez

 
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CREATIVITY: A NATURAL PROCESS OF LIVING

 

Creativity as an Innate Quality

Creativity is a natural quality. We are all creative. We are born with this capacity, an internal engine of resources for surviving in our environment.
As children, we are endowed with curiosity, which drives us to explore, and with a predisposition for play as a way to build meaning and better understand reality.

Creativity in Everyday Life

The creative process is always present because we need to find solutions moment by moment in our lives.

  • Solutions we already know we solve automatically, like opening a door.

  • But if the door gets stuck, we invent new strategies.

This act of connecting ideas to create something new is what makes us human. Wolfgang Köhler demonstrated this with his experiments with chimpanzees: when a banana was hung out of reach, the chimps stacked boxes to get it.

What We See and What We Think We See

Life flows in constant transformation. The feeling that things “stay the same” every day is a result of our memory: the brain generalizes to save energy, ignoring details irrelevant to survival.

In reality, everything is changing. Creative blocks begin when we resist what IS.
“I don’t know” simply means I don’t know right now. Accepting that opens the door to exploration, discovery, and creation.

The Balance Between Focus and Stillness

Interacting creatively with the environment requires:

  • Focus: attention directed to something, internal or external.

  • Stillness: presence and observation of what emerges.

Too much focus narrows perception.
Too much stillness lacks energy.
The art is in finding the balance.

The Learned Denial of Creativity

Traditional education guides us toward certainty, linearity, and predictability. In that process, we lose trust in our own perceptions and learn to deny our creativity.

Creating involves risk: making mistakes, being judged, or criticized. Living creatively becomes an act of self-love, honesty, and compassion.

Reconnecting with a Fresh Gaze

When we reconnect with our creative process, we regain the ability to see things without labels. Just as they are.

  • Not as we were taught.

  • Not as we assume.

  • But as they appear here and now.

A simple exercise: observe an object for five minutes. You’ll notice details you hadn’t seen before. The less you look through what you already know, the more new things you’ll see.

Creativity in Work and Life

To innovate professionally, you need a combination of knowledge and absence of prejudice. Deep knowledge of your field allows real novelty to emerge.

In everyday life, creativity is also a resource for solving conflicts. It doesn’t depend on intelligence, but on presence: being still, internally silent, and breathing in what IS.

“Genius is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.”
(Thomas Alva Edison)

Obstacles: Fear and Self-Criticism

Fear pushes us away from the new. It makes us react with rigid patterns and seek control.
Self-demand and self-criticism do something similar: they try to guide us but pull us away from creativity.

When these adaptations become rigid, flexibility is lost. The child who stays silent because others laughed at their idea learns to avoid risk. Gradually, we stop trusting our own creativity.

Returning to Flow

Life always presents itself as new. Living creatively means accompanying this flow, building with what emerges within and around us.
Creativity is a verb, a dynamic energy in motion. It is not limited to art or intelligence; above all, it is about the experience of being oneself.

 
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Passive behaviours and performance

 

“The way people don’t do things, or don’t do them effectively” (Schiff)

We all face challenges every day and solve them the best way we know how.

However, some challenges leave us feeling stuck, incapable, or perpetually unresolved.

Maybe you’ve spent years waiting for someone else to change, or for yourself to change. You tell yourself, “When I achieve this, then I’ll do what I truly want…” You feel like you’re waiting. And then, unexpectedly, you explode in frustration, surprising both yourself and those around you.

Does this feel familiar?

  • You have an entire morning to practice, but spend it scrolling social media, then feel guilty.

  • You have a performance or match coming up, but instead of preparing, you spend hours organizing equipment, rehearsing irrelevant routines, or obsessing over minor details. At the end, you realize you’ve done everything but what matters.

  • After a tense rehearsal or match, you leave frustrated because you can’t control the other performers or teammates.

  • You have a critical audition or game, but you procrastinate until the last possible moment.

  • You need to make an important choice regarding your training or role, but instead distract yourself with habits like smoking or snacking.

  • Every time you plan a major performance or competition, something “unexpected” seems to prevent you from feeling ready.

To solve these crossroads in life, we use our mind, our emotions, and take actions aimed at resolving difficulties and growing.

 

If we are fully in contact with reality, we will make decisions based on real, available data, considering all options.

However, your personal history shapes the way you perceive and experience the world, and how you’ve learned to solve problems.

 

Your perception of the world, others, and yourself is also filtered through childhood experiences and early learned problem-solving strategies. This filter can distort the present situation, exaggerate its difficulty, or frame it in ways that are unhelpful for your current context.

 

Where does this lead?

…To a point where your awareness and your ability to perceive what’s truly happening are compromised.

You could make decisions that align with the present, but if the situation overwhelms you, you’re tired, or stressed, you might unconsciously approach it from the mindset of the child you once were. You may get stuck in outdated strategies learned in childhood or adolescence that no longer serve you.

From a child’s perspective, solutions are “magical.” The child believes that if they imagine something strongly enough, it will happen—or that problems will resolve themselves magically. The child thinks, “If I ignore it, it will disappear. If I do this ritual, luck will favor me…”

In performance terms, this might mean believing a role, a piece, or a match will “just work out” without deliberate preparation.

This passive approach can be frustrating. In frustration with yourself and others, you might underestimate your own capacity (and that of others) to solve the problem actively. You deny/omit/edit out parts of yourself that could help: your discipline, patience, focus, creativity… and also the resources in your environment that could help.

This is what we call PASSIVE BEHAVIOUR.

 
THE 4 TYPES OF PASSIVE BEHAVIORS
 

If you’ve ever faced a situation passively, you may have noticed these four behaviors in yourself or others:

  1. Doing nothing

  2. Over-adapting

  3. Agitation

  4. Incapacitation or destructive behavior

 

A passive behavior is a way of trying to resolve a situation that ultimately prolongs it.

 
GRADES OF PASSIVITY

1st Grade – Doing Nothing:

      • Sitting idle

      • Staring blankly

      • “Checking out” physically or mentally

In performers, this might look like avoiding practice, skipping rehearsal, or waiting for inspiration instead of preparing actively.

 

2nd Grade – Over-Adapting:

  • Anxiety about pleasing others

  • Excessive helpfulness

  • Constantly adjusting to others’ expectations

Over-adapting performers may spend more energy accommodating fellow actors, musicians, or teammates than focusing on their own growth. They anticipate others’ needs rather than concentrating on their own development.

 

3rd Grade – Agitation:

  • Fidgeting

  • Nail-biting or hair-twirling

  • Eating or smoking compulsively

  • Performing many irrelevant tasks instead of focusing

Athletes and performers may over-rehearse irrelevant parts, overthink routines, or overtrain in ways that don’t address the real challenge. Energy is mobilized, but not directed effectively.

 

4th Grade – Incapacitation / Destructive Behavior:

  • Psychosomatic symptoms (tension, skin reactions)

  • Overworking to the point of exhaustion

  • Substance abuse

  • Outbursts or self-harm

In a performance context, this might appear as burnout, stage fright, aggression toward teammates, or sabotage of one’s own preparation.

 
HOW TO EXPLORE MOVING OUT OF PASSIVITY
 

Transition from grade 4 → grade 1:

4th Grade: Relax. Stop. Give yourself space to reflect and observe how you feel.

3rd Grade: Organize your time in blocks, set priorities, and focus on objectives.

2nd Grade: Explore alternative strategies. Remind yourself, “I can choose.”

1st Grade: Identify one concrete action to take. Choose something manageable and motivating. Focus your energy there and execute it fully. Start with that. Take action!

 
ADDITIONAL STRATEGY FOR PERFORMERS
  • Visualize the challenge fully resolved—imagine a successful performance or match. Then work backward: what decisions, relationships, and actions led you there? What did you do differently from previous attempts?
  • Break complex goals into manageable steps. Like school schedules for children, structure your rehearsal, practice, and rest periods to maintain focus and clarity.
  • Finally, identify the underlying fear driving your passivity and consciously face it. Integrating this awareness enables you to adopt new, effective strategies for managing pressure.

APPLICATION TO PERFORMANCE:

Passivity, over-adaptation, or agitation can directly harm stage or athletic performance:

  • Reduced focus and energy mismanagement

  • Heightened stress and burnout

  • Inefficient rehearsal or training

  • Impaired decision-making under pressure

  • Missed opportunities for flow, spontaneity, and creative expression

Conversely, moving from passivity to active engagement restores autonomy, presence, and effective energy use—key factors for peak performance.

Passive behaviors prevent performers from feeling autonomous.

Recognizing and addressing them allows athletes, actors, and musicians to regain control, focus, and presence—maximizing performance potential.

 
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ENVY AND PERFORMANCE

 

Have you seen the movie Amadeus?

It won 8 Oscars in 1984. If you haven’t seen it, don’t miss it—it’s a cinematic gem. Directed by Milos Forman, the film tells a fictionalized story of envy through the professional and personal relationship between Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart and the Italian court composer Antonio Salieri. It shows how Salieri, consumed by jealousy of Mozart’s talent, plans to end the genius’s life, leaving behind a Requiem composed by Mozart himself, which is performed at his funeral. The movie illustrates how envy is self-destructive, ultimately affecting both Mozart’s life and Salieri’s moral integrity.

Have you ever felt the envy of some other performer?

Or felt your own envy toward a professional colleague?

 
WHAT IS ENVY?

Envy is the feeling that arises when you desire the possessions, qualities, or relationships that someone else has—and it doesn’t just hurt, but you also believe that you will never be able to obtain what they have. You can’t bear that pain and may wish to destroy the other person emotionally, psychologically, or even physically.

It’s not that you want what they have; it’s that you want what they have, and you want them not to have it.

In envy, we compare ourselves, and in that comparison, we lose.

Envy keeps you attached to another person under dynamics created by envy itself.

Usually, the envious person doesn’t recognize their own envy, because bringing it to consciousness would open the wound. It would mean confronting the pain. Unable to deal with it, the fantasy (sometimes acted out) of destroying the other person feels more satisfying. Emotionally, the envious person feels that by projecting their pain onto someone else, they regain a sense of mental, emotional, and physiological balance.

The envious person may be partly aware of this—or not. They may distort reality through arrogance or subtle pride, identifying so closely with these attitudes that they appear strong, concerned about others, empathetic, and attentive to what you do.

 
Envy in Daily Life and Performance

Examples in performance or sports:

  • Musicians who envy a colleague’s phrasing, technical skill, or stage charisma.

  • Actors who envy the confidence or emotional depth of a fellow performer.

  • Athletes who envy the strength, speed, or resilience of a teammate or competitor.

  • Coaches or instructors who envy the talent or recognition of their students.

Often, the envious person will not admit that criticism or distance is fueled by envy. You may notice yourself being overly critical or dismissive of others—ask: Could this be a disguised form of envy?

Criticism in group settings, like rehearsal rooms, locker rooms, or team meetings can also be a way to soothe one’s own envy by attacking others in conversation and feeling supported. The problem with envy is that it ultimately harms us.

 
Envy’s Dynamics

  1. ADMIRATION – The other has something I don’t have, I want it, and I look for ways to achieve it myself. This is often called healthy envy. But sometimes self-esteem is low, and then you might feel…

  2. JEALOUSY – The other has something I don’t have, it hurts, I feel resentment and sadness. When the pain is unbearable, you might then feel…

  3. ENVY – The other has something I don’t have, it hurts, I feel longing, and since I can’t tolerate the envy, I want to destroy it. I might aim to destroy what the other has, or undermine the other—ignoring their successes, highlighting small flaws, comparing constantly… The envious person suffers greatly. In situations of perceived injustice, the desire to…

  4. REVENGE – The other has something I will never have; it hurts and I feel attacked. I don’t just want to destroy, I want to actively punish the other for having what I lack.

You may have been a victim of someone else’s envy without realizing it.

In close relationships, you might feel low self-esteem, shame, guilt, or caution in being yourself, sharing your achievements, or expressing yourself fully. You feel the need to avoid hurting others with your successes or joys, and subtly underestimated by them.

Sometimes envy comes from our parents. For example: a child returns from school excitedly sharing achievements, expecting their mother’s full attention. An insecure mother with unmet needs in her own childhood may experience the child’s joy and success as a reminder of what she lacked. She might unconsciously envy the child’s spontaneity and joy, diminishing it, mocking it, or pointing out mistakes under the guise of playful guidance.

In envy, you may feel that the other is always more and you are always less. Even when life goes well for you, the other can make you feel insignificant through indifference or distance.

 
GETTING HOOKED ON OTHERS

Sometimes a feeling of dependency arises—you lose self-esteem and a sense of self-worth. The unequal relationship makes you continually seek the other’s approval, because they appear attentive and caring. You feel valued, yet your sense of self diminishes.

 
WHAT TO DO IF YOU FEEL ENVY

If you feel envy, turn your attention inward, not outward. Observe yourself:

  • How envy affects your behavior

  • How it makes you feel

  • What you are thinking at this moment

Reflect on how often these feelings appear and where they lead you. Ask yourself:

  • What purpose does this envy serve?

  • What happens if I let go of this envy?

If letting go makes you feel better, then why not release it? If not, try saying: I cannot let go of this envy now—and acknowledge yourself for the honesty and self-awareness.

Finally, ask: Is it true that I am less valuable because I don’t have what the other has?

Being present also helps transform envy into curiosity. Instead of resenting a fellow performer or competitor, you notice what draws your attention and ask: What can I learn? How can I cultivate my own authentic version of this skill?

 
PRACTICAL REFLECTION

Try this exercise before your next rehearsal, performance, or game:

  1. Identify someone whose skills you admire. Observe without judgment for a few minutes.

  2. Notice your feelings of envy or self-judgment. Label them.

  3. Ask yourself: What can I learn? How can I develop my own authentic version of this skill?

  4. Focus on presence—your body, your technique, your mind—instead of comparing yourself.

 
IMPACT ON PERFORMANCE

Envy, if unrecognized, can:

  • Distract from your focus

  • Reduce spontaneity and authenticity

  • Limit creative problem-solving in the moment

  • Increase stress, anxiety, and self-criticism

Conversely, awareness of envy and cultivating presence can:

  • Transform comparison into curiosity

  • Enhance creative expression

  • Increase resilience and adaptability under pressure

  • Deepen authentic connection with your art, teammates, or audience

 

Featured image: still from the film Amadeus (1984), © Warner Bros./Neal Peters Collection. Actor Tom Hulce as Mozart.

 

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