Are you performing or relating?

At the beginning of the pandemic, when every work place was scrambling to figure out how to do what they do, Stephen Colbert produced his Late Show in a tiny room with his wife and kids helping to run the sound and lights.?

When he delivered a joke, rather than hearing a studio audience who was cued to laugh, you heard Colbert’s wife Evie giggling to herself just off camera in the corner of the room.?

Watching these shows aired remotely felt like hanging out with Stephen and Evie at home. I felt like I knew them. I felt like I could?feel?Stephen—his anxiety about the new way of doing things, his delight when Evie giggled, his frustration when talking about hard stuff in the news.?

It felt intimate.

Now that he’s back on stage in the Ed Sullivan Theater with a live audience and all the professional bells and whistles, it feels like, well, a performance. I no longer feel like a friend who’s hanging out with Stephen while he cracks jokes. I feel like an audience.?

The connection is gone.

And look, I know that he is supposed to be performing. It’s a show, it’s what he does. But it still gets to me because I have a pretty low tolerance for how much performing there is in our day-to-day relationships when what actually feels nourishing and real is?relating.

A huge part of the work I do with clients is helping them to get out of the roles of performer or audience in the relationships that matter to them most, and instead step into actual relating and actual intimacy.

You know that thing you do when you are trying to guess what someone wants to hear so you can say the “right” thing? That’s an example of performing.?

You know that thing that happens when your significant other or your boss just keeps talking and talking without checking in with you about how anything is landing with you? That’s an example of you being an audience.

If you’ve ever found yourself in either of these roles you probably know they don’t feel great.?

Performing or being an audience—outside of showbiz and in your close relationships—is exhausting and frustrating. In those two roles you are disconnected from yourself and the other person and you probably aren’t feeling very considered.

How do you get out of those roles?

You risk saying something that’s true rather than what you think they want you to say.

“Hey, I hate to disappoint you, but I’m really not comfortable going to that event.”

You set boundaries rather than jumping through hoops.

“I get how this is important to you, but I’m just not going to be able to get back to you by then. I’ll need an extra day.”

You share your experience.

“When you raise your voice at me, I shut down and stop being able to hear what you’re saying.”

You ask to be considered.

“Can you see how I might be upset when you don’t text me to let me know you’re going to be late?

These statements are the opposite of performing or being an audience. They are examples of?relating. They are bids for true connection with the person you’re saying them to.

We don’t talk this way with the people in our life in part because we’ve just not had much exposure to it. We’ve had a lot more experience with Ed Sullivan Stages rather than converted storage rooms, as it were.?

So we don’t know it’s even a possibility, and even when we do, we don’t really know how to do it. Because the language of relating and intimacy is a different language than the language of performing and being an audience.?

Be curious over the coming days and weeks. Are you relating or performing? How can you tell--what do they each sound and feel like?