Acting I class ...lived in real life...

We are going over actions in Acting 1 class and have been going over them for the past couple of weeks. Honestly, I love doing this. We do exercises where we get partners and pull out an action from a list that we have developed and played with and then have about a 30 second period of time where we are to "do" the action to our partner. Here are the interesting parts. 1) you have to do you action without words of any kind and 2) your partner must begin and try to regain a "neutral" state of being while at the same time allowing his or her emotions/thoughts to respond to your action.
Ok, while that might have been hard to follow, the result is beautiful. The partners job of simply being neutral is amazing. Hallen (my acting prof) walked us through the physical state of being neutral. Shoulders back/relaxed, breathing normal, standing with your weight shifted forward (ready to embrace whatever is about to come your way)...this results in amazing feelings and thoughts to respond to your partners actions....
so, the other day (between all my other thoughts) I got to thinking...How different would life be if we were not on guard? How much more would we love, experience, rejoice over if we were in a state of "neutral" living? If our heart was open, heads were waiting to respond, arms were extended to all that life had to give. That doesn't mean to be run over, or believe whatever others push on you....just to be able to experience things at a new, pure, authentic level...what would that look like?
There are too many things in the world that I think that I have to guard against....or just do not think it is worth the effort to open myself up. It is way easier to live life in a "shell" like position...at least i think.
Ok, those were just some of my thoughts....sorry for the mess of words and "..."
:)
love y'all,
chels