The History of Gaining Perspective

Kerstin’s love of improv was ignited in high school, and she went on to train at two of Chicago’s most famed institutions, The Second City and iO (formerly ImprovOlympic). It was when she studied with Alan Arkin that Kerstin discovered the use of improvisation as a tool for self-awareness, and her passion and purpose aligned.

In 2006, Kerstin Caldwell was asked to come to teach improvisation for two weeks at William Smith High School, formerly an alternative high school, in Aurora, CO. Kerstin wanted to show the so-called “bad” kids how to use their persuasive skills in more positive ways. She worked to harness their playful nature using exercises and games to free students from their self-destructive patterns to practice positive communication and choices in a safe and supportive space. Those two weeks at William Smith turned into a month. Then a semester. Then a year… In the end, Kerstin became an Artist In Residence at William Smith where her approach to teaching improvisation evolved to a complete and successful curriculum on self-awareness.

Taking the work she created at William Smith High School, Kerstin developed the program she now brings into classrooms all over the Denver Metro Area. She has also adapted the concepts from this program into the classes she now offers to adults. The mission—healing stories, beliefs, behaviors and communication among youth and adults in a fun, supportive, non-judgmental environment.

Kerstin left William Smith in 2014 to focus on providing a solid foundation for her own small children while also teaching adults improvisation through her former company The YES! Lab. Allowing her strategies for teaching teens to inform her approach with individual adults and corporate clients, she had an epiphany. Teaching improvisation as a mindfully-centered approach to creating a deeper, more engaged existence, can help every group.

A survivor of several car accidents, Kerstin has been hit by others in three accidents and was a passenger in a highway roll-over. In 2013, in what she refers to as “her final accident” Kerstin was diagnosed with a Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) and PTSD.

During rehabilitation from her TBI and learning to live with the effects of PTSD, Kerstin was introduced to the practice NeuroSculpting®. For a number of years, she did her best to function in a devastating state of the freeze response brought on by her child running into the room, or a door opening quickly. Kerstin put on a show for the outside world, maintaining the illusion that everything was fine, but spent a majority of her time recovering from minimal social interactions. An evening with friends would lead to a day or two in bed with migraines lasting over 24 hours at a time. While spending much of her time bed-ridden and in tears left Kerstin feeling hopeless, NeuroSculpting® became a solution to managing and stopping the endless series of stressful thoughts that kept her believing her life would be this way forever.

Being a believer that there is always a gift to be found in a pile of garbage, Kerstin realized that one of the upshots of living with a TBI and PTSD became heightened superpowers of self-awareness and speaking truth to BS when she sees it. Now acutely aware of what interactions and situations drain her energy and cause her health to suffer, Kerstin built her mental, physical and emotional health back online based on creating her own Practice of Playful Presence that she now offers the world.