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From Burnout to Breakthrough: Finding Freedom Through Improv
Carrie Blubaugh has spent 33 years as a physical therapist specializing in care for older adults, but her most transformative discovery came 12 years ago when she stumbled into an improv class. Her immediate reaction? “I’ll finish my eight-week class, but then I’ll never do it again.” Twelve years later, she’s built two businesses around improvisational comedy—and discovered that the principles of improv offer profound wisdom for navigating life’s uncertainties.
When Healthcare Becomes Unsustainable
Like many healthcare professionals, Carrie reached a breaking point. But she’s quick to correct the common narrative: “People would call it burnout. I would argue that it’s a lot of moral injury versus burnout.” The distinction matters. Burnout implies personal failure—you’re not resilient enough, not strong enough, you should meditate more, exercise more, somehow fix yourself. Moral injury, on the other hand, acknowledges that broken systems prevent good people from doing good work.
“We know what we need to do, we know what we can do, and we’re working within systems that don’t allow us to deliver healthcare” in the way it should be delivered, she explains. The ethical boundaries she was being pushed to cross as a rehab director didn’t align with her values. Around the same time, she was discovering applied improv—using improvisational techniques in business and healthcare settings—and everything clicked. There might be another path forward.
Yes, And: The Philosophy That Changes Everything
At its core, improv is built on one deceptively simple principle: “Yes, and.” If your scene partner declares you’re space cowboys on Mars, you don’t argue—you accept that reality and add to it. “Yes, and I forgot our space lasers and cowboy hats on Venus. I’ll go back and get them.”
But for Carrie, this isn’t just a comedy technique—it’s a spiritual practice. When her husband left while their child was three years old, she had to say yes to a reality she didn’t choose or want. “I didn’t love that. I didn’t choose that. I didn’t want that. And yet, it happened.” Denying reality keeps you stuck. Accepting it—saying yes to what is—allows you to move forward and add your own contribution to the story.
She’s witnessed too many people trapped in narratives from 5, 10, 25 years ago: “That job shouldn’t have done this. My child shouldn’t have done this. And because that happened, everything’s been terrible. And if it hadn’t happened, things would be different.” The “yes, and” mindset doesn’t mean you have to like what life hands you, but resisting what’s already happened creates no momentum for change.
Why Older Adults Need Improv (And Why It’s Perfect for Them)
Carrie’s journey into teaching improv to older adults felt natural, even though geriatric physical therapy is often seen as the “non-glamorous” side of healthcare—nothing like working with the Kansas City Chiefs. Her husband jokes, “You’re going to be a great old lady,” to which she responds, “I’m getting closer. I’m working on it.”
When teaching seniors, she makes thoughtful accommodations. Classes are conducted seated in circles—a “circle of equality” where physical limitations don’t create barriers. She repeats what others say for those with hearing loss. She whispers words to a blind student who needs to incorporate them into stories. But the modifications are made “with grace and dignity and respect.”
What she’s discovered surprises many: “There’s not that much difference. People are just people and people are funny at any age.” Seniors bring decades of life experience that makes their improvisational work “really rich and satisfying.” Even those experiencing cognitive decline still participate, sometimes just needing more prompting. “I don’t want to just take over,” she explains, “because they have something to offer.”
The Gift of Uncertainty
One of improv’s greatest lessons is learning to embrace uncertainty—and nowhere is this more relevant than in midlife and beyond. Carrie describes her own in-between stage: still working as a physical therapist on-call (like a substitute teacher), but building something new without knowing exactly what “there” looks like. “I’m allowing myself to let the discovery unfold and being okay in this space of uncertainty.”
She references a woman in her 80s from the Mel Robbins show who talked about “embracing the power of uncertainty because we don’t know anything. Very few things do we know.” Our power lies in leaning into not knowing, rather than grasping tightly at illusions of control—like holding water in cupped hands and wondering why it’s slipping through our fingers.
As we age, uncertainty multiplies. Chronic disease diagnoses. Becoming caregivers. Spouses’ health changing or dying. The list goes on. Learning to improve your “uncertainty tolerance” through improv becomes a vital life skill.
Perfectionism: The Highest Form of Self-Abuse
When Carrie started improv at 45 or 46—when her daughter was in seventh grade—she gained something unexpected: radical empathy for her teenage daughter’s experience. “I gained such empathy and compassion for how it feels to suck at something new.”
After decades of knowing her roles—parent, spouse, physical therapist—suddenly she was a complete beginner, failing publicly on stage in front of audiences. “I’ve had wild successes and I’ve had incredible failures on stage because that’s life and that’s improv.” Watching her mother dare greatly gave her daughter permission to do the same.
A line from The Four Agreements that stuck with Carrie 25 years ago: “Perfectionism is the highest form of self-abuse.” She was pursuing Martha Stewart-level perfection and suddenly realized, “To what end? Is chasing this thing that doesn’t exist?”
Medical Improv: Yes, And in Healthcare
Carrie’s specialty is medical improv—applying improvisational principles to healthcare settings. The Mayo Clinic has used it since 2017 to train physicians in deeper listening, compassion, non-judgmental communication, and improved interdepartmental collaboration. The result? Better efficacy, efficiency, and safety.
It’s not about being funny with patients. It’s about reading people non-verbally, using “yes, and” to create collaborative relationships, and abandoning rigid role-playing scripts that assume everyone reacts the same way to bad news. “Everybody’s a different person,” she points out. Can we truly listen and respond to the human in front of us?
The Freedom of This Stage
Throughout our conversation, Carrie returns to a theme: the freedom that comes with her current stage of life. When giving presentations, she assumes everyone’s excited to hear her talk. If they’re not? “That’s not my business. I came and did what was mine to do.” She welcomes helpful feedback but sees no benefit in self-flagellation when she’s done her preparation and shown up fully.
“What people think about me? Not my business. At a certain point it gets pretty old, doesn’t it?” There’s something liberating about shedding the weight of others’ opinions—or rather, shedding her own harsh self-criticism projected onto imagined critical audiences.
Her advice echoes the startup world’s mantra: fail fast, fail often. If you’re not embarrassed by your first release, you waited too long. “Done is better than perfect.” Learning new skills at any age—painting, music, dance, improv—adds years to your life by building neural pathways and community. Taking art classes can add seven and a half years to your lifespan.
A Story Still Unfolding
Carrie is candid about being in transition, no longer desiring full-time physical therapy work but not yet fully established in her new ventures—Listening Works (applied improv training for businesses) and Act Your Age Improv (classes and events for older adults). She’s figuring it out daily, saying yes to what feels intuitive, embracing the uncertainty.
It’s a fitting embodiment of her philosophy: accept the reality of where you are, add your unique contribution, and trust the scene to unfold. For someone who spent decades helping bodies heal and move, she’s now helping people—young and old, healthy and struggling—learn to move through life’s uncertainties with grace, humor, and the radical acceptance of “yes, and.”
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Keywords
uncertainty, chronic disease, control, caregiving, health changes, life transitions,adaptability, storytelling, performance
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