Quick Tip #2: Gratitude

My grandmother died last week at age 93 and she was a force to be reckoned with until the end. She hosted a monthly event in her retirement community she called Happy Notes, where she played and sang and got others to sing for a full hour! I hope to be that zesty when I'm in my 90s. 

I loved playing for her funeral. Mostly.

Because, my older sister happens to be a trigger for all my fears! Her being two years older than me, I lived my formative years in comparison to her. 

When I sat down at the piano bench, after Karina's beautiful playing, my body experienced a wide variety of intense feelings. Gratitude and warmth for music, for my grandma, for all the people in the church who loved her deeply. Appreciation that she asked me to play. Gratitude that I could fulfill this request for her.

And nerves. Adrenaline crackling in my arms and legs, heart pounding, fingers and legs shaking. 

I kept coming back to the warm feelings of love running through my body, and my gratitude, and in retrospect, those warm feelings were enough to keep me in enjoyment and in the moment - all the while, my legs continuing with their shaky shakiness.

Gratitude, in fact, is one of the first tools that I discovered that worked for me as a antidote to fear. Not that I am the first to discover this. But it felt like 'discovery' when I first internalized the power of the warm feelings as a way to stay in the moment, be more grounded, and to relax some of my chronically tight muscles.

As I was working on tools to deal with performance anxiety, I learned the Centering Exercise. One of the steps is consciously relaxing tense muscles.

This is what would happen in my head when I tried to relax.
Brain: Relax. Say ahhhhh. Let go. Feel good. Feel free. Come on, you can do it.
Shoulders: NOOOOOO
Brain: I believe in you, it's time to let go.
Shoulders: NOOOOO
Brain: COME ON, I SAID RELAX
Shoulders: NOOOOOO!!!!!!

It didn't work for me. 
Letting go of tension takes some amount of faith, of trust, that things will be okay. That you will survive. That you can do it. That you don't need to clench muscles to protect against judgment, wrong notes, and rejection.

This is all subconscious of course. I know in my head that I'm safe, that I will survive, that I'm okay if I play wrong notes. But my shoulders and the deeper, more vulnerable parts have taken longer to internalize and believe that truth.  

Gratitude is not the end-all-be-all solution to tension, and it doesn't solve the problem forever. But finding something in your performance, or your collaboration, or your creation that you can genuinely enjoy and feel grateful for, can be a tool in your arsenal to help shift the focus from fear to enjoyment. 

Performing from a place of love and gratitude and positiveness (even if your character is not positive), rather than fear - well, we all want that, don't we?

Here's how to do it:

• Identify places in your performance and preparation of true enjoyment and gratitude.
• You might have a voice that argues, saying something like you don't deserve enjoyment or relaxation if you don't do it perfectly. Try experimenting with the 'buts' and 'what ifs' coexisting with the enjoyment and gratitude.
• Are you performing with another human being? Has anyone helped you prepare? Do you have stage management, lighting and sound designers, directors that you enjoy and appreciate? Sense what that gratitude feels like in your body. Maybe even explore extending that gratitude sensation towards these other people.
• If it feels right to you, locate where in your body you feel the connections, the appreciations, the gratitudes and focus on that feeling. What happens if you stay with that for a moment, or two, or longer?

As with anything you want to be effective, using gratitude to counteract fear takes practice. To get gratitude to be at the top of list, apply it as part of your practice routine. Or even write the word on your music in key places, so you practice applying it as you work through learning the music. 

As always, thanks for reading.
With love and gratitude,
Marta

PS - if this was helpful, you might be interested in Quick Tip #1: State the Obvious

Quick Tip #1: State the Obvious

It's go time. You're ready to walk into the audition room, or onto the performance stage. You've practiced, you've prepared, you've done your due diligence. 

And BAM!

Suddenly adrenaline is rushing through your body. You get hot. Or cold. You start to shake. You can't see as well. Your breathing gets tight. You've forgotten everything you've ever learned in your whole life. 

It's times like these that we need a quick solution. It is not practical to go deep and get curious about what is happening and why. You need to do your job and do it well. Right now.

Today’s blog and the following weeks will be dedicated to some short term skills and tricks for coping with nerves. 

State the obvious. Get as basic as you can – you are safe.

Our lizard brains evolved to be on the lookout for any potential danger. It reads DANGER from an audition panel or an audience and does not interpret between real and imagined threats.

To get back into our bodies and thinking brains, and outta survival mode, one strategy is to notice the basics of your situation. Even though it might feel silly, say it out loud.

• Take a look around you and notice – no one here can eat me. Lizard brain is truly worried that you might die. Remind it that you will not die. Alexander teacher Peter Jacobson suggests taking this another step and saying what action you are doing:
  • No one here can eat me…and I’m playing octaves.
  • No one here can eat me…and I’m singing a “o mio babbino caro”
  • My body is safe….and I’m [character] from [this] monologue
  • I am safe….and I’m dancing a box step.

As you know, the key to anything that improves performance is practice. Same with using a tool to address nerves.

The thing about nerves is that our prefrontal cortex, our thinking brain, goes offline. Our ability to remember what to do can feel nearly impossible, once the adrenaline kicks in and the lizard brain is scrambling for safety. So even with these tricks, you need to practice and train for the quick default when the rush of adrenaline washes everything away.

This tool will help bring your prefrontal cortex back online so it and you can function better, even while nervous.

Here's how to practice this tool:

• In the practice room, as part of your practice routine, look around, state your version of events. I am safe, and I am practicing a Chopin Nocturne. No one can eat me here, and I am practicing my speech on {this topic}. Observe how your body feels when you say this. Take a breath. How does your mind feel? 
• Do a practice performance. Include walking in to the room, and as you walk in, say your safety statement. Take a moment to look around the room and notice that nothing here can eat you. 
• Hook this activity to something else you do on a regular basis - washing dishes, brushing teeth, bathing, walking. Especially if you notice anxiety creeping in for any reason, try out saying a safety statement and observing what happens in your brain and body.

I've been doing this exercise while writing this newsletter - even though there is no adrenaline, I have plenty of avoidance desires creeping in. Looking around my yellow and turquoise room, noticing my safety made me smile and settle and commit a little longer and avoid facebook for a few more minutes.

I know you know this, but since we are practicing stating the obvious here, I will state the obvious: the more you practice any given tool, the more it will be available to you when nerves strike.

Consider dropping a note here on the blog about your favorite tools to deal with nerves. I'd love to compile and share a list of tools that really work. 

Warm wishes for the start of this new year!
Marta