Under Pressure: A Love Letter to You

I'm sending love to all performers – not just performers on a stage, but anyone who feels that they are being scrutinized, labeled, and judged. What comes to mind are auditions, asking for a raise, pitching an idea, looking for investors, going to a party, meeting new people. May I take a guess and say that most of us have felt like performers at one time or another in life?

We all want and need approval of some kind from the other people in the room. Getting the job, finding your tribe, belonging - all of this creates some amount of internal pressure. These are real and legit needs. We can not exist alone, we are designed to be in community, giving and receiving support to our fellow humans. So when that support even hints at being threatened, our bodies react.

It is not your fault if your body gets triggered into fight/flight/freeze/fawn when under pressure. You, my dear, are human. This is our biology. This wiring in our bodies is good. It is protective. It is helping us stay safe. This is what we do when our bodies and our nervous systems do not feel safe.

This stress response wiring in our bodies is older than bones – it is observable in cartilaginous fish and thought to have evolved before bones evolved. Gosh, that bit gives me comfort, knowing that my body's automatic functions are a production of such a long history. 

This stress response might show up as adrenaline, shakiness, sweating, feeling out of control, feeling sleepy, feeling frozen, incapable, non-responsive, thick tongue, dry mouth, fingers heavy, unable to be and feel authentic.

No matter the conditions that led to fight/flight/freeze/fawn, it is the body’s stress response, saying “I do not feel safe.” The body does not lie - this is an automatic and unconscious reaction. If your nervous system feels stressed and unsafe, that’s just the truth of the moment and that is normal and ok to feel that way. (And of course, other energies inside us might hate that it happens, and that is normal too.) It might be a signpost to pay attention to, a trailhead of further inward exploration if you feel so called to explore and heal.

We might look at this nervous system response as energies or parts within that do not feel safe, but it is not our whole being that feels this way. It feels comforting to me to separate these threads, so that I can witness all the conflicting energies inside me - the ones that wish to be in the situation and those that wish to be hiding under a blanket. 

There are a few things we can do to feel safer in a high pressured situation – like practice and prepare effectively, get the support you need to feel as good as possible, give your day enough space to feel unhurried. This might save you from a certain level of flipping into fight/flight/freeze/fawn, and the energies within that drive this preparation deserve appreciation. 

But there are so many things outside our control – our previous trauma history, our history in similar high pressured situations, our neural wiring predispositions, the way the people in the room treat us, look at us, talk to us, ignore us. And many of these are outside of our cognitive awareness, which makes it overwhelming to deal with in the moment.

It is so, so hard to feel triggered, tripped, flipped. I’ve been met with judgment for simply feeling nervous, I’ve been told to practice more. I've been told to focus on my breath, focus on the positive, ignore people. What else do well-intentioned but misguided people around us say and do? I’m certain I have been on both sides of this, receiving unasked for advice, and giving unhelpful advice! (My deep apologies to those I have given the unhelpful advice.)

Instead, what we deserve is love and compassion for having been flipped into the body’s automatic stress response. We deserve support people around us giving us kind listening and loving emotional space. It feels bad inside and takes energy to process and recover, no matter what circumstances led to this state.

I’m sending you oodles of love and a deep heart for those times that you’ve felt this normal, human way, for your entire being, all energies and parts within you.  

Marta

Sex, drugs, rock & roll - Appreciating Our Firefighter Parts

Appreciating our Firefighter Parts
Sex, drugs, and rock and roll suggest rebellion, selfishness, recklessness. Instead, consider these actions as a way to take care of a person's inner world. A way to find a sort of inner balance. Not a balance of zen and bliss, but rather keeping the scales balanced between painful feelings, functional actions, and rest and comfort.

The short version of this post: an invitation to view our parts that 'act out' by over-eating, excess drinking, drug use, cutting, rage, compulsive shopping - to view these parts that take these actions with compassion. Firefighter parts want comfort now, and they are fueled by the pain that our Exiles hold. 

Firefighter Parts
Sex, drugs, binge eating, drinking – all of these actions are considered Firefighter parts – and the goal of Firefighters is feel better now. They are the pressure release valve, the numbers, the distractors. 

All of us have Firefighter parts and they certainly can be out of balance. The out of balance actions or desires of Firefighters is directly correlated with the amount of pain that Exile parts hold. (Exiles carry our deepest wounds, and are pushed away and covered up by protective parts, like Firefighters.)

Rather than looking at actions as good or bad, an option is to view the actions along a continuum of extremeness. In balance, Firefighters bring comfort in moderate amounts, and their own innate desires are less intense.

More extreme Firefighters might ‘act out’ by binge eating or excessive drinking or bounteous drug use. Or sexual acting out, like cheating, risky sex choices, strong attachment to pornography. Or compulsive shopping. Or cutting. Or watching TV endlessly. Or whatever feels hard to ‘control’. Those are Firefighter parts that are more extreme, and reflects a deeper pool of Exile pain.

Positive Intentions
When using the Internal Family Systems model, every single part has a positive intention. So what kind of positive intention might these parts have, the ones that take actions that are deemed socially unacceptable, risky behavior, illogical?

The intentions of Firefighter parts are to give us some relief, and they want that relief right away. Firefighter parts are the first responders to distress. They can't wait until after you’ve saved enough money, or lost some weight, or after you finish your to-do list. Not in a safe and moderate way. Comfort now is their goal and job.

I love the IFS approach to Firefighters so much because it does not pathologize the parts or the person. Instead, there is understanding and compassion for these parts. Even the most extreme of these parts have positive intentions of trying to help, trying to give rest and comfort and relief. 

But what about Firefighter parts and their actions that cause havoc, hurt people, ruin relationships? 
There is no doubt that some of these Firefighter actions can have serious consequences. Firefighter parts certainly inflict real pain and real problems internally or on other people. Especially in the more extreme roles, there is an abundance of blame and shame going on internally. And the shame and blame just keeps growing when pain is inflicted outwardly towards those we love and care about. And ultimately a person does own responsibility for any pain inflicted upon another person, and that adds to the burden for our parts to work through. 

This method of approaching all parts with compassion, and understanding that the parts have a positive intention, gives space for healing. It may be slow, it may be messy, but ultimately that compassion and awareness and understanding is the foundation for parts to heal and change. 

Firefighters, Managers and Exiles - the Inner System
Firefighter parts get into tangles with the Manager parts, who have other jobs, like saving for retirement, or practicing, or working, or adulting. The conflict between Firefighter parts and Manager parts then becomes such a fabulous way to avoid the pain of Exile parts. Arguing internally about eating, drinking, drugs, exercise, money, and so on is such a good distraction from deeper pain! And in turn, the pain that the Exile parts hold is the fuel that keeps Firefighter and Manager parts stuck in their unending patterns.

If your goal is to ultimately lessen some Firefighter activity, one possibility is to help the Exile parts. Healing the Exiles lowers the fuel in the fire, and Managers and Firefighters get more choice and ability to change how they function. 

A first step in working with Firefighters is to notice that it is a part of you taking action, it's not all of you. Any internal comments or criticisms or judgments are coming from other parts. This awareness creates space for each part to have their own process and experience, which is a step along the path to compassion and healing. 

When seeing other people’s Firefighter parts in action its so very easy to get pulled into judgment. Again an option is to see it as their parts. That their parts are working hard, and they all have a positive intention, remembering that these actions all take place within a bigger inner system.

Firefighter parts are important to me because they are often shamed and unappreciated, maybe even hated. I know my manager parts struggle with acceptance of my firefighter activities, and it is a constant area of growth for me to notice them as parts and then work with my other parts to give them all space and care. All of us deserve rest and comfort, and our Firefighter parts are on a dedicated mission to give that to us, even if sometimes the method they choose causes discomfort from other parts. 

With love and appreciation for all of your Firefighters,
Marta

Elusive Breath

Seeking work and excellence in the arts requires focused training for our bodies to perform to the highest calibration and to highly technical demands. And yet, sometimes, even after all the training, all the preparation, it might feel like our body betrays, by losing our connection to something so basic as breathing.

It's so disappointing to be human, with inner parts of one’s personality not on board with the passions that lie close to our hearts. With parts that might especially get afraid because our artistic desires are so very near and dear to who we are as a person.

It’s so dang hard to be human!

[I guess I have the inconsistency of being human on the brain, as I wrote my last post about Embracing Inconsistency.]

This is what happens for me in those times that I've spiraled out of control under the pressure: adrenaline increases. My muscles tense in response, as I try to control the shaky feelings. As my adrenaline increases, so does the shallowness of my breathing.

Then my mind starts in on trying to fix it. “Take deep breaths. Take deep breaths. Focus on your breathing. Fix your breathing!” My head is barking orders to my lungs. My lungs are impervious to logical input. It’s like I’ve stuck a bellows in my lungs and I’m manually forcing the air in and out.

The physical discomfort takes me farther and farther from the focus of my music or collaboration.

And then parts of me are mad or frustrated, because whose body is this?!? Where did my arms and fingers go? What about my dreams and desires? Which furthers the cycle of more parts triggering each other, and moving farther from my best performing self.

Does this kind of pattern sound at all familiar to you?

If so, I have two suggestions.

First, oodles and oodles of compassion. This is so hard, and so frustrating, to be so very human in this way. To have goals, desires, longings, and our very primal needs for safety are getting in the way! Such an inner conflict. I've lived many years wanting to banish those pesky parts that are fearful. But what if, instead, we can have compassion for those fearful parts?

Can you find any amount of authentic compassion for yourself? One possible way to do this, is to see this normal body reaction as a part of you, and treat it like you might treat a fearful child. Fearful children do not get less fearful by yelling at them and blaming them. They get less fearful by treating them with love and support and safety, and setting up the right circumstances for success.

You do not need to quit performing just because one part of you gets scared! But if you can find out how those parts might like more support and what can make them feel safer, then maybe you can meet those needs.

For example, maybe you bring your own pianist to the auditions that you most care about. Or schedule a rehearsal with the hired audition pianist. Or maybe you’d like to create a sacred ritual before you walk on stage that is calming to your nervous system.

What creative ways might you find more safety for your scared parts?

Secondly, try looking inward to see what happens at the time that you lose your breath. As much as you can slow down your process and notice what triggers what, the more awareness you bring to your unique system, and the more specific you can get with your preparation.

Some possible questions that you might explore: When do you notice you get off track? What happens for you when you’re off track? Was there something that precipitated getting stuck? What came just before the stuck breathing, or the rush of adrenaline, or whatever it is that you notice in your body? What are the thoughts, words, or sentences that go through your brain? How does adrenaline affect your body? What feelings do you notice and where do you feel them?

In my most recent IFS training, I did some cool work with adrenaline as a part of me. I was able to create some space and separation between me and the adrenaline parts.

Adrenaline is triggered by the unconscious, I can’t control it. And yet, when separating from it – IT no longer controlled me. I had adrenaline coursing through my body, lit up and shaky, but there was a deeper sense of control. I could connect to the adrenaline and learn from it and hear it’s story, but it wasn’t in charge. AND I could deeply breathe.

Since breathing is both voluntary and involuntary, taking a multifaceted approach will help you find your best way to dealing with this issue. There are many resources out there for approaching the physical aspects of breathing, including good voice teachers, Alexander and Feldenkreis teachers, yoga classes, etc. Investing in good knowledge and good practice with your body is a very useful way to get to better breathing when under pressure.  

Sending you all my compassion for the times when your body doesn’t perform the way in which you hold the vision for your best performing self!
Love, 
Marta

Embracing inconsistency

I’m taking a writing class and our assignment this week is to write about one of our beliefs. We brainstormed some beliefs, and a classmate brought up, “The only constant is change”.

I feel like I’ve been in one long transition for the last five years, and that I'm a broken record on this topic. First it was dealing with shoulder pain, which led me to uncovering performance anxiety, which led me on a long journey, part of which was eclipsed by pregnancy and baby, and wow, that was a lot of change. Along the way, music performance has shifted more to the background, while focusing on Inner Artist/IFS coaching.

My most recent IFS training led to some very deep transformations, and I’m in new inner territory, figuring out the new ways of being, what feels right to shift and let go, curious about what will emerge.

All of this to say, I’m writing to tell you that I’m embracing inconsistency with blog posting.

For many years, I had the burning itch to write, to share what I was learning, to teach, to have something of value to offer. It was a drive. Inspiration would light me up and I would delight in getting something out in the world.

But now, that drive is on the down low. I still have ideas. Loads of ideas. But the parts that were driving me so hard to get blog posts written and published, I think they are taking a nap. Or a vacation.

I recently wrote in my writing class about my life experiences being like compost. Some rotting memories have been festering and molding. Mixing them around into the compost pile, they become hot and stinky, and then turn into fodder and fuel and food for the soil. I love that metaphor and I hope that is what is happening internally, and in my writing.

I notice the teacher part of me wants to extrapolate this post into something that might apply to your life. Like, how you might find places to ditch the typical advice and follow your own instincts. Or that consistency and practice are key, but sometimes parts of our personality might rebel for whatever reason, and getting curious about those parts can lead to some really cool places. Or how our culture is not necessarily supportive of taking reflective breaks, or listening to our own instincts. 

I’m not sure what is coming next. Maybe the drive to post about performance anxiety and creative blocks will re-emerge. Maybe something else. Just writing this feels freeing. My goals and boundaries of what is possible keep expanding.

In the meantime, while I continue to contemplate and expand, I’ll be back when I have events, and when inspiration hits.

Spring schedule:

• Rep Rally (performance practice class) Sunday April 15th, 2-4 pm. Wait list
• Intro to Inner Artistry – Saturday, May 5th, 3-5 pm; Chicago; FREE
• Making Friends with Fear. Chicago Creative Coalition – Wednesday, May 23rd, 6:30 pm, Chicago. 

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