The Walk to the Stage
The Anxiety...
So you’ve worked really hard on your art, whether that’s singing, dancing, acting or speaking.
You’ve spent years developing, practicing and honing your talent and you want to share it with your audience.
You’ve developed your voice and you feel confident in singing when you’re offstage but when the show approaches you can feel the anxiety begin to build in you.
Sometimes you’re excited about performing and sometimes you’re scared and you can’t control this flip flop of emotions in you.
When the big day arrives you wait backstage in anticipation of the moment you will step onto the stage.
You feel fearful and anxious and feel like there’s nothing you can do about it.
When you reach the stage the grip in your stomach has increased, there’s a pressure in your head and you feel a tightness in your chest.
‘Just get through it,’ you tell yourself but you can’t wait for it to be over.
You enjoyed some of it but you wonder will this always be my experience of performing?
Will I always feel anxious or fearful and never get to really feel comfortable on stage?
Performance anxiety is crippling but there is a way out of this habitual cycle and into experiencing performances that are filled with confidence, relaxation, passion and joy.
Looking back…
All you need do is look back on a moment that you felt onstage or a time in your life where you froze, became paralyzed by this fear and anxiety and it either; stopped you from performing or highjacked your performance.
You’ve tried many things to help you but they just haven’t worked.
This anxiety limits your enjoyment of your craft and interrupts the connection between you and your audience.
And maybe even stops you from continuing with your passions, your dreams and your career.
Every week I talk to people about this. I think it’s the shame of not being fixed or feeling broken that shuts down the opportunity for the healing of this anxiety.
Yes I said, the opportunity.
When the anxiety appears and you feel the big bad awful, it is then that the opportunity arises to see what’s really going.
And it’s then that we can change the pattern.
And it’s then that the buried life force and excitement can be allowed to rise and shine through your voice.
What happens inside of my body when performance anxiety strikes?
*Your clever nervous system, particularly the sympathetic nervous system (fight or flight), is holding onto past experiences and has frozen and memorized them inside of the solar plexus and diaphragm regions.
*This ‘memorization’ so to speak begins to limit the natural movements of the diaphragm therefore limiting your ability to breathe fully.
*The visual and emotional sensory data that the nervous system is holding gets triggered by an impending performance and these memories are shown to you through muscle, nerve and brain pathways.
*This is a cycle that continues to repeat itself over and over again.
*This in turn triggers past memories of anxious performances or situations and then tricks you into thinking that you are in that past situation again.
*When an overwhelm strikes the all important power centre in the middle of the body collapses along with it a whole host of other parts in a domino affect that leaves the performer feeling powerless.
*The solar plexus holds and steadies the diaphragm (the major muscle used in breathing) along with with the intercostal muscles of the ribs.
I liken it to a trampoline that is sturdy as well as flexible and is able to bounce and reflect your voice out of your body without any effort.
*This stage fright collapse in your body also breaks the connection with the emotional centre in the belly as well as the grounding connection in the legs and feet.
*You feel like a plug that has been unplugged from its power source.
*The singing voice needs the energy that is produced by the solar plexus and its team (ribs and diaphragm) to project your voice out to the audience.
*When the power centre collapses from this anxiety and fear the throat has to overwork to project your voice out.
*This overwork and pushing is the big trigger and registers to the nervous system that something is wrong which then proceeds to turns on too much sympathetic energy sending the artist head on into a fight or flight response.
*Once we begin to recognize this domino effect inside of our nervous system then and only then can we interrupt the pattern or habit.
*For the performer this anxiety is crippling and stops them from offering their art, their voice and their love, sometimes forever.
The Way Forward...
There are many ways to cope with performance anxiety.
For some it's as simple as getting really prepared for the performance and getting the practicing hours in.
For some it's taking really good breaths and using grounding practices before you walk out.
But for some, it's more complicated and needs a lot more time and care.
There is a technique that can work to change this pattern that involves envisioning the audience before you even get close to the stage. Try it out now.
Building new pathways -
*Close your eyes and imagine an audience in front of you.
*Notice what you see in front of you, take some breaths and try to hold the image still.
*How close are they to you? How many of them are there? What does the space look like? How does it make you feel?
*Really slow it down and work with what you're seeing without changing anything at first.
*Feel the feelings that arise from seeing the image before you. Take a few breaths and feel your body.
*Ask yourself - What is it that you want from the audience? - What do you want them to do?
*You can move them back and away from you or you can move them closer towards you.
*Move the audience back and forth until you feel something different in you. Your breath and body will tell you when it feels right for you.
*You can also change the feeling tone of the audience by having them smile or stand up and cheer when you walk onto the stage.
*Notice how that feels in your body and breathe the feelings in.
*What do you see? What do you feel in your body? In your heart?
*When you get the image the way you want it in your seeing and your feeling then sing a song or a few words to feel this new pathway being imprinted inside your whole body.
*Let your nervous system memorize this new pathway for you.
Imprinting…
Repeat this process over and over before you actually step on the stage.
The old patterns of collapse and fear are there in the neural pathways so it takes time it takes to build these new pathways in the brain and to feel it in your body.
If you need help with healing your performance anxiety please reach out to me, I'd be happy to help you regain your confidence and get you back onto the stage.