A Tap on the Shoulder
Imagine you are about to sing an audition, speak to a large audience or even tell someone the truth about how you feel about them. You are nervous and those little butterflies are doing their somersaults in your tummy. You know you are supposed to be taking deep breaths but all of a sudden breathing seems to be the hardest thing to do. You feel your pulse and body temperature elevate and your mind is telling you, "If you stand up and speak/sing your truth in front of these people, you WILL SURELY die!"
We've all been there, right? Although we have been given many strategies and some work better than others, how DO we feel all of those things AND express ourselves authentically with confidence and charisma? Usually, we shove the feelings down and jump in. Sounds logical but what we have actually done is shut off part of ourselves from the experience. We have put that fearful body with all those uncontrollable sensations into lockdown. And we all now have quite a bit of experience with how much lockdown sucks and how weird we act when we feel cut off.
Luciano Pavarotti
The word courage comes from the latin root "cor" or "heart". Brene Brown calls it a "heart word". How do we sing/speak from the heart with courage if we have shut down all of those feelings and sensations that fear causes? How do we stay open-hearted when our history and biology is sending the alarm signal through these sensations in our body that say to stand up and speak our truth in front of people is not only fraught with danger but we could literally be killed.
Luciano Pavarotti, arguably one of the greatest singers of our time, would say "I go to die!" right before entering the stage. He said he never REALLY knew what would happen or how it would be received so it felt like going to his death. It is a Divine Practice to allow the sensations of alarm, fear, danger to be present and do something anyway. This is a part of the training that every great singer and public speaker has conquered.
When working with a client on stage fright or nerves, I love to remind them that the sensation that I described earlier of the butterflies is a just a tickle in the tummy. We label it as fear or nervous. The exact same sensation could also be labeled excitement. We assign the meaning behind it based on our beliefs and life experience. The secret nobody tells you is that because YOU assign the meaning YOU get to recode the meaning for yourself.
I was discussing this very thing with my client, David Friedman, this week. David is a brilliant composer, singer, songwriter, conductor, public speaker, author...the list goes on. He put it this way. Some of us, as children, may have been tapped on the shoulder by a parent and when we turned around were met with a slap across the face. Others of us were tapped on the shoulder by a parent and when we turned around we were met with a kiss. The first group inevitably coded the tap on the shoulder as dangerous and went through life expecting the worst anytime anyone tapped them on the shoulder. The second group coded it differently and expects a loving gesture. However, the tap on the shoulder feels the same to the body either way.
Now, by learning how to consciously separate body sensation, thoughts and emotions, we get be fully present no matter what. We get to code the sensations in a way that serves us so we don't have to shove them down. I still practice this whenever I sing in public. One of the sensations that comes up for me is that my throat closes. I had a whole story connected to this sensation that was an experience I had when my throat actually DID close during a performance. Whenever I would experience the throat closing I would relive the story. The sensation and the story fed off of each other and put me in, shall we say, not the most ideal state of mind to perform? It used to send me into a panic but now I have recoded it as just one of the things my body does before it sings. It is neither good or bad. I have separated the old story from the sensation and created a new one. Now the sensation is just one of the ways my throat lovingly prepares to sing.
What are some of the body sensations linked to life experiences (or stories) you would like to recode? I invite you to practice separating your thoughts, emotions and body sensations. If you would like to explore these ideas further, please check out my dear client David's book called "The Thought Exchange." And remember, when your heart starts pounding before you are about to sing or speak, it's just saying, "YOU ROCK...YOU ROCK...boom boom...boom boom!"
Quote of the Day:
“The sensation may be small but the story is HUGE!”
Affirmation of the Day:
“I am now empowered to choose what I think about my emotions, sensations and life experiences.”
