Understanding and Overcoming Stage Fright Part 2: Three Quick Tips
Stage fright is an issue that impacts entertainers and artists of all kinds. In part one, we discussed how painful it can be, and the negative impact it can have on someone. We addressed how long term it needs to be treated, and how to facilitate healing. With that said, I understand the desire to have tools you can incorporate right away. So let’s dive on in and see how we can help.
1) Establishing Safety
In some ways, stage fright can mimic a trauma response. The body goes into a freeze, despite there being no literal threat. In part one, we addressed how to better understand why someone might feel unsafe, but how do we begin to tackle that in the moment? We must acknowledge that the body does not feel safe, and begin to increase feelings of safety. Addressing the bodily responses is one way to get there. Things like meditation, visualization, and other mindfulness activities are ways to alert the body that all is ok, and we do not need a freeze response.
2) Get Into The Moment
When our fears run rampant, where we are not? You guessed it: in the moment. Connecting to our actual task, being in the moment and present, is what will allow us to succeed. Often the barrier to being in the moment is the mind, or negative self-talk and imagery. Working on decreasing negative self-talk, sticking with the facts of the situation, will help take us out of that emotional spiral. Once we are able to separate from the negative self talk, we are able to shift our focus to the present. Putting our focus on the character, the text we speak, even the environment around us (what material is the floor, what is the color of the ceiling?), helps get us to where our brain actually needs to be.
3) Remember Why You Love It
Of all the tips on stage fright or performance anxiety, remembering why you love it, and why you are there, is probably the least acknowledged. When you think back to times you enjoyed performing, or perhaps first fell in love with it, try to remember how that feels. If you can, revisit that experience in your mind and compare that to how you are feeling now. How does it feel different? Can you access that prior experience and bring it into the present? It is not unusual for work to eventually feel like…work. It is understandable that as the stakes increase (need for income, pressure to get to the next goal), we start to lose touch with our passion for what we are doing. However, we cannot lose that completely. We have to hold onto it, as that is ultimately what continues our drives, and allows us to perform our best.
At first glance these tips might seem easy to implement, but I understand that is not always the case. Sometimes it requires a little experimentation with each of them to see what helps most, and what really resonates with you. With all that said, the long term healing is also still important, and will help you to better implement the tools above. Reaching out for help is part of healthy functioning, and does not mean something is wrong with you as an artist. Let’s normalize the challenges of being a performer, so that no one has to feel alone or hopeless.
