“Whether you think you can or can’t, you’re right.” – Henry Ford
December seems to be a busy time for auditions, and performances of all types. It can be super stressful and filled with pit holes, anxiety, fear, feeling overwhelmed and being super tired.
I have a couple of quick suggestions you might want to think about and try to help you get refocused and point your thinking in the right direction. As I often tell my students and clients, the thinking mind, which is about the size of a walnut and in the front left side of your brain, is a lovely tool. But, it doesn’t know how to behave and support you, and it doesn’t know how to sing. It is usually caught up in all the emotional baggage, the old doubts and feelings of unworthiness and doesn’t trust you. It’s the internal “Brat”; you know that voice that you have conversations with inside your head. Yes, that is the one that will happily pull you off center and mess with your head. It doesn’t do it spitefully, but wants you to stick to the script you put there when you were somewhere between 3 and 9 or 10 years old. It wants you to follow the rules you gave the “Brat” to help you remember how to fit in and follow those rules in the outside world. Then when you got old enough to have external help from others, you just sort of started to ignore this “Brat” and now it only rears its head when he/she feels you really need to follow the rules. So…
Remember that what you are there to do as you audition or perform, is your JOB~!!! It’s just a job. It’s not emotional or personal. It’s just a JOB! You are as ready as you can be at this moment and you got hired or invited to do this JOB so you must have impressed someone somewhere along the line. Now it’s time to let all that stress and anxiety go and allow yourself to enjoy the moment, as you inspire yourself and others with you audition or performance. When you enjoy it, everyone enjoys it. Perfect is not even where you need to be headed because one person’s perfect can be another person’s idea of just OK or what the heck are you doing!!! So why would you want to waste your time and energy on that?? Stick to just doing your JOB.
Another reason your mind takes over is because you forget how to be in your body using your senses. When you allow yourself to hear, feel, see, touch, smell and taste in your imagination, you can easily be back in your body and ready to enjoy your gift and talent. So get out there, tell the story through your character, take the audience or those hiring on an amazing journey and show your stuff!
Let me know what you think… ciao, Carol
