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As a coach and facilitator, I support people who feel uncomfortable with being seen and heard. People who might panic or freeze when the stakes are high and they’re required to give a performance in front of others, whether on stage, in the board room or on a conference call. In this post, I will offer some suggestions, points to reflect on and tools that could help you to feel calm enough to really shine in a performance.
When the brain responds to a perceived threat and proceeds to flood the body with the hormones and neurotransmitters that could give us a chance at preserving life if it were in danger, we tend to lose contact with our most sophisticated cognitive and social functions. How extreme these reactions are varies hugely according to previous experiences of trauma, shame, the messages we received as we grew up, our neurotype, personality or other variables, such as whether we’ve had enough sleep and food or are going through a stressful experience. But in any case, getting the best from our communication and performance involves a degree of courage, willingness to genuinely connect with others and ability to regulate our autonomic nervous system and emotions. That’s not to say that we should aspire to be in a state of permanent, zen-like calm, or to downplay our emotions and responses in a mandatory display of stoicism – quite the opposite! Suppressing and repressing our feelings will usually only take us so far before they catch up with us and either find an alternative route out into the world or stay buried and do damage to our health. But slowing down enough to notice our responses (something that didn’t come naturally to me and requires a lot of practice) equips us with choices about how we might be able to regulate and respond.
Many people and organisations have had space to reflect on some big issues over the course of the last two years. This might lead to a need to have some potentially difficult conversations. And for most of us, a sustained period of relentless change, restriction, uncertainty and potentially trauma has had an impact. So, what do we do with a context that includes big questions and burnout? Is this a bad time for difficult conversations? Is there such a thing as a good time for them? Below, I outline what considerations might be part of a healthy and effective approach to these tricky questions.
fter eighteen months of following guidelines and agonising over what was safe, within my ethical framework and worth/not worth risking, I finally enjoyed playing my first post-lockdown gig at a festival recently. And unfortunately, in spite of various risk reducing measures, I tested positive for Covid-19 soon after. It’s not been much fun, but could have been far worse – no doubt, thanks to two rounds of vaccination. The thing that was most discombobulating was the loss of my sense of smell or ‘anosmia’. This has really got me thinking about the embodied approach I now instinctively bring to my work, my emotional wellbeing and life in general…
I’m in the process of planning a new community singing group, with a focus on wellbeing. I’m well versed in the many health benefits of singing and when I work with groups, I aim to create an accessible, supportive environment in which people can explore and experience them. Some of the responses I tend to hear when I describe my work include “oh, I can’t sing!”, or “I love singing but I’m tone deaf”, or “I wish I could sing but I can’t!” I’m always reminded of Dweck’s growth mindset vs. fixed mindset model when I hear this – believing that we lack potential to grow in a specific area is a great example of a fixed mindset. We accept that playing an instrument like the guitar, piano or violin will require hundreds of hours of practice to master, even though some people seem to have more of a natural affinity for it than others. But because our voices are an inherent part of us, a part of our anatomy, we may be tempted to think that only some, special people have the ability to use them to express ourselves tunefully. I disagree with this idea – sure, there are born singers, including a few people with vocal apparatus and lung capacity so extraordinary that they seem destined for a successful career in music (although the ratio of talented singers to career opportunities is quite daunting). Equally, there exists a small number of people who are truly ‘tone deaf’ – up to 4% of people have Congenital Amusia, which is tone deafness that cannot be explained by factors such as hearing loss, brain injury or other cognitive/environmental factors. In spite of that fairly low prevalence, I’m sure I hear far more than 4% of people I encounter claiming to be completely, permanently unable to ‘carry a tune’. This always makes me a little sad because, although not everyone is quite as invested in singing as I am, I hate the idea of self-limiting beliefs preventing people from enjoying this particular form of self-expression.
Because our voices convey our emotions, our thoughts and identity, using them (whether for singing or speaking) can make us feel vulnerable at times. We’re putting ourselves out into the world, asking to be heard and dealing with whatever response is received. Singing is a super-charged form of vocal expression, because it combines the evocative nature of music with whatever emotions and stories are conveyed by lyrics, and because each of us has a unique sound that lets the world know something about who we are. It requires physical/muscular support and is more of a workout than it’s often given credit for. It becomes obvious to the listener if, when we sing, we feel so unsafe and uncertain that we lose control of our breath and our ability to find the right pitch or remember the words. So, I understand (from both professional and personal experience) some of the reasons that people might be a little shy about singing, particularly if they know that someone might be listening. And the less often we do something, the less naturally it seems to come – we don’t develop muscle memory or confidence, and we solidify our belief that ‘this is just something I can’t do’ – it can be a vicious cycle. There’s also the huge and debilitating issue of shame. So many of us have had experiences, in childhood and beyond, that shamed us into making ourselves smaller, quieter and not expressing who we really are. Many of us have had humiliating and even traumatising experiences of being heard by others and judged harshly, of being paralysed by stage-fright or of being laughed at when we dared to raise our voices and express ourselves. This really contributes to a sense of feeling that it’s not safe to be heard or that we ‘can’t sing. But that needn’t be the end of the story… discovering safer, more supportive places and people to sing with, exploring and challenging the critical voices we use to talk to ourselves (voices that likely once belonged to someone with an influence in our lives), and taking small steps to increase our vocal confidence can all help to turn things around.
Regardless of whether you claim you can’t sing but are happy to joyfully belt out a tune in the shower, or you refuse to let a melody pass your lips at all, there are various ways to get some of the wellbeing benefits of using your voice. For example, humming or chanting can be part of a mindfulness or meditation practice. Taking full, diaphragmatic breaths to prepare for vocalising, and extending the exhale (humming until you run out of breath) kicks in a physical process that brings your Parasympathetic Nervous System into play, promoting rest, calm and recovery. It also helps to bring your attention to the body and provides a focus point for those who find it hard to sit quietly with their thoughts. It’s still early days in terms of the science of this, but there are some studies looking at whether meditation with vocalising has increased therapeutic potential (for example, due to vagus nerve stimulation). But whatever the science says, I know from experience that singing and humming can be fantastic ways to get grounded, move past ‘stuck’ emotions, connect with the body and self-soothe.
I’m curious about how my thoughts will land with those who say they can’t sing. If that’s you, I’d invite you to be curious about it too. What emotions, thoughts or memories come up for you as you read this? What might that mean? Are you willing to challenge any of your assumptions about this? Does it matter to you? If the answer to some of these questions is a resounding ‘no’, that’s ok. Not everyone feels the need to use their voices in this way. Though to me, it seems that singing is an inherently human and beautiful thing to do. So go ahead and sing like nobody’s listening – the good news is that you don’t need to be ‘good’ at it in order to reap the benefits to your wellbeing.
Looking for support with being heard, using your voice to improve your wellbeing or learning to sing? Contact me!
Reflections on wellbeing for creative professionals and all of us as creative beings
Last time I wrote about creativity, I ended with a reflection on ‘create to thrive’ as a step up from ‘adapt to survive’. I was thinking about the impact of loss of connection and stimuli on our creativity during lockdown. Now that we’re emerging back into collective spaces, with arts venues reopening and shared experiences back on the menu, it seems like a good moment to ponder how we might get to that ‘thriving’ place, with creative juices flowing and means of expression available.
Perhaps it seems frivolous to be focusing on creative expression when so many people around the world are very much in survival mode (whether that’s due to the impact of Covid, climate change, conflict or all of the above). But we’re inherently creative beings, with imaginations capable of dreaming up works of art, nation states, complex stories and solutions to problems – this stuff is fundamental. Having an outlet for our thoughts, feelings, ideas and struggles has a proven impact on our health and wellbeing. I’d advocate for everyone having some form of expression – getting emotions, thoughts, ideas and challenges out of our heads and into the world somehow is a powerful therapeutic tool. It might be through talking, writing, singing, drawing, moving our bodies or making physical objects – the medium isn’t important, but the act of creation is…
I don’t think I have anything new to offer on the subject of how artists’ lives can be ruined by an insatiable public thirst for their trauma, but right now, I’m fizzing with thoughts and feelings about it. Lately, op eds and news stories about the ‘Free Britney’ movement have been all over the media. There are so many angles that could be taken on the story, from a bit of salacious gossip, to voyeuristic coverage of a widespread conspiracy theory to an opportunity to examine and hold to account both the performance industries and media coverage of the not-so private lives of those in the public eye.
New year is a time that, for many, symbolises hope. There’s the looking back and reflecting on the time that’s passed, followed by the ‘reset’ - positive intentions and desire for more of the things that went well and a chance to improve on the things that didn’t. This new year has been no different, in some ways. We all know that pandemics and political crises don’t care what date it is, and yet, we may wish to shed 2020 like a too-tight skin, casting its chaos into the past and looking towards brighter times. I’m always at my most reflective at the turn of a year – I enjoy the opportunity to pause, take stock and consider what’s next. And the extraordinary events of the last year have got me in full ‘meta’ mode – reflecting on reflecting. I’m interested in the nature and purpose of the hope that we may bring into a new cycle, and its relationship to fear.
Remember all that time ago – it seems like a thousand years – when we first went into lockdown and so many of us promised ourselves myriad ways to stay entertained, distracted, productive and creative? In reality, our most important task was to avoid contracting or spreading a deadly virus, but the shadow of our hyper-capitalist society backed us into a corner, deafeningly whispering “to be worthy, you must create. You must produce”. The desire to resist this notion and the need for creative expression have formed an interesting conflict in me. Or at least, it seemed to be a conflict. But coming to terms with permission to ‘just be’ and a need to turn thoughts, feelings, pain and things that can’t be expressed any other way into some kind of artform are not mutually exclusive.
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