Tina Turner and Peak Performance

What’s Love Got to Do With It?

(can't you just hear Tina Turner?)

I help talented and smart clients who know they are under-performing.  My clients possess a deep passion that must be realized, the talent to do so, and self beliefs and emotions that just plain get in the way.

During the next 3 weeks I'll be talking about how LOVE and compassion are key components for Peak Performance ...  so keep tuning in!

• Love and Peak Performance     3/22/11
• Why do I need it?                     3/29/11
• When will I know I have it?        4/5/11

Power lies in Aligning Your Heart and Head

“Get your head in the game!” screams the coach, as his start tennis player double faults on match point.  It’s true – you do need your head in the game!  You need the mental toughness and clarity to stay present through every stroke in a competitive tennis match.  And your physical fitness level must be top notch. Coaches, music instructors, and trainers are all excellent at getting you in shape for your performance.  But often what’s forgotten in training is emotional management – the HEART of the performance.

I’m talking about the performer’s emotions about themselves before they ever step foot into their performance arena.  The root system of mental/emotional poise; calm and confident performance, is the performer’s sense of self – that “I’m good!” feeling.

Sounds like a small matter, perhaps, compared to raw talent, tons of practice, and pure grit - but in 24 years of working with individuals, no matter how high their ranks, the #1 “enemy” is “I’m not good enough.”  It lurks in the subconscious like a poison; infiltrating every stroke, sentence, melody.  It’s the powerful, subtle force that rips the player from their most inspired, awesome performance – and their most exquisite joy of accomplishment.

Consider how important it is …

to move from, “I’m not good enough” to into your heart when you’re playing a round of golf.  In The Spirit of Golf, Feb.2011 edition, the author writes:

The only reason we want to hit good golf shots is that we think we will feel better when we hit them.  That seems to make enough sense.  The problem comes, however, when we ignore the behind-the-scenes energy that it takes to see the shots unfold. If we don’t feel good along the way, there can be no good shots to experience.  In other words, a mind that is full of frustration, anxiety, anger and doubt is not going to be able to set into motion an energy that can crystallize into positive results. 

As this speaks of a mind that’s full of these negative emotions, consider this:        

The heart produces the largest rhythmic electromagnetic field of any of the body’s organs. Its electrical field is about 60 times greater in amplitude than the electrical activity generated by the brain and its magnetic field is 5,000 times greater!  In truth, the most powerful source of our inner power lies in the heart and in our ability to experience and manage our emotions. (The Institute of Heart Math)

My advice to you? Go out of your mind! And check your heart. Then get them aligned. Think how powerful you will be when you’ve got both those energy forces going in the same direction!  Click here to learn more about how important the heart is in maximizing your performance.                                                                                          

Action Steps:

1.  List out what thoughts you tell yourself about your upcoming performance.

2.  Notice... are they creating anxiety, worry, fear? ... confidence, strength, power?

3.  Choose one negative, blocking emotion and apply EFT (you may find the recipe 

     for EFT by scrolling down to middle of blog below this one)

4.  Keep tapping until you have your negative emotion/belief down to zero or one.


Happy Tapping, and . . .  I'd love to hear from you - 
what does love have to do with it for YOU?

 

Remember to stay tuned for next week's  "Why do I  need it?"

The Surprising Link Between Kindness and Performance

I’ve been struck by how much kindness and acceptance catapults success in healing pain and accelerating performance.  Kindness and acceptance — not the words most people think of for “kicking butt” in sports performance or overcoming fear of public speaking or music performance!

It seems that many people, including myself, learned that getting tough with ourselves or somehow giving ourselves some little “lecture” for our less-than-stellar performance would somehow help us improve!  Even on simple things like, “Oh, you forgot your water bottle again!” (said with frustration and a mild, nearly unnoticeable sense of disdain).  “Gosh, Bernadette, it takes you three trips before you can start the car and leave!”  I’m not really aware at the time that I am chastising and judging myself harshly — I just feel the frustration, and the frustration raises havoc with own sense of goodness and the good feeling of my day.  But hey, it’s just a small thing, right?

Wrong.

In truth, this frustration causes a literal disturbance in the neurology of my body — there is a disturbance in my energy system, and if not corrected, can create an acceleration of “negative” energy for the day.  

The more I try to “be better” (“OK, I’m going to go to bed earlier and get more sleep”), the more intractable the habit becomes.  It’s not that it can’t be shifted.  It’s that I judge myself for having “the problem,” therefore a part of me will always resist changing it.  I will resist getting to the goals I really do want.  I’ve noticed this is a universal unconscious phenomenon with all of us.  The old saying is true:  What we resist persists.

How has criticism helped you?

I grew up with lots of criticism.  Lots of people have.  Parents want the best for their children.  They want their children to be the best people they can become.  Some problems develop when parents see the child as an extension of their own “goodness” or “badness” (anything less than perfect!).

What exactly were you criticized for?  I wonder if you are continuing that history of criticizing yourself — a good question to ponder.  Has this criticism really ever made you a better person?  By contrast, useful critique can give us very important feedback.  It might sting a little at the time, but it can truly make us better people!   Critique, when skillfully done, is a powerful tool for allowing us to see more clearly and empowering us to make important changes.  But the kind of criticism I’m talking about is different.  It’s not constructive.  It’s certainly not kind.  Has this kind of criticism ever made you a better person?

“Oh,” you say, “I’ve gotten over being critical with myself!”   But . . . that’s not my experience of people.  I keep hearing ALL my clients being really hard on themselves!  The harshness of criticism seems to transfer into, “If I’m really good, if I do everything in a superior way, then (my parents or I) will be so proud of me.  I’ll earn their acceptance!   If only I could ________” . . . You can fill in the blank with winning the tournament, the race, the audition, getting the sale, writing the book … or being prettier, smarter, richer, thinner, more athletic…   Usually, this kind of criticism is expressed with harshness.  And that creates a wall of resistance to your goals ever happening.

Accomplishing excellence through kindness and acceptance

I think knowing about Dr. Masaru Emoto’s scientific experiments with water is crucial to really ‘getting’ this effect of kindness on our performance.  (You can read the specifics in my science report on Why EFT Works.  His experiments display what scientifically happens to water when we direct loving, compassionate thoughts to the water, or thoughts of anger, hostility or negativity to it.  (We’ve all heard about how talking to your plants in loving ways helps them flourish!) 

Identical glasses, amounts, and kind of water showed changes this way:

Glass 1 – Dr. Emoto directed loving, compassionate thoughts. The water crystals showed brilliant, complex and colorful snowflake patterns, which he and others have described as beautiful.

Glass 2 -  Dr. Emoto directed thoughts of anger, hatred and negativity toward this glass. The water crystals formed incomplete, jagged, asymmetrical patterns with dull gray colors, described as ugly, not enjoyable to look at.

Since the human body is almost completely water, his high-speed photographs of water crystals seem a very good replica of what would transpire in the human body when it responds to kindness or harshness.

The remedy of kindness – fueling for success

The remedy for our being hard on ourselves and creating a resistance to the very success we desire is KINDNESS.  Sounds simple enough, but you’ll need to become really good at sniffing out the subtle and multitude of ways in which you are hard on yourself.  (I know, I’ve been mastering the skill of being hard on myself for over half a century!)  We will discuss the art of sniffing out the ways of being hard on ourselves in a future article.

EFT works beautifully and powerfully on this ingrained harshness with ourselves.  We must consistently apply EFT to our episodes of self- recrimination and “feeling bad” for simple mistakes, railing on ourselves with high frustration and aggravation.  These emotions just flood our neurochemistry into a stress response.  We Don’t Need It!   It doesn’t help us!

Try this mini-EFT protocol to begin the process of allowing your best to come forward with the cleansing of kindness and compassion. Just remember how your plants flourish, and the amazing work of Dr. Emoto with kindness and water!

EFT Protocol – Try a little kindness

Pick something you’ve done (or failed to do) in the past that gets you frustrated or upset when you think about it. Some examples are:

-       I ate that piece of decadent cake and then had another! (I’m horrible!)

-       I didn’t pay the bill on time and now I have that finance charge! (What an idiot!)

-       I had a chance to win and I blew it! (It’s unforgivable!)

Start by tapping the karate chop point as you say the following:

Even though I’m really mad at myself for ___, I could consider being kind to myself anyway.

Even though I feel so stupid for ___, I can give myself a break.

I make mistakes like all people, and I’m wondering if I could give myself a bit of compassion and kindness!

Eye:  This “I screwed up” feeling.

Side of Eye:  This “I really blew it” feeling.

Under Eye:  I wonder if I really need to be on my case about this.

Under Nose:  Well, I can keep kicking myself if I want to!

Chin:  Yet, everyone makes mistakes. I do too, and I accept myself for that.

Collarbone: (Thymus Thump)  I’ll probably make more mistakes too – and I deeply and completely accept myself anyway!

Under Arm:  I can be kind to myself – it feels much better this way.

Top of Head:  Even though I make mistakes, kindness and compassion feels pretty helpful.

Take a deep breath and "let it go". 

Now, notice the following:

Feeling / Intensity: Rate your current level of (feeling “bad” or whatever your feeling was) with your problem on a 0-10 scale.  Is there less?

Sensation / Body Location: Do you notice less of the body sensations?  Is your breathing slower?  Do you feel more relaxed?  Where?

Another Round of Tapping

Here are the differences in the second round (and any necessary subsequent rounds to deal with the negative feeling  itself):

When you tap the karate chop point, the phrase you'll say three times is:

Even though I’ve screwed up in the past, and probably will again, I love this feeling of compassion.

I like practicing compassion for myself.  A little tenderness and kindness feels really good right now.

Even though it’s easy to make mistakes, I’m enjoying this kind, compassionate feeling for myself.

Eye:  Yup, I’m enjoying this calmer, safer feeling in my body right now.

Side of Eye:  I like this kindness – it feels better than that old frustration

Under Eye:  I could get used to being kind to myself !

Under Nose:  Choosing kindness is helping me feel better and do better.

Chin:  Making mistakes is not the end of my world!!

Collarbone:  I perform better when I’m calm and confident.

Under Arm:  This new kindness is becoming a habit!

Top of Head:  I’m beginning to feel the calmness throughout my body – what a great feeling!

Take a deep breath and “let it go.”

Worth your time

I’ve seen interesting and heartening examples of the effect of kindness, including this recent email from South Africa:

“I was having a restless night last night and when I decided to be kind to myself, I felt my energetic frequency change and I settled down.  Feeling your kindness has helped me be kind to me.”   

Patience is everything

“When people ask us how long does it take for something to manifest, we
say, ‘It takes as long as it takes you to release the resistance.  Could be
30 years, could be 40 years, could be 50 years, could be a week.  Could be
tomorrow afternoon.’ " – Abraham-Hicks (The Law of Attraction)

The Power of Sunflowers -- In your Mind

I recently took a road trip to my homeland of eastern North Dakota/western Minnesota. Miles and miles of lush corn and soybeans - a "bumper crop" as farmers say. And then, BAM! - a huge, vibrant field of bright yellow sunflowers - heads turned toward the sun, showing off their fullness of pure Joy, it felt to me.
The blooming sunflower heads turn toward the sun throughout the day; something that has always intrigued me about sunflowers.

In creating peak performance, it's really the same process as the sunflowers. We turn our inner (hidden) and outer (known) thoughts and feelings naturally and easily toward a positive power source that's ever-present within us. The EFT process literally shifts the body and mind into a more efficient, higher vibratory system. Behavior and mood shifts, things go well, and Joy is often what people report - with themselves and with their performance.

We can easily learn the secret of the sunflowers. EFT allows the shift from a stuck, cloudy pattern to one of joyful, positive flow. It's a full-sun deal!

Eliminating the Weeds - Increasing Yield

Whether you are an athlete, musician, dancer, public speaker, sales person . . . you will often experience the weeds of negative thoughts: thoughts that bring lack of confidence, fear, anxiety, low motivation, just plain being stuck.

EFT is a natural (no artificial or toxic chemicals!) way to eliminate these nasty weeds that choke out nutrients and reduce your yield - it's a natural fertilizer to enrich each cell of your body with just the right organic chemicals -literally!- so you will perform at your optimal yield. It's a bumper crop with EFT! I'm still amazed at the results after all these years.

Examples of "weedy" thoughts shifting to sun-drenched thought:
(for athletes --- or anyone, really)

Athletes (like musicians, speakers, sales professionals, etc.) often come to me feeling in a stuck place with their performance levels. One common theme is a past "failure" - the botched tennis match, the important speech or vocal audition that went south...

The common blocking belief is, "I failed, I'll fail again." Often this thought is outside their awareness. Sometimes clients have held onto this belief for decades based on some failure in grade school. It can quite easily be cleared with EFT.

Negative unconscious thought - "I can never get over that last loss so I am a complete failure."
EFT changes this to:
Positive conscious thought - "I can recover from past losses and be successful in future competitions."

Tapping Protocol: Getting Past Failure

This example is based on a tennis player - you can easily substitute your own words of "failure" that fit your situation. We focus first on the negative to clean it out, then later we'll anchor positivity into the cells for a superior next performance!

If you're unfamiliar with the EFT tapping points, you can see a diagram on my September 2010 newsletter.

Tap firmly, but not so firmly that it's uncomfortable. As you're tapping, focus on the issue at hand. After a round of tapping, take a deep breath and "let it go"...

First, note the following:

Feeling / Intensity: Rate your level of (fear or frustration or intimidation) with your problem on a 0-10 scale.

Sensation / Body Location: What is going on in your body? Where is the sensation? (Examples: tight stomach, shallow breathing, sore jaw, shoulders raised up and tight.)

Start by tapping the karate chop point as you say the following:

"Even though I "screwed up" and lost the match, I deeply accept myself."
"Even though I should have made that cross-court, I deeply accept myself."
"Even though I beat myself up for my mistake, I deeply accept myself anyway."

Eyebrow: "this failure feeling"
Side of Eye: "this rotten 'screwing it up' feeling"
Under Eye: "I should have taken it down the line!" (hindsight beat-up) - fill in your own!
Under Nose: "This 'screwed it up' feeling"
Chin: "How could I be so stupid?"
Collarbone: "this 'screwed-up failure' feeling"
Under the Arm: "I should have known better!"
Top of Head: "This rotten failure feeling"

Take a deep breath and "let it go".

Now, notice the following:

Feeling / Intensity: Rate your current intensity of (intimidation or whatever your feeling was) your problem on a 0-10 scale. Is there less?

Sensation / Body Location: Do you notice less of the body sensations? Is your breathing slower? Do you feel more relaxed? Where?

Another round of tapping:

Start by tapping the karate chop point as you say the following:

Even though I messed up while trying my best, I deeply accept myself and choose to be more compassionate.
Even though I feel like a failure, I deeply accept myself anyway!
Even though I did my best and judge it “not good enough” I choose to be kinder and more compassionate with myself.


Eyebrow: Yes, this “not good enough” feeling is familiar
Side of Eye: I am so good at beating myself up for less than perfect!
Under Eye: I wonder if I could forgive myself for being imperfectly human?
Under Nose: No way! I’m supposed to be better than human!
Chin: It’s tough – it’s not really fair to be so hard on myself.
Collarbone: What if I could forgive myself and move forward?
Under Arm: I learned a lot from that game! (performance, speech, etc.)
Top of Head: What if I can forgive myself? – I bet I could!

Take a deep breath and "let it go".

Now, notice the following:

Feeling / Intensity: Rate your current level of (intimidation or whatever your feeling was) with your problem on a 0-10 scale. Is there less?

Sensation / Body Location: Do you notice less of the body sensations? Is your breathing slower? Do you feel more relaxed? Where? What is your level on a 0-10 intensity of your “failure feeling”?

Each subsequent round of tapping would neutralize the “beating”/ “failure feeling” – and increase forgiveness and compassion feelings for being human. This relaxes the body and the mind – a perfect combination for now being receptive to anchoring in the positive, desired performance.

We tap to anchor the positives :

• I’ve learned from that mistake
• I now know so much more
• Next time I feel myself confident and ready!

Now we’re ready to perform at our most brilliant selves!

Try this tapping on your own. Be easy on yourself. If you’re new to EFT, or even if you’ve done it before, it can be helpful to have a session with a seasoned practitioner to move things along more quickly for a spectacular next performance!

Enjoy the gift of EFT. You deserve the Joy of a Powerful Performance!

The Ironman: Testing your mettle is mental

An interview with Matt Smith about breakthrough results

The Rocky Mountain Triathlon Club (RMTC) is an inspiring, focused, energetic group and I’ve had the pleasure of working with several members individually. I must say that I really enjoy their intensity and good spirits. All that aerobic exercise and endorphins show up in their positive energy! As any elite athlete will tell you, when it comes down to it, it’s the mental aspects that will take you to your highest levels of success.

Matt Smith, president of RMTC, and I did two sessions of EFT before his 2009 Ironman Triathlon in Hawaii. As Matt says below in our interview, “It’s all mental at the end of an Ironman!” We talked by phone June 18, 2010, and here’s some of what he had to say about his experience.

Matt: I had a really bad race before the Ironman. I pushed too hard, had high expectations, and I let my sponsors down.

Bernadette: In the world of EFT, we have four main aspects here to get to “zero.”
- The disappointment
- Possible guilt about disappointing sponsors
- Feeling a sense of failure
- Figuring out how to recover from this and feel able to set strong expectations for Ironman.
Remember, “emotional freedom” on a cellular level in the body — erasing all leftover chemicals of guilt, disappointment, failure, expectation — frees the body to be its most relaxed and able to perform physiologically.

Matt: With the Ironman in Hawaii, I had a lot of worry about not being able to finish the race. There’s such mental and physical exhaustion with the heat issues. In the two EFT sessions with [Bernadette], I was able to erase the thought that I couldn’t finish that long a race. I feared the environment would take me away; my imagined feeling of my legs just melting and melting while I ran turned into them feeling very strong and confident. I felt 100% physically better about the race and even though it was 100 degrees, I clocked my best time ever!

I was able to pull ahead of two other guys my age in the last two miles. All mental. It’s all mental at the end of an Ironman! You have NO gas left at that point!

Specific results – tidbits from Matt

Matt: After the first EFT session, I shaved 10 minutes off my time. I was the third athlete across the finish line. I beat professional athletes I look up to. I never got into a bad place in my head. [Bernadette] and I worked on my feeling strong, confident, being in it for fun, not for the win. I smiled the whole time I was in the race! Felt solid and confident the whole time. I attribute this to strong training and getting rid of the thought that I had to perform.

Bernadette: Pressure to perform is a killer!

After the second EFT session, Matt cut over 15 minutes off his Ironman PR (Personal Record) and was 13th overall in the world at the distance. Most importantly, Matt says, "I had the emotional gas tank to keep going the whole way."

The Secret Benefits of Changing your Mind ----- EFT Tapping Protocol included for Golf

I’ve been accused by friends of changing my mind a lot. It’s true - I do. Many want me to make one decision and then stay with it – no matter what. . . no matter if I have more information or acquire an additional perspective on the matter. I always reserve the right to change my mind.

So my golfer client Sam, with a 5 handicap, comes to me and says, “I never do well on the first three holes of league or tournaments. It’s just always that way.” Well, that’s quite a belief – his mind seems to be made up! It’s easy to use EFT on this.

If you're unfamiliar with EFT, you can access a free manual from EFT founder, Gary Craig, by clicking here. Simply choose the middle choice of "free EFT Manual."

Now - onto tapping protocol for Sam --

Say the following sentences while tapping on the karate chop point:
Karate Chop:
• Even though I never do well on the first three holes, I deeply & completely accept myself (I can’t stress how important this acceptance pairing is, even if it sounds corny to you!)- many of us beat ourselves up in some way for doing or being “bad”, being less than perfect . . .
• Even though I’ll never do well on the first three holes and I might as well accept this fact, I deeply & completely accept myself (using hyperbole can be a very useful tool)
• Even though it would be more fun to do well on the first three holes, I just can’t and I never do – but I deeply & completely accept myself anyway.

Now start at each tapping point on the face, beginning with the inside of eye:

Inside of Eye: Not doing well on the first three holes
Outside of Eye: I never do well on the first three holes
Under Eye: It’s just not possible for me – just for others
Under Nose: What if I could do well on the first three holes?
Collarbone: I might be able to do well; why not?
Under Arm: No, not me. I never do well on the first three holes.
Top of Head: Maybe someday I'll do well on the first three holes.

Back to karate chop:
. Even though I haven't done well on the first three holes in the past, I deeply and completely accept myself
. Even though it's entirely possible for me to do well - I have all the strokes, I deeply and completely accept myself
. Even though I might just do well, or I might not - I really don't know, I deeply and completely accept myself either way!

Inside Eye: It may be possible to do well on the first three holes
Outside Eye: I have the strokes - I may do well, I may not
Under Eye: No, not me - I enjoy predicting my future of not doing well!
Under Nose: Hmm, interesting. I know I can do well
Collarbone: I might just be able to do well
Under Arm: I can imagine doing well on the first three holes
Top of Head: I can feel how it feels to do well on each of the first three holes, one stroke at a time!

As EFT works its magic in the brain and the cell receptor sites, the secret benefits of changing neurons changing your mind become apparent. The muscles, tendons, ligaments, fascia . . . everything relaxes. Sam plays his league and reports improvement - he had 2 birdies and a par on the first three holes. He’s pleased! So am I! I love those secret benefits of “changing your mind!”

Try changing your mind on any endeavor where you feel yourself attracting the negative. EFT is a powerful tool for doing so.

“Think of every thought you have as a footprint in the brain. Sooner or later, with enough repeated steps, there is going to be a path and then a rut. The rut will continue to deepen until you begin to become conscious and pay attention to your steps (an awareness of your moment-to-moment thoughts). The good news is, you can teach an old dog new tricks, provided you are willing to take the dog walking down a new path.” - Tim Kremer, Spirit of Golf, LLC

Peak Performance: Emotional Fitness and Emotional Energy

In sports psychology, peak performance includes many components: physical fitness, emotional skills and mental focus are among the top.

I often think emotional skills are treated as the too-distant cousin at the wedding of physical fitness and mental skills. Everyone talks about the physical and mental aspects of performance. I used to be a Wellness Director at a University, and the administration thought that by simply offering fitness classes we could keep the faculty and staff happy. What people needed was a sense of being valued, a feeling that they were cared for by the administration, they wanted some "feeling" kinds of things. I know this because they told me. In my consulting room with athletes, what is it every single client brings up? -- their distressing feelings about their performance, sometimes feelings about their coach and undue pressure, or feelings about their inability to do what they absolutely know they have the talent to do.

I know - the world of emotional healing is my deal. I've been doing this work for 23 years. You could imagine that I'm the one that elicits them talking about emotional ability or their present lack of it. But it's not how it happens. They just start expressing their distress to me from the minute they sit down.

I just worked with a very talented gymnast. She's on full scholarship at a very prestigious east coast university. She's the one on the team given the hardest skills to perform. Level E skills are what Olympic gymnasts perform, which she is not. You can't go any higher in difficulty. This one particular move, the Yaeger, is really tough. She's done it well she estimates 50 or more times. But over her sophomore year she has struggled big time to complete it successfully. This is a move that, when not completed well, finds you flat on your belly on the mat from the high bar of the uneven parallel bars. Ouch! It hurts physically, and drains your energy, not to mention your confidence.

What's the emotional side of her sports performance problems? There is the intense desire to please an unpleasable coach, the fear instilled by the coach threatening to take her scholarship away, the fear of disappointing her parents . . .there are a lot of things going on. It's hard for a young junior in college who has always been the darling of the gymnastics world and had supportive and encouraging coaches to now be living for over 4 hours every day with a coach who uses threats and lack of encouragement as a method of coaching. Combine that with this young athlete's mechanism of working to please people her whole life and you have a situation that spells disaster for her ability to perform what she could normally perfom very well. These emotions of fear, lack of self confidence, worry, needing to please or else "I am not worthwhile," feeling "I'm never good enough" (very easy for a gymnast to feel) are creating havoc for this talented, dedicated, very hard working athlete. She said to me with tears in her eyes, " I'm just not enjoying this; I'm not having fun. And I love gymnastics."

Here is what Jim Loehr and Tony Schwartz ( The Power of Full Engagement, page 72) say about the role of emotions in peak performance for athletes (or anyone).

In order to perform at our best we must access pleasant and positive emotions: enjoyment, challenge, adventure and opportunity. Emotions that arise out of threat or deficit -- fear, frustration, anger, sadness -- have a decidedly toxic feel to them and are associated with the release of specific stress hormones, most notably cortisol. From our perspective, emotional intelligence is simply the capacity to manage emotions skillfully in the service of high positive energy and full engagement. In practical terms, the key “muscles” or competencies that fuel positive emotions are self-confidence, self-control (self-regulation), social skills (interpersonal effectiveness) and empathy. Smaller, supportive “muscles” include patience, openness, trust and enjoyment.

Please don't ever sell short the importance of emotional healing, emotional energy, and emotional skills when it comes to sports psychology and peak performance for athletes. It is woven into every thread of the fabric of a talented athlete being successful, having a long career, and feeling their sport has developed them intrapersonally and interpersonally. My hat goes off to every competitive athlete. I am honored and thankful to work with them.

Conquering Stage Fright for Musicians with Emotional Freedom Technique

Stage fright is a special challenge for musicians and singers, as well as others who perform in front of audiences. There are a wide range of challenges, from simple jitters to debilitating stage fright.

There is plenty to worry about: dry mouth and shaking hands to begin with. And what about that difficult passage, what about forgetting entire passages, what about hitting the high notes? And what happens if we have to deal with all of these worries in the context of an important singing or instrumental audition? Or if we’re playing or singing before musicians with intimidating credentials? There is a method that can erase these blocks so you can shine with your peak performance.

When stage fright hits, fear grips our muscles, tendons and ligaments - and music cannot flow when the body tightens What’s driving that physical response and fueling that fear are our anxious thoughts and inner beliefs, many of which we don’t even know we have, since over 95% of our thoughts are unconscious.

We remember past failures (“I know I’ll blow this again”) and wonder about our talents and capabilities; in the middle of a song or a sonata, we realize that we may be rejected; or we may never get to the stage because we believe we have to be flawless and impress others in order to even perform.

And have I mentioned the fear of success?

All in all, this can be a lot to deal with.

Music teachers carefully prepare their students musically. Most have heard their students perform seamlessly in practice sessions, yet continue to watch some of them botch their performances because of anxieties they feel powerless to conquer.

One remedy that is becoming widely used among performers is Emotional Freedom Technique - EFT. Emotional Freedom Technique was introduced in 1995 by Gary Craig, a Stanford educated engineer who was struck by psychological research showing that, despite treatment, people with performance anxiety did not show significant improvement.

Based on the ancient principles of acupuncture, EFT is a simple tapping procedure that gently realigns the body’s energy system. The process is easy to learn and excellent results have been documented by people all over the world. ( see www.emofree.com and additional resources on my website; www.powerful-performance.com)

Conventional approaches tend to focus on one’s memories or other mental processes only, ignoring the body’s energy system. The premise behind EFT is that the cause of all negative emotions is a disruption in the body’s energy system. When a pianist, for example, entertains thoughts such as “I don’t know this song well enough,” or “I always get nervous before competitions,” the negative thought starts a series of reactions. Chemicals from the hypothalamus flood into the cells and these chemicals are experienced as emotions - fear, self-doubt and the like. The resulting muscle tension interferes with the musician’s ability to perform.

There are a myriad of physical results from limiting beliefs that powerfully affect the beauty and strength of one’s sound. This is easy to see in symptoms like “butterflies” in the stomach, sweaty palms, the throat becoming dry, fingers getting tense and anxiety creating memory lapses. Our conscious and unconscious thoughts create a powerful biological dynamic, determining whether a performance soars, is “good enough” or just plain goes south.

With EFT treatment, the musician focuses on the negative thought or emotion while simultaneously tapping on basic acupuncture points on the face, collarbone, under arm and wrists. This stimulation is paired with having the client mentally engage a troubling feeling, thought, or image. When a person thinks about a troubling situation, brain-imaging techniques reveal that signals are sent to various regions of the brain. The signals sent by tapping energy points on the skin, and the signals generated by engaging a mental problem, interact in a manner that reduces and eliminates symptoms.

In preparation for her New York City audition, my client, a very talented opera singer, used EFT to clear the paralysis that had always kept her from practicing before important auditions. Tapping on specific points ( see “How does EFT work” on www.powerful-performance.com) while focusing on the negative statements she was telling herself about practicing, created a significant shift in her mental outlook about practicing. After applying EFT she awoke to a day of easy and productive practicing, something she had not been able to accomplish for over a week. “I wanted to sing! . . . the act of practicing felt natural and easy!”

A little tweaking of our thought processes makes a vast difference in how we bring our music out into the world. Emotional Freedom Technique has proven to be a highly effective tool for erasing performers’ self doubt and physical tensions while tapping into their most superior talents. Let the music begin!