How to Manage Pre-Performance Nerves & Stage Fright 😮💨
I am not exaggerating when I tell you that nerves and stage fright nearly ended my music career.
I was an absolute mess in my teens and my twenties before all auditions and performances.
It was so bad that I was honestly a total a** hole for the whole two weeks before performances. I would cancel gigs and not show up for auditions. People thought I was a total flake. I thought I was a total flake.
And the truth is that my nervous system was just totally disregulated.
My body perceived performing as a threat. I was bullied a lot in grade school and middle school. And in 8th grade, I was given a solo in a school performance. I remember the kids laughing at me and my voice, taunting me and asking me “Why is your voice so loud?” “Why does your voice shake like that?”
Being 12, I didn’t realize that my big voice and pronounced vibrato would make Opera a perfect genre for me.
Instead, I felt shame and embarrassment about my “weird” voice and simply stopped singing. I simply believed that I could not sing, that I was not a singer. Fast forward to senior year of college when I bravely took a voice class to only have the teacher ask me if I had ever considered opera. What?? But I wasn’t a “singer"”
So, throughout my twenties, as I pursued a career in opera I was fighting against my well-meaning nervous system without even knowing it. I wanted more than anything to audition and perform well, but my nervous system perceived performance as a massive threat, trying to protect me from the trauma I experienced in 7th grade.
Often before auditions or performances, my nervous system would go into flight (canceling auditions and sometimes even performances), freeze (procrastinating), fight (being a total a** hole to family, friends, roommates (I sincerely apologize to all who’ve loved me and were with me at that time! : D)
Does any of this sound familiar?
There was nothing wrong with me! I just didn’t understand how my nervous system played such an important role in my ability to sing and perform. And there is nothing wrong with you!!
When you learn to manage your breath, you can learn to regulate your nervous system & therefore let your body know that it is safe to do scary things!!!
This is how I overcome debilitating pre-performance nerves and stage fright, and this is how I am helping others to overcome theirs!!