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Here is some more "food for thought" which I am sending out in the months between my regular In The SpotLight newsletters. These are excerpts taken from past newsletters I have written that still have much relevance today.
Enjoy!
Janet
Past newsletters are archived at www.performanceanxiety.com/newsletter_main.htm.
  "I live in the space of thankfulness and I have been rewarded a million times over for it...That's because what you focus on expands, and when you focus on the goodness in your life, you create more of it." Oprah Winfrey
Training Our Minds I just completed another rewarding Getting Over Stage Fright Workshop last month with a very wonderful group of people. I am always amazed at the progress people are able to make over the weekend with the strong support and camaraderie of the group. It is truly an amazing process to watch how caring and supportive people can be toward one another when they share a deep mutual understanding of the feelings and experiences in dealing with this fear. While each person has his or her own particular experience with this fear, there is so much that people share in common and it provides much solace to know that we truly are not alone with this challenge. At times we have performers in the group in addition to those coming in to deal with speaking anxiety, and at this workshop we had someone in the group who has had performance anxiety related to playing the piano (and we had the pleasure of getting to listen to some very beautiful music as a bonus)! Once again, it is amazing to see how much overlap there is between people who have speaking anxiety and those who fear performing in other arenas, such as musicians and singers, and to also see how the methods we review apply equally well to all. One of the things that came up over and over again during the weekend is the need to train our minds to focus on positive thought patterns that serve and support us rather than negative thought patterns that undermine us. It is quite common to fall into the trap of having conditioned, automatic negative thoughts (sometimes referred to as ANTS) which trigger strong emotional reactivity and feed feelings of anxiety, fear, and self-doubt. It is very important to become aware of these tendencies and to learn to identify when this is happening so you can pause, notice your self-defeating beliefs, thoughts, and images, and consciously choose to change direction. I have often used the phrase, "My mind is my ally" as a cue phrase to remind me that my mind needs to support me and encourage me rather than thwart me. It is up to me to train my mind to go in the direction I want it to go in, rather than let it go wherever it feels like going or where it is used to going based on past conditioning. The key is to become conscious and aware when you are beginning to get caught in the web of self-defeating thinking and to redirect your mind as soon as possible. It is important to hold a positive attitude about your increasing self-awareness rather than feeling frustration with yourself over the tendency towards these self-defeating thought patterns. I have often shared an analogy of how planes get to their destinations. I have heard and read a number of times that planes are often off-course as they attempt to reach their destination. The way they arrive at their final destination is through a continual process of self-correction, where the instrumentation allows them to get back on-course over and over and over again, finally arriving where they set out to go. This is a very similar process - our minds will often be "off course" in how we are thinking about and responding to this challenge, reverting back to our conditioned negative, self-defeating patterns. The more aware we become that we are off-course and going down a path that does not serve us, the more quickly we can self-correct and get ourselves back on-course in thinking and responding in more positive and supportive ways. Our thoughts have a huge impact on how we feel, so the more we train our minds to focus on things that serve us and support our feelings of safety, trust, and confidence, the more we will create feelings that allow us to feel more comfortable within ourselves and more ready to face our challenges. One way to work on training our mind is to consider the continuum of thoughts and feelings from the most negative to the most positive along the continuum. If you are in a negative mindset over speaking or performing (or something else in your life), see if you can "inch your way up" the continuum by thinking about one thought that would provide some relief from your current negative thoughts and feelings that is slightly better than how you are thinking and feeling about it right now. Then, "inch your way up" some more by thinking of another thought that helps to provide just a bit more relief and continue with this process until you start to feel a bit better (and keep going further if you would like until you are feeling much better). We can't expect ourselves to go from a very negative mindset to feeling really good in one fell swoop, so it helps to "inch our way up", little by little, as the mind adjusts to small, incremental changes in how we think and respond to something that is agitating and upsetting us. ` Please consider my Getting Over Stage Fright workshop and/or some personal coaching if you would like my support and guidance in learning how to transform this fear.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Please pass this newsletter along to anyone who may benefit from it, but please be sure to keep it intact. If you do not wish to continue receiving this newsletter or any other announcements, simply respond to this email with the word "Unsubscribe" in the subject line and your name will immediately be taken off of our mailing list. If you have any difficulty reading this HTML formatted newsletter, please let us know. Email webmaster@performanceanxiety.com. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Janet Esposito, M.S.W. In The Spotlight PO Box 494 Bridgewater, CT06752 860-210-1499 jesposito@performanceanxiety.com www.performanceanxiety.com Copyright 2011, Janet E. Esposito, All Rights Reserved | 
