Cognitive Hypnotherapy

Guest post by Christina Cooper

You’ve tried every tool and technique from every book you’ve ever read, taken advice from teachers, colleagues, friends, and even tried to find your own ways of dealing with nerves. Still, you find yourself frustrated every time it comes to performance. Isn’t it soul-destroying when you spend so much time and effort practising and securing a piece at home, only to find that as soon as the pressure is there, the nerves creep in and the mistakes crop up?

Over the years, on countless occasions my piano pupils have shown visible frustration when they find that they can’t play to me what they’d played fluently at home. ‘I had it perfect at home!’ they exclaim – just in case I try to scold them for thinking they haven’t done any practice. I feel their pain; I used to say the same to my teachers, too.

I have experienced performance anxiety from many different angles. In doing so, I have identified common patterns in how pianists and other musicians approach their problem which could be preventing them from making the changes they want to make. These limiting patterns of thinking and behaviour could be what are stopping you too, from playing more often with the confidence, flow and ease – qualities which are intrinsic to everyone.

So, if you have thrown everything at your performance anxiety but are still feeling perplexed, frustrated or demoralised, then here are 5 likely reasons why you haven’t yet got the upper hand on your performance nerves:

1. You Believe That Nerves Are Something You Just Need To ‘Get Over’

This is one of the biggest myths in the whole of the performance world. Yes, nerves (or adrenaline as it is objectively known) are normal and highly conducive to performance. But only the right level of nerves. If your nerves are making you shake like a leaf, feel very sick or take over your ability to play well, then it is not enough to say ‘deal with it.’ That level of nerves is not normal and there are likely to be good reasons why you experience them in such an overwhelming way. They may stem from past experiences which shaped your behavioural and thought patterns.

Often it is the case that performance anxiety has a specific root in a childhood event which caused significant emotional distress, such as being forced on stage when you didn’t feel confident. It can even be that something seemingly unrelated to performance triggered a limiting belief about yourself which is still with you today.

These negative patterns become entrenched in your subconscious mind. If you consciously try to tell yourself that you are silly to feel nervous or beat yourself up about it, then it will not help. The physical nerves you feel are an automatic response to a particular stimulus. You make meaning out of how you are feeling when you get nervous, and it then seems as if you are afraid of the experience of performing, when in actual case, you are simply experiencing the outdated trigger from childhood.

None of this happens consciously, so trying to rationalise any of it with your conscious mind will only cause the anxiety to strengthen. Instead, subconscious work can be done with a trained professional in a modality such as hypnotherapy, to find the root cause and rewire those negative patterns of thought and behaviour.

2. You Try To Fight Your Anxiety Or Push It Away

Anxiety will always have a subconscious trigger. If you try to fight it or push it away, the feeling will get stronger. This is because the primary role of your subconscious is to protect you. If it believes you are in a threatening situation – i.e. performing, then it will do everything it can to protect you from it. This is called the stress response, and is the fight, flight or freeze reaction you might experience when you get really nervous on stage.

You might ask, ‘why do I feel afraid even though I know it’s not a rational fear?’ Well that fear of making mistakes or being judged is actually a very primal fear. It is an evolutionary response from the times of tribespeople where social rejection means you may be cast out of the tribe, and potentially die because of it.

The nerves you feel on stage (the stress response) is wired to make you take action, so if you try to talk yourself out of it or push it away it will come back even stronger. It is trying to get you out of danger! A better response would be to welcome it and instead focus on the useful properties of that adrenaline. This is easier said than done, I know – which leads me nicely onto the next issue…

3. You Believe That Feeling Nervous Means That You Are Nervous

‘Hold on a second!’ I hear you exclaim. Before you think I’m crazy, please hear me out with this one. What we feel in any given moment is influenced by many different factors. Yet what we feel, is a result of the meaning we give that feeling.

Everything we experience in the world is always our brain’s best guess. Notice the butterflies you might feel in your stomach when you’re nervous. Do you get the same feeling of butterflies in your stomach when you are excited, too? Perhaps you call it something else, but it’s the same feeling. Scientifically speaking, the physiology of nerves and excitement is exactly the same. How do you know when you are nervous, and when you are excited then? Well that’s entirely down to context.

The feeling you experience in your stomach may be excitement in one context and nerves in the other, but it is the result of the same chemical – adrenaline. You only know how to experience that adrenaline based on the context of your experience. So if you are at the airport waiting to go on holiday, you may feel excited. If you are waiting to go on stage to perform piano, you may automatically recognise that adrenaline as nerves.

How is it then that you think you are nervous? Maybe you’re telling yourself that you haven’t prepared enough, that you’re going to make mistakes, that you’re not a very accomplished pianist – all of these are just best guesses. The fact that you make meaning out of your experience like this only serves to strengthen those thoughts which make the feeling stronger, and so you become caught in the negative loop.

Instead, try simply observing your feeling of ‘nerves.’ Take a step back, tell yourself that it doesn’t mean anything about how prepared you are, your ability as a pianist, or even the fact that you are even nervous. There is a wonderful theory which the neuroscientist Dr Jill Bolte Taylor calls the ’90 second rule.’ It states that emotions in their chemical form take just 90 seconds to course through the body and dissipate. Using this time to feel the fear at full strength gives your body the chance to process it without holding onto it. After that, if the feeling is still there it is because you are holding onto it psychologically.

So take some deep breaths to allow this process to happen naturally. If you do this without giving meaning to the fear then it becomes less important to your conscious mind, and it should start to subside. It feels scary, but it will dissipate.

4. You believe that you’re too shy, anxious, or lacking in confidence, and therefore not a natural performer

In discussions I’ve had with countless performing artists and those who work with artists, the general consensus is that some people are more susceptible to nerves and anxiety than others. People tend to relate shyness or nervous disposition to performance anxiety. However, one problem in making this assumption is that there aren’t causal links in the way we might imagine. There are many shy performers who completely open up on stage, and other seemingly confident performers who are consumed by nerves. So how is that the case?

For one thing, anxiety, or any other psychological issue is entirely context-dependent. There are many amateur pianists for example, who are great at public speaking but crumble on the concert platform. Both are performances, but the context is different.

The second thing to note is that shyness, low confidence and anxiety are not personality traits, nor are they fixed flaws. They are patterns of behaviour which may have become habitual, but which are reprogrammable. Yes, some people might have a genetic predisposition for anxiety, but environment largely dictates whether those genes become activated.

Personality is entirely fluid, and ever-changing. You are definitely not the same person today that you were when you were little. Question the belief that you are naturally shy, anxious or lacking in confidence, and you may start to notice that it’s a subconscious belief with firm roots in childhood.

5. You try to ‘manage’ your problem, using tools, techniques and coping strategies

Most people talk about ‘coping with’ and ‘managing’ performance anxiety without realising that it requires a different approach. The whole context of the situation needs to be taken into account. Nerves (or adrenaline) are a natural part of performance and it is our subconscious response to those nerves and our habitual patterns of thought and behaviour which need addressing.

Using tools and techniques to manage anxiety is a bit like building on weak foundations. You can build all you want but the cracks will just reappear. Instead, work needs to happen at a deeper foundational level to create a solid structure which can more easily weather the storms.

A key part of that foundational work is in addressing the root cause of your anxiety. Work should be done with a professional trained in hypnotherapy or other modality. Once the root has been addressed, work can be done to change your perception of adrenaline and fear, and on redefining your beliefs about who you are. With a solid grounding, those tools and techniques you were using before become much more effective, because you have reprogrammed your subconscious response to fear and anxiety.

The message I want you to take away from this article is that performance anxiety is not something you should just put up with. There is a reason you are experiencing it, and there is a way to free yourself from its shackles.

I have created a bespoke hypnosis download which is designed to kickstart the foundational work and help to rewire some of your negative pathways. So if you want to get out of your head and into flow, click here to start your journey.

Christina Cooper is running a Transformational Retreat for Pianists at Finchcocks in Kent from April 25-29, with pianist Niklos Stavlas and chef/coach Emma Broome. Further information and booking here

I invite you to step out of your busy and stressful life, and join an intimate group of pianists in the Kent countryside. Learn how to tune out of the noise of your inner critic, to play piano with greater freedom and ease. Reconnect with your passion, with fellow pianists and with yourself. Experience more confidence in yourself and your abilities as a pianist. Experience inner peace and the freedom to just be you.

Christina Cooper is a performance coach, cognitive hypnotherapist, pianist and speaker, specialising in helping performing artists with performance anxiety. She runs retreats, coaches groups and individuals, and give talks and workshops around the globe in performance anxiety and all aspects of the psychology of performance. She is currently in the process of writing her first book: ‘It’s Not About The Stage fright – how to flip the coin from fear to flow,’ – aimed at helping performing artists in all disciplines.

She holds a diploma in Cognitive Hypnotherapy and Master Practitioner of NLP from the Quest Institute. As a pianist (LTCL) she performs regularly in venues across London, as well as teaching piano to adults and children of all levels. She studied double bass at the Royal Academy of Music and The Juilliard School (BMus LRAM), and has performed in many different orchestras and ensembles such as the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic Orchestra, Opera North, English Chamber Orchestra, English National Ballet and English Touring Opera.

www.christina-cooper.com

https://www.facebook.com/ChristinaCooperCoaching/

https://www.facebook.com/groups/PianoFlowZone/

@CHarmonycoach

www.linkedin.com/in/christina-cooper-680ab1136

Guest post by Christina Cooper

From the moment that I started playing, my heightened adrenaline had perceived ‘allegro con fuoco’ to mean ‘presto,’ almost without my permission. Almost immediately, the running thread of demi-semiquavers which underpin the melody throughout the entire piece threatened to unravel like a stitch that had been picked open. The panic inside my head was immense. I was picturing the whole thing falling apart and me running offstage in floods of tears, feeling like a complete failure. All this was happening whilst my fingers continued to hammer out those demi-semis like a runaway train. My subconscious was holding me hostage, and I had no conscious control of what I was doing. I just had to surrender to my unconscious mind whilst in a constant state of total panic, fearing the worst at any point.

On of the reasons peformance anxiety hits so hard is because it threatens our identity. Are you more likely to say to somebody: ‘I play piano,’ or ‘I am a pianist?’ Certainly professionals will likely say the latter, and perhaps many amateurs too. Being a musician is something which becomes so bound up in your identity, especially if you choose to make a career out of it. We are all programmed to give ourselves an identity which often sums up our greatest purpose in life, whether as a lawyer, cleaner, tennis payer, housewife, banker, artist, musician, or other profession. So when we perform, we are not just playing our instrument, but being our instrument. When we perform we put our whole identity out there to be scrutinised. If we perform well, we might receive praise and money; if we do badly we may be criticised and may not be booked again. This can leave you feeling worthless, as though you have been rejected as a person, not just for your playing. Add to this, the social pressures of playing in orchestras and ensembles; whether you bought the teas for your section, whether you drank with your section, whether you asked too many questions in rehearsals, whether you showed too much personality, and the recipe for performance anxiety based on identity becomes magnified. Paradoxically, if you are an orchestral player, you have to lose your sense of identity in order to fit in, but in lots of ways it is your identity which you feel is being judged above everything else.

If you look hard, as I did, you might find some resources around which aim to help musicians to overcome their anxiety, and while these may work well for some, for others they merely take the edge off the nerves. For years none of these worked for me at all, until I stumbled across something called Cognitive Hypnotherapy. Within 6 months my performance anxiety was gone. I realised that this method is truly life-changing, and I decided to train in it. I now have my own therapy business in Performance Coaching for musicians, to help them to overcome their performance anxiety.

At the heart of Cognitive Hypnotherapy is the understanding that we are all different, and we each have our own model of the world which is completely unique to us. Another key element recognises that the functioning of our brain is far simpler than we think. What this means is that the reason for our performance anxiety could be linked back to one ‘small’ event which most likely happened early on in our childhood, such as having to stand up and sing in front of the class, and feeling humiliated when we couldn’t do it well. The key here is that as a child, it will have been a significant emotional event, as our thinking at this age is nominal: we only know whether something is good or bad. Our subconscious mind then documents this event, and looks for consequent events which may be similar, and tries to prevent us from making the same mistake again. So the more we perform, the more likely we are to have bad performances because the subconscious desperately tries to get us out of the situation by pumping adrenaline through our body. The more often we experience this the more our brain will then compute that ‘when I perform I will play badly’ and over time this leads to ‘I am a bad performer/pianist/violinist/musician, or ‘I cannot play without nerves,’ and consequently the anxiety often gets worse over time.

As a Cognitive Hypnotherapist I find that often at the core of a musician’s performance anxiety is a sense of low self-esteem. This is not surprising, due to the rigours of training from an early age, and always being told you can do better, being up against constant competition, being a perfectionist and always comparing yourself to others. Often it can develop from a demanding parent or teacher, making you believe that what you do is never good enough. Of course this then often becomes linked to your identity and not being good enough as a person.

In therapy, I connect with your model of the world and use this to speak directly to your subconscious in a special language it understands. This communication is incredibly powerful, and because the brain is plastic, it will respond by literally rewiring itself. In combination with specific techniques which incorporate neuroscience, CBT, traditional hypnotherapy, NLP, positive psychology and many other therapeutic/scientific fields, we work to reprogram your brain’s faulty wiring, create new positive pathways and reframe the negative to positive. The astounding thing about this is potentially how quickly this can happen. Sometimes in as little as 3 sessions, and certainly by 6, it is possible to make huge changes in relation to your performance anxiety, within the space of about 3-6 months. We aim to either overcome it completely, or reach a level which is manageable, and this entirely depends on the outcome you want. So to all my fellow musicians out there, I think I might know what you are going through, and if you need my help, please get in touch. You are far greater than your anxiety.

Christina Cooper is a cognitive hypnotherapist, and runs her own performance coaching practice based in Clerkenwell, Central London. Her therapy practice, Cognitive Harmony, specialises in helping musicians with performance anxiety. Alongside this she teaches piano and double bass privately in South-East London. She began her career as a professional orchestral double bass player, having studied at the Royal Academy of Music, and the Juilliard School in New York. During her freelance career she performed with many orchestras, including the London Philharmonic Orchestra, Philharmonia, Royal Liverpool Philharmonic, English Chamber Orchestra, Opera North, English Touring Opera, English National Ballet and St.Petersburg Ballet. She recently hung up her bow to develop another burning passion in her life, the piano, and her second calling in life, to become a therapist. As a pianist, she has recently gained her LTCL in piano performance from Trinity College of Music, and performs regularly as a solo pianist in venues across London, including Southwark Cathedral, St.Paul’s Covent Garden, Citylit, and the 1901 Arts Club Waterloo.