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Singing’s all about showing our feelings, and risking being vulnerable in front of others. And it only works when we’re truthful about those feelings. So there’s an obvious catch 22 here. We need to be vulnerable to move an audience, and that’s often the thing we’re often most scared of.
- Allow vulnerability and risk being truthful onstage; courage starts with feeling the fear and performing anyway.
- Gently negotiate with the ego: move attention to the heart, breathe, and create a safe, grounded space to perform.
- Practice consistently, connect with diaphragm and sacral center, and treat mistakes as learning steps toward authentic connection.
- Perform for yourself first; be a channel, stay present, and let the moment — not ego — guide truthful expression.
The courage has to come from us, initially. “Feel the fear and do it anyway”. “Letting yourself suck” (as in, not taking it all so seriously), and trusting your intuition to guide you through.
Being a really great singer, which means a true communicator and story teller, takes a lot of practice and commitment if you’re starting from scratch.
You have to really want to do it, and be prepared to succeed and fail many times along the way. But it’s all worth it for those times you truly connect, truly commit.
In essence, you’re bringing a room together. In these times when people can be so separated from each other as we stare at our devices, bringing a room together creates a feeling of community, however brief. And we all need that, however much the ego tells us it’s not important:)
If you reach a place of mastery, that’s when it gets really fun. I’m not saying I’m a master, but I’ve had glimpses of it, and it feels wonderful.
The best results are created when you come from a true place when performing, whilst observing what you’re doing at the same time.
Which means, trusting yourself and your choices. You know you can choose whatever emotion you want to, and this feeling is something that’s just moving through us and is gone, so in some way, isn’t us at all. In other words, not holding on to the performance. We sing it, express the emotion, then let it go, ready for the next one.
The ego, however, hates all this stuff. It hates being in the moment. That brings freedom and that’s risky:) It hates us getting out of our own way – where’s the safety in that? It wants us to stay stuck in the head. And wants to talk us out of getting out of our comfort zones/into the body in any way, shape or form.
It’s also always looking to the future, telling us it’s looking out for our safety, which ultimately makes for a safe, stuck, small performance.
But, these types of reactions are normal, everyone has them, and we face these types of challenges every day. They’re simply heightened when performing. We might mess up in any number of ways, and that’s potentially terrifying.
Be gentle with yourself
So we should be gentle with ourselves when we approach singing, even though the fear that comes up can be overwhelming.
Overcoming it is a process, and denying it merely makes it worse. You can’t order the ego to do anything, it’ll just double down, in my experience.
We need to bide our time, all the while gently suggesting a new way. “I know we used to be completely overwhelmed by the fear of performing, but how about taking a derp breath now, and taking the attention down to the heart. How about feeling the ground beneath our feet, ego. How about taking another deep breath and feeling like we’re in a protective bubble. See, it’s not so bad. We’re safe, you don’t have to panic to protect me. I got your back, we’re safe. Let’s take this one moment at a time…”
Ego vs Spirit
In this way, you move from ego into spirit and take charge. Try taking your attention down to the heart as you breathe in to sing, and notice the difference.
In this way, you’re creating your own boundaries.
When we’re in our spirit, our source energy, we know it. We don’t take the experience so seriously, we don’t take ourselves so seriously, we allow ourselves to fail, and we simply show up for the experience.
We might continually tense up and have to talk ourselves down, but if we’re clear about what we want to achieve, the space to get into (simply being in the heart, no thought, just showing up for the experience), we will get there.
Our ego tells us that we’re trying to be the center of attention and “showing off”; we’ve no right to be there, and that everyone else is judging us in some way or other. That may well be true:) So what? Ultimately, we’re not doing it for them. Yes, most people want to be entertaining and be loved, to be the star of their own film.
And the fear that they might fail at that, and then have to deal with said failure, can once again be overwhelming.
We’re doing it for ourselves
But the real truth is, with singing, we’re ultimately doing it for ourselves. We’re in our bodies, enjoying communicating with ourselves.
We’re also exercising the diaphragm, which is usually tense and mangled up, because of all the controlling we’re ‘having’ to do in our daily lives, and it feels so great to let go and simply enjoy it, take it our for a spin and let our feelings flow freely (much easier to write than to say:)
When we sing from a relaxed, connected diaphragm it just feels great.
Trust yourself
At this point, we trust ourselves and our intuition, our bodies and minds working together. It feels effortless. We laugh off the mistakes, noting the places in the song we messed up in, so that we can go back at a different time and work on that part (away from the song) until we have that part right.
So, to recap, we have to fake it till we make it. Allow our selves to be the center of attention. Strong, yet vulnerable.
It’s not narcissism, but self respect. If it is coming from narcissism, you’ll know because the audience’s reaction will be weak, they will be turned off. Your performance won’t move them, and you’ll feel that something is wrong.
When we really connect, we’ve gotten out of our own way, expressing our true inner selves.
And by so doing, we’re simply being a channel.
And when you do this, YOU’RE BEING BRAVE, A WARRIOR. KNOW THAT FOR YOURSELF! But a gentle warrior, in that you’re strong, yet allowing yourself to be vulnerable.
So we owe it to ourselves to work towards being “centered”, and if that’s hard to find, to know that finding it is a process.
Do nothing
The first thing is to know that you don’t have do anything. Simply being is enough. Practice simply being on stage; imagining it first of all, then work towards “simply being” on stage.
Step by step
The way in is to first speak the lyrics of a song, like a poem. Very quietly, at first, from your center.
Try to find a few different ways to say them, like an actor finding the subtext. Imagine you’re different people, each with a different story speaking the lines, for example. Make them real for yourself. Feel them.
Connect with the diaphragm and sacral point through the heart, feel your inner energy, say the lines again. Then sing the song from there.
Yet again sing the song very quietly at first, very close to speaking it. Then the next time a bit louder, until you’re in full voice. Use your intuition to do this.
Obviously, do this when there’s no one else around at first, since this can be challenging, but just try and sing the song from a real place, what it really means to you, how you’ve always imagined you’d wanted to sing it. Then get used to singing from there.
Sing through your repertoire, and start to feel how it feels to go there automatically, and that it isn’t so challenging, just a learnt response.
Most often when we sing a song from a real place, as ourselves, with no frills, trusting our bodies and instincts, it works out. Allowing ourselves to just be authentic. We know how to do it, and that, intrinsically, we’ve always known how to do it.
Learn to connect with the diaphragm and sing from the sacral point (about 2 inches below the belly button, in the center of the body (the “river of energy”, as described in Level 2.
When you sing from a place of trust, with the energy centered in the heart, it all works out.
And we also know when we’re blocking, and the mind is getting in the way, and when we’re trusting, and truthfully connecting:)
And that some times you’ll feel you’ve connected , and sometimes you’ll suck, but that’s the path of the warrior. Because in truth, when creating music it’s all the moment, the here and now, and simply trying to stay in that moment. Moment after moment.
The monkey mind might take you to the other side of the Universe in a second if you mess up, but if that happens simply refocus and choose to be in the moment again, energy centered in the heart.
Related articles:
Ego vs Spirit – the old battle
Dealing with stage fright
The imagination pathway (river of energy)
Create your own singing lessons
Learning to like your voice
The high notes
The Jaw – Do’s and Don’ts
The Zen qualities of singing
Understanding your voice
Finding your pure note
Focusing the breath
Focusing the note
Good voice bad voice
How to breathe properly
How to feel rhythm
How to practice with the vocal exercises
Being in the center of a song
Being Authentic on Stage