Before I perform, there will usually be a physical, palpable knot in my stomach. A ball of tension and fear. A fear that suggests maybe it would be better to just stay home, sit in my underwear, and enjoy the comfort of being sealed within the membrane of my bedroom, where fears are less likely to rear their warty heads up from the dirt of my subconscious.

The fear is a guide. It's trying to bring my attention to some latent, illusory beliefs I've been holding but haven't addressed. When performing, the fear that emerges most often is the fear of allowing myself to be myself. What does it mean to be myself? It means to move, speak, and sing freely. To be loose and uninhibited. To be playful, light, and open to love, laughter, and the feeling of WOW. To me, this is the natural human state, but it becomes obscured by inherited fears: They won't like me. They hate me. I'm worthless. I shouldn't be this way, even though it's the way I truly wish to be. I'm unlovable. I'm a piece of shit so low that even the sphincter that squeezed me out from its sordid orbit is ashamed of me.

These beliefs that come from the voice of fear feel very real and undoubtedly have very real effects, but they are not real. They are illusions that we have inherited from family, culture, and past hurt. The structure built by these self-imprisoning illusions might seem tall and insurmountable, but it can be dismantled. We can look at its bricks, study them, and remove them one by one.

Any experience we have automatically reflects back to us the inner contents of our being. Our fears, our conscious and subconscious beliefs, the meat, bones, and blood of our heart. I know the heart doesn't have bones, but you know what I mean.We are always, automatically projecting these inner aspects onto the outside world. The notes below were written after a performance, in an attempt to observe and converse with my own mind and heart.

Tonight at Kickbutt’s open mic, my intention was this:

Be yourself!
Be free.

After the show, a woman named Amy approached me and said it seemed that I was “being myself up there”. Intentions DO come through!

When you perform
sink yourself deeply
into whatever you are doing.

FEEL it.

Then let that feeling flow
into your performance.

That is how you will bring people into the experience.

Don’t concern yourself with worries; worries about whether or not the performance is going well,
worries about whether people like it or hate it. Don’t fight these fears if they arise, but tell them that they are irrelevant and unimportant.

Good? Bad? Doesn’t matter!

Thinking about “good” and “bad” take you out of the moment, out of the art--and that’s why you’re here! The art and the joy of making it is the whole thing.

Just focus on connecting with the feeling of your music and your self in the present moment. Connect with that feeling as much as you can. Then let that come through your performance as best you can.

Whatever audience response will come will come, but it’s not your real concern. Your primary concern is to channel the music, to amplify the feeling of the music with your own energy and focus. The rest (the audience response) is up to life.

If it goes well, enjoy it.

If it goes “badly”, enjoy that, too!

____

When you are playing for a friendly, familiar audience (like friends in Seoul or Milwaukee), you feel so comfortable that it’s EASY to let yourself be yourself. Once you are in that zone, the zone in which you don’t inhibit yourself from being yourself, then the performance goes terrifically.

When you play for an unfamiliar or challenging crowd (a new venue or an audience full of old, cold-face men who seem resist to the strangeness and emotionality of your performance), you freeze, you hesitate, you doubt yourself. You stop being yourself because you’re worried about rejection.

This doesn’t need to happen!

To be afraid of strangers and rejection is totally understandable and valid, but it’s not necessary!

Being around friends makes it easier to be yourself, to be loose, to PLAY, but that state of freedom is ALWAYS accessible. You need only decide to shift your awareness to that frequency and the qualities you associate with it.

If you notice fear and inner resistance, that’s okay. That’s human. But it doesn’t mean you need to let it control you. CHOOSE to go beyond it. You don’t need to fight it or make it go away. Just choose to disregard it. As best you can, focus on the feeling that you want to experience (playfulness, openness, love, passion, free expression, etc.) and put that into your performance.

If at first it does not seem real or possible, then pretend. Act as if you are already inhabiting that feeling. By doing so, by moving, speaking, and singing as you would if you felt that feeling, you will be generating that feeling within you. In other words, by pretending you are that, you actually become that.

_____

Follow the paths that allow you to risk failure.

If it scares you and it gives you joy,
then YES,
do that.
That’s where the wonder is waiting.
That’s where your freedom can be found.

Freedom from fear doesn’t come from erasing the fear.
Freedom from fear comes from entering the fear.

On my blog, you can find more writings on art and alchemical thinking, interviews about creativity, psychologically-oriented reflections on tarot, and more. You can check out past posts in the categorized list below.

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Art
- Dec 19, 2016 Wakey Wakey, Inner Kiddo
- Dec 28, 2016 How to Make Magical Oranges
- Aug 17, 2017 Put the Potatoes on Your Face
- Sep 14, 2017 Art is a Portal
- Dec 1, 2017 Why the Tutu?
- Apr 3, 2018 Public Alchemy: Notes on Street Performance
- Jun 22, 2018 The Freedom and Fear of Being Yourself (Notes on Performance and Life)
- Jul 2, 2018 About the Folks Who Think You Stink (Notes on Performance and Life)
Interviews
- Feb 21, 2018 Artist Interview: Samantha Blumenfeld
- Mar 1, 2018 Artist Interview: Lawrence Blackman
- Apr 23, 2018 Interview: Yogi Ron Katwijk
- Jun 4, 2018 Artist Interview: Sally Nicholson
- Jul 18, 2018 Artist Interview: Kayle Karbowski
Magical Thinking
- Dec 28, 2016 How to Make Magical Oranges
- Jan 15, 2017 Following Fear
- Feb 19, 2017 Why Does Heartache Happen?
- Jul 6, 2017 Nerves and Tutus
- Aug 7, 2017 Three Reasons to Destroy Yourself (Or Not)
- Sep 14, 2017 Art is a Portal
- Dec 1, 2017 Why the Tutu?
- Jan 5, 2018 Chaos' Playground: Finding Gold in the Shitstorm
- Apr 3, 2018 Public Alchemy: Notes on Street Performance
- Apr 16, 2018 Questions for Limitations
- Jun 22, 2018 The Freedom and Fear of Being Yourself (Notes on Performance and Life)
- Jul 2, 2018 About the Folks Who Think You Stink (Notes on Performance and Life)
- Aug 23, 2018 Melting a Snowball of Misery
- Jun 21, 2019 White Peacocks, Constipation, and Emotional Liberation
- Aug 5, 2019 Celebrating Your Misery
- Dec 4, 2020 The Healing Voice: Wounds, Addiction, and Purgation
- May 18, 2023 Magick is a Sentient Entity: Using the Imagination to Co-Create with Magick
- Jun 21, 2023 Magick for Reshaping Life and Transmuting Trauma
Tarot
- Aug 26, 2017 Tarot as a Tool for Reality Construction
- Feb 28, 2018 Today's Tarot: The World is in the Seed
- Jun 27, 2019 Today's Tarot: Snot, Beauty, and Tea for Pain
- Aug 12, 2019 Today's Tarot: The Moon of Self-Loathing
- Aug 13, 2019 Today's Tarot: The Golden Devils Inside You
- Aug 18, 2019 Today's Tarot: Shifting Pain by Surrendering to It
- Aug 25, 2019 TAROT QUESTION #1: Why is the Present Moment So Much All the Time?
- Sep 3, 2019 TAROT QUESTION #2: Do abusers know they're being abusive, or is that just their sense of reality?
- Sep 25, 2019 TAROT QUESTION #3: Why can't I find more hours in a day?
- Oct 11, 2019 TAROT QUESTION #4: How long will it be until I have a new job?
- Oct 24, 2019 TAROT QUESTION #5: Why does my skin crawl with wonder and fascination as such important relationships in my life are connected by the eyes?