Day 249: Fear of exposing myself through singing

02-032013

Singing at my father's wedding in 2011.

Today I faced an interesting fear. I was spending my day on a nice, calm residential area and had no plans but to sit around reading and writing and maybe connecting with people if I got the chance to. I ended up sitting next to the local subway station and while I was watching the people flow by I realized that this would be a perfect spot and a perfect moment for street performing, which I had planned on doing during my trip if I got the chance and if I started to run out of money. I had thought about doing this a couple times before, but I had always had an excuse not to, but this time I had all the practical elements in order and so there were no excuses left not to do it.

Once the idea got to me I noticed that at first I was already about to do it – like, “alright, this would be suitable now, I'll do it”, just seeing the practicality and acting upon it - but then I was stopped by a paralyzing fear. It was not a verbalized thought that stopped me, but a feeling, something that made my heart beat really fast and hard. I am not sure what the initial starting point was for my nervousness to arise.

So I little by little physically moved myself into a position where all I had left to do was to lay down my money cup and start singing. This is where I got stuck for about a half an hour. I asked myself: What do I fear? Who am I right now? And I moved through many layers of self-awareness, where I admitted to my fears and demons and saw myself for who I was within my fears and my motivation. Eventually when I had already gone through all this I noticed that I was simply looping, repeating the same thought patterns over and over again, and I realized that all that was left to do was to actually move myself. I told myself: “I am not leaving here until I do this.” I tried to move my hand to lay down the cup but I stopped myself mid-way. I tried again with the exact same result. I then decided to move myself completely, got up from the bench, moved around a bit standing up, up and down, laid my cup down and just pushed through the resistance and started to sing – and from that moment on it was easy, things went smoothly, I enjoyed myself, others seemed to enjoy me and I/we had a lot of fun. So I had to actually change my position entirely: the sitting position I had been stuck in for a half an hour was a manifestation of my fear and hesitation and it was necessary to move myself out of it to shake off the fear.

A fucking insanely difficult threshold to cross, especially concerning by background in performance arts, but I did it! And I can actually see that from now on doing the same thing will be easier because I have already proven to myself that my fears were invalid.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear that my singing is not as good that I believe it to be and that I will embarrass myself by singing in public without a band to back me up.

• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to give authority to the experience of embarrassment by losing my stance and separating myself from myself with self-judgement when and as I have perceived and believed others to judge me.
• I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that embarrassment is an experience I create in my mind based on guesswork, interpretations and a distorted self-image and that this experience is in no way whatsoever based on reality.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that my voice and singing alone is not enough to count as a performance, and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use this belief as an excuse not to sing on the streets alone.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that I wish to have a band or other singers to back me up because when I am alone I will not be just a performance but I will be exposing myself in public.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear exposing myself to others in public through my singing as self-expression as I have not faced and embraced myself within and as that act of self-expression.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to separate myself from my self-expression by not standing within and as myself when and as I sing in the presence of others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to believe and perceive that there is a standard I need to reach to be accepted by others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that once I accept and embrace myself I will show myself to others in self-honesty, which enables others to accept me as well as I grant them access to my real self.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear scenarios where others would show their disapproval of my self-expression, because I have learned to fear this in my childhood where my peers bullied me because of how I expressed myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my fear of the judgement of others is based on a childhood misconception that I am defined by the opinions of others, and that this fear is thus not valid as I now see, realize and understand that the opinions of others are manifestations of who they are, not of who I am.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to doubt my ability to sing as I have perceived and believed this ability to be defined by technical skills alone, not realizing that the ability to sing is also composed of self-expression which has nothing to do with physical technique – and I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not give myself credit for both the technical and expressive ability that I do in fact have when and as I sing without fear.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to use my lack of education in singing techniques as an excuse not to perform and as evidence for my perception that my skills are less than they actually are.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to limit and suppress my self-expression with a distorted self-image and with excuses that put the blame for this on others.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to want to sing from the starting point of impressing others with my skills, not singing to express myself but to present an image of myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not realize that my fear of singing alone in public is not about facing others but about facing myself.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to not enjoy myself when and as I sing by considering what others might want to hear me sing, not realizing that I cannot possibly know this and that the “best guess” is just to sing what I enjoy singing as that is the most self-honest approach.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear singing because I am then fully exposed.

I forgive myself that I have accepted and allowed myself to fear making mistakes when I sing because I want to maintain a self-image of flawlessness, reacting to all mistakes by “pulling back” from my self-expression and from then on “playing it safe” - not realizing that everyone makes mistakes and that they can be utilized for learning, growth and expansion of skill.

I commit myself to embrace moments of making mistakes when singing as moments of humanity – in other words, I commit myself to embrace my flaws as moments of learning by checking what led me to that particular mistake and what could be done differently.

I commit myself to utilize upcoming opportunities to perform in public and to embrace those moments as self-expression and communication.

When and as I face the fear of singing in public – I stop, I breathe and I remind myself that I can rely on myself to be here for me and with me. I realize that my fear of others is based on the misconception that other people are not like me and cannot/will not sympathize with me. I realize that I am here to express myself to and communicate with others through the tool of singing. I breathe and stabilize myself and align myself with all of my physical existence. I then proceed to push through the threshold of fear by letting my voice flow from me in full strength within and as the realization that the threshold is actually imaginary as I will remain HERE just the same before and after crossing it, and that the threshold will get smaller each and every time I cross it.

I commit myself to sing in the presence of others from the starting point of self-expression as I see, realize and understand that this is the only way my singing will be self-honest communication with others and not an ego show.

I commit myself to investigate the experience of embarrassment by stopping and breathing when and as I experience embarrassment and/or fear the experience of embarrassment, thus becoming aware of it and not accepting and allowing these moments to slip by.