Conquering the fear and finding my voice

It’s a while since I posted; covid times, life moving on relentlessly, as it does, all combined to make writing this blog something I’d start and not finish. Meanwhile I finished my MA, got a new job and have just finished my first year of doctorate studies, but more of that another time.

I’ve written before about my struggles with performance anxiety and in particular the shaking (literally) fear of singing in front of others. I could so easily have given in to this fear and stayed in the background. I could have stuck to the back of a choir, a voice in the blend.

But then the fear would have won.

Over lockdown I had singing lessons over Zoom. I became more used to the sound of my own voice, what it could and couldn’t do. In a break between lockdowns I sang a couple of songs in a showcase organised by my singing teacher and streamed online. I shook so hard you could see it on the playback. But I did it.

This New Year I made myself a promise. To sing, to perform in front of people every opportunity I got. To stop accepting the fear and to fight back. I told my singing teacher and everyone I could what I was doing, so I couldn’t chicken out. I sang in front of the community choir one Friday night, and the Salford choir the next Saturday. I was shaking less. I was breathing more. My voice was stronger.

I started singing in the car with my friends on the journey back from choirs. I stopped caring I was getting the words wrong.

And then…this week it happened. I conquered, I looked the fear in the eyes and told it I was done with it. I stood up and didn’t just sing, I performed. It felt a little like an out of body experience, to be fair, as I allowed myself to become the character of the song, not Helen. There were no nerves once I began, just the power of finding my voice at last. I left those watching speechless, and apparently (although I was too stunned to notice) on their feet applauding for a while.

I loved it.

I couldn’t have done this at all without the support of my incredible inspirational singing teacher Ashley Mellor (https://www.facebook.com/ashleymellormusic/) and the wonderfully supportive Staffordshire Choirs Association (https://www.facebook.com/Staffschoirs/).

And I can’t wait to do it again.

Transitions

It’s been a funny year. I turned 50, was furloughed from the tutor job I love, then made redundant. I didn’t see most of my friends or family for months. I’ve taught antenatal classes on Zoom, and Pregnancy Yoga on Zoom. Mum and Baby yoga on Zoom too. Singing The Hokey Cokey with a doll to a computer is one of the oddest things I’ve ever done. I’ve had Zoom singing lessons, Zoom choir rehearsals, Zoom get togethers with friends and colleagues.

I’ve done a lot of Zoom-ing. And a lot of waiting…

Those who know me well know that patience has never been my strongest attribute. I’d rather walk than wait for a bus, I hate waiting for exam or assignment results, and don’t get me started on waiting for food in restaurants.

Yet…the last few months have forced me to be patient, to wait. I’ve had no choice, the current pandemic has altered our lives like nothing that has happened before. Simple things like buying groceries involved queueing to get into the store, then queuing to pay to get out.

For some things though, the waiting is over and things are changing. Being made redundant a couple of weeks ago hurt. A lot. I’ve gone beyond SARA, to grief cycles and the bottom of the Fisher’s Transition Curve (see image). Luckily I have managed to get some contract work as Senior Learning Designer with Aula Education and I’m hoping it will lead to bigger and brighter things.

Leaving NCT as a tutor hasn’t stopped me believing in NCT Educators and the depth of knowledge they have. With many tutors taking redundancy (a mix of voluntary or compulsory) there is a real chance that this knowledge base will be lost. It makes the Open Publishing side of this project even more important.

I’m aiming to publish at least one article a month from fellow educators starting with Suzy Bromwich-Alexandra writing about her transition from teacher to student.

The times they are a-changin…

I’m doing fine… I work online…

Out in the sunshine away from Zoom calls….

I haven’t blogged for a couple of weeks. First because I was head down writing my end of module assignment for my MA, and then recovering from writing it. And COVID19 began to have increasingly more impact on daily life, and for a while I wasn’t coping very well.

Those of you who know me, or have read this blog post will know that I suffer from performance anxiety, and I have battled with depression and anxiety for most of my adult life. The last few years I have felt well, both mentally and physically, but a couple of weeks ago I began suffer anxiety at a crippling level again. I couldn’t think. I wanted to crawl under a duvet and sleep for a month which was ironic as I couldn’t actually sleep. I cried, a lot.

It was a reaction to and a reflection of the massive levels of anxiety in the world. Lots of people I know felt it too. Are still feeling it now. Berne Browne talks about ‘collective vulnerability’ and the self protection and fear that accompanies it (see quote below). For some people that’s buying all the toilet paper and pasta in Tesco and Asda, for some people it’s curling up in a ball for a while.

This pandemic experience is a massive experiment in collective vulnerability. We can be our worst selves when we’re afraid, or our very best, bravest selves. In the context of fear and vulnerability, there is often very little in between because when we are uncertain and afraid our default is self-protection.
Berne Browne, Collective Vulnerability, the FFTs of online learning and the sacredness of bored kids. 25th March 2020

Then last Monday, and it feels like a lifetime ago rather than 11 days, following that days announcements all my face to face work with parents and students stopped. It was a weird thing, one minute I was getting ready to go out and teach, the next I was unpacking the car. NCT have been amazing in their support for practitioners and parents. Within hours of face to face teaching stopping we were conducting antenatal and breastfeeding sessions online using Zoom, to create an interactive course and experience for parents as close to a regular antenatal class as we could manage. I facilitated my first sessions last week, and although there were some rabbit in the headlights moments, it was okay, I was okay.

And I was. The anxiety had subsided as I had something I could do. I couldn’t change the empty supermarket shelves or stop people meeting in groups, but I could support parents. I’ve moved my Pregnancy yoga and Mum and Baby yoga classes online too. Many of these women are extremely anxious in these increasingly challenging times, I cannot begin to imagine how it must feel to be pregnant or have a young baby right now. Relaxation, breathing and some normality has been, they tell me, very helpful. It’s been helpful to me as well!

My MA in Online and Distance Education studies have been put into practice in ways I hadn’t imagined they would be! Nothing like a bit of real world pressure to make you up your game!

My fellow practitioners have been amazing, we’ve been working as a real community of practice sharing resources and ideas, online of course. We’ve been celebrating successes, working through new challenges and sharing laughter. The title of this blog comes from the amazing Pauline Erye, a fellow antenatal practitioner who is a stand up comic in real life, who has kept us all laughing with regular parody songs (see below for an example).

I still have anxious moments but I have coping mechanisms back in place. It would be strange not to feel anxious in this mixed up world. But really, I’m doing fine…. I work online.

P.S. I’m still singing. The amazing Ashley Mellor has organised a variety of online choirs, where he gets the energy from I have no idea! This also helps!

Yoga for singing

This year I am fifty, so when I made a New Year’s resolution to look after my body and mind more in 2020 I took it more seriously than usual, and decided to practice yoga everyday. I was helped by my husband telling me about the world’s most popular You Tube yoga teacher Adrienne. She has helpfully made available more free home yoga classes than it is possible to complete in a year. It’s now March, and aside from a couple of days I have been unable to practice due to ill health or needing to get up at ‘stupid o’clock’ for work, I have stuck to my resolution. This is a first.

I have practiced yoga for around twenty years, off and on, but never quite as regularly as this year. I began to notice the benefits after the first couple of weeks. Now, three months in, I feel more connected to my body than I have for in years. I almost feel calm. Almost. And there has been an unexpected positive side effect when I sing. I can sing louder,and longer, and mostly, more in tune. My voice feels supported and strong.

I shouldn’t be surprised, both yoga and singing combine the body and the breath. In both posture and support are key. And both produce endorphins and other feel good hormones. It’s a great combination.

I’m not the first person to notice the benefits of yoga for singing, there are numerous posts, sites and a few books, written on the improvements yoga might bring to someone who sings. So I did some research into which parts of yoga might be having this positive effect on my voice.

Yoga is divided into physical movement or positions, the asanas or postures, and breathing practices or pranayama. I’ve selected a few key ones that came up most frequently in my reading and research into yoga for singing. These are generally safe ‘beginner’ practices but you know your own bodies, so be careful.

Postures:

Tadasana or Mountain pose: This is the foundation for all yoga standing poses, and supports correct posture. When singing, standing tall and opening up your chest helps the flow of the breath. Try breathing down to the soles of your feet. I know it sounds mad, but try it!
Neck releases: There are lots of variations of neck releases but they are really important. If your shoulders and neck are tense any sound you make will be reduced on every level.
Cat-cow pose: Great for spine flexibility and posture, again. As you breathe out squeezing all the air out also works the core gently, and builds support for the breath.

Breathing:

Alternate Nostril breathing: This helps to relax the facial muscles and focus the breath. It’s also great for reducing panic and anxiety (great for that performance anxiety I suffer from). It’s such a focused breathing technique that it feels like meditation.
Lions breath or Simhasana: Technically both a posture and a breath practice, it looses the tongue, relaxes the jaw and strengthens the vocal cords. It also looks gloriously silly!
Breath of fire: It takes a bit of practice to get your rhythm right but it’s worth it. It works the diaphragm so builds up support and strength for the voice.

Once you are familiar with the poses and are becoming more aware of your breath, try replacing the exhale with a sound. It could be a vowel or a ‘mmm’, play around with it. The sounds will focus your awareness on the breath, so you will make that exhale longer, and gently work the vocal chords (just like a warm up before you sing).

If you haven’t tried yoga before, and sing at any level, join a beginners class or find an online teacher who works for you and practice in your living room. Or just move with your breath. It doesn’t need to be complex. Smile. Stretch. Relax and breathe. Sing loud and proud!

Feeling the Fear but doing it anyway

Otherwise known as “The Unexpected Cat Ambush”, for reasons that will become clear.

Last week I presented at the H818 – The Networked Practitioner Online Conference. Those of you who have read earlier blog post will know that I suffer from performance anxiety especially when presenting or singing (see Feeling the Fear). I was very nervous, but I’d followed my own advice and prepared as much as I could. I’d followed my tutors’ advice and reduced distractions. I had a script to follow, I knew my stuff, it would be fine. At least that’s what I told myself.

I was about an hour in, so I listened to the others as my nerves started to kick in. I feel I should apologise to Jo Jones who was presenting before me, I have no idea what she said. I was lost in my head!

Once my time came I was actually okay. The nerves went and it flowed well. There was however something I hadn’t prepared for. In the advice given by the tutors they hadn’t mentioned anything about cats. How I should have made sure before I started that the door to the office should be shut. And midway through the presentation I found myself with a large white cat on my lap partially obscuring my notes (see above picture). It at least sorted the last of my nerves! There is evidence that cats increase oxytocin levels in humans and can reduce anxiety.

If you are interested you can listen to the presentation here.

During the presentation attendees could ask questions in the chat window. Some of them were answered on the day, but I’ll give some fuller answers to the questions and comments below.

– Love the brains! Yes so do I! They are however a temporary image. They are part of an organ donation campaign by Ahmad Nady. A friend who is a graphic designer will create a more permanent, but still in the same spirit, image.

– good strategy – being an example of good PLN practice is likely to be more convincing to help them consider adopting similar approaches.
– Modelling good practice is so effective. This taps into the theories of modelling and social learning, like those of Bandura, familiar to NCT educators. My aim is to build the self-efficay of colleagues through example. I would invite them to have a go, and see what happens, much as I have done.

– By risk – do you means threats to confidentiality for your clients? No, as I explained during my presentation, this was about risk to NCT Tutors ‘putting themselves out there’. I mentioned that some of this was a fear of online abuse, but in reflection (and after being gently reminded by a colleague) it’s also about moving out of our safe NCT space. NCT works hard at being a safe space for parents and practitioners. We use Roger’s Core conditions and Mortiboys Emotional Intelligence as the foundations for our practice. Intrinsically we know that within NCT we can trust each other, our shared philosophy of practice and common values (Kelly, 2020), enable this trust. Increasing our digital presence feels more scary and unsafe as a result. One of the themes in my project (and beyond) is mitigating this feeling of risk.

– an open publishing space is this within the blog or a different tool? This is on the same website. Some of the site is this blog, but there will also be a website for articles on education. I wanted everything in the same place for ease of access. It’s still very much a work in progress.

– is there a difference in online multimedia workshops in gaining trust, in comparison to face to face workshops (which may not be practical for distance reasons? This is something that has been debated at length. The notion that trust and support are better in face to face settings. In my MA studies all of the learning is online. I haven’t met any of the other students I am studying with but there is still interaction and support between peers and tutors.

– pre-workshops and quick zoom calls really help build confidence/trust! If this were a new group that I was working with I would use pre-workshop activities and some video calls, to break the ice and gain confidence. With the multi-media workshop I am proposing for my colleagues, as we all know each other and it’s a small organisation so I have the luxury of somewhat of a pre-formed group!

– you could use webinars for online workshops and forums to build a community? Building a strong community of profession and practice is very important to me. I’d like to be the pioneer in a growing community of NCT Academics that regularly publishes and discusses our practice openly. By integrating a webinar into the workshop format (Phase 3), I’ll be able explore more potential challenges and continue to build confidence.

– what about the using VR in workshop? I had not even considered this as I know very little about VR and how it would work with the kind of multi-media workshop I am developing or what the cost complications could be. I will do some research. Thank-you.

– You’re a good example and leader, Helen! Thank-you!

If you have any other questions about my presentation or project, please ask them in the comments box below.

References

Kelly, K. (2020) Knowing our values in perinatal education. International journal of birth and parenting education. Vol 7, issue 2.

Reflecting with S.A.R.A.

As an educator, and student, there are many times when I offer or receive feedback. Over the last few weeks I’ve been reflecting on how I receive feedback in the hope that I can offer feedback in a way that is constructive and kind, and useful to the recipient.

I am looking for feedback constantly. Not to flatter my ego but so that I can improve and develop. In my work as an Antenatal Teacher with NCT, reflective practice and evaluation play an important role, they stimulate and support each other (Neil, 2015). I need informal and formal feedback from the parents I teach so I know if I am meeting my Aims and Learning Outcomes. So I know if I am meeting their learning needs.

With my university students it’s a two way street. I offer them feedback informally on facilitation practice throughout the year and formally when I grade their assignments. They offer me feedback on whether I am meeting their learning needs so they can do their best work. If not, I adjust what I am doing and we reevaluate how we are doing.

It is easy to take feedback personally, as an attack on our selves rather than on a behaviour or a task, especially when we are not expecting it. Even the kindest given feedback can hurt. That’s where S.A.R.A. comes in. Being aware of our reactions to constructive feedback can help us deal with them. I offer an example of my reaction to some feedback I received a couple of years ago and how I worked through the S.A.R.A. curve. It doesn’t matter what the feedback was, my reaction was the interesting thing.

Shock: My initial reaction was disbelief. I couldn’t believe that they meant me. I didn’t understand how they could feel this way about me. I cried.

Anger: The shock quickly moved to anger. How dare they? I didn’t say that, or if I did I didn’t mean it like that, they’ve just misunderstood me! It was easy to move the focus of the feedback to the person who had fed back rather than me. After all, if they were ‘wrong’ I must be right.

It could have been very easy to get stuck in this part of the curve. Anger can last for days or even weeks in some cases. I stomped around and slammed some doors. I may have yelled at the cat. Luckily, according to Rogel (2010), the more extreme our shock and anger response to feedback, the more committed we are likely to be to change.

Resistance: Also known as denial or rejection. In my case I decided that I knew what I was doing so I could keep on doing it the same way. Personally this stage doesn’t usually last long, once i get over the anger and start to think logically, I move on to the acceptance stage.

Acceptance: This is the point where I began to ask what I needed to change. How could I adapt my behaviour to improve? How could I be and work better? I spoke to colleagues and mentors. I did my research and hopefully became a better educator. I used the gift of that feedback in a positive way.

Some feedback models also include an H for Honest Effort to accept the fact that even with a genuine willingness to change lapses might occur. It takes time to change habits and behaviours. We are, after all only human.

In my MA module, H818 – The Networked Practitioner, we are constantly offering and receiving feedback by working in the open. It feels very exposed, especially if you are struggling to catch up on work (everyone knows how behind you are) or need clarity on a concept. It’s also liberating in that everyone is in the same boat, as exposed as each other. It provides an honesty and clarity to feedback offered and received, and is always kindly given and genuinely welcomed.

So the next time you receive feedback, or offer it to another, be mindful of SARA(H).

References

Neil, H. (2015) The evaluation cycle: how students, practitioners and tutors can develop their understanding, preparation and practice, to enhance and enrich their work. Available from: https://babble.nct.org.uk/sites/default/files/resources/The%20Evaluation%20Cycle_0.pdf

Rogel, C. (2010) Using the SARA Model to Learn from 360-Degree Feedback. Available from: https://www.decision-wise.com/using-the-sara-model-to-learn-from-360-degree-feedback

H818 Online Conference

On 13th February I will be presenting at this conference, below is the abstract and the online poster.

An accessible version of poster is available here.

Conference Abstract

Title

Unlocking Digital Scholarship for NCT Tutors

Introduction:

NCT (formerly The National Childbirth Trust) is the UK’s largest parenting charity working since 1956 to educate and support parents on their early parenting journey. NCT Practitioners (NCTP) are experts in adult education theory through experience and trained to foundation degree level through the only university-accredited qualification in parenting education (NCT, 2020). Their subject is birth and parenting but their skills and knowledge are rooted firmly in adult and higher education. NCT tutors are experienced NCTPs who have taken higher qualifications in order to train NCTPs in partnership with University of Worcester (UW).

This project focuses on encouraging NCT tutors to share their expertise outside of NCT and University of Worcester circles by increasing their digital and networked scholarship.

Digital Scholarship builds on the tenets of Boyer’s (2016) scholarly activities (Stewart, 2015), using technology to demonstrate specialism in a field (Weller, 2011). Social networks play a key role in encouraging this Networked Participatory Scholarship (NPS) (Veletsianos and Kimmons, 2012; Donelan, 2016) so supporting the creation of these networks will promote Open and Digital Scholarship.

NCTPs and NCT tutors work in an OP way internally, sharing resources and skills between themselves but have few resources to enable them to work in a more globally networked manner. Open Access Publishing (OAP) facilitates the dissemination of knowledge openly by enabling access to articles and papers freely and across networks and is increasing year on year (Piwowar et al., 2018). OAP offers opportunities for NCT tutors to share their wealth of knowledge further, and for little or no monetary cost. However, NCT tutors identified that they lacked the knowledge or the space online to openly publish articles (Kelly, 2019).

Methodology:

Donelan (2016) suggests that practical training, including the modelling of best practice can increase participation in digital scholarly activities (p13) so a two-pronged approach was taken in this project.

A short multi-media workshop identifying some simple steps NCT tutors can take to be more networked and open will be produced.

Alongside this, and to model the encouraged behaviour, a blog publicised through social media platforms was written regularly. A basic web repository was created, on the same site as the blog, for articles to be uploaded and published openly following OAP principles (Costello, 2019).

Conclusions:

At the end of my workshop NCT tutors will be able to engage with networked or digital scholarship more confidently.

The presentation at the Online conference, will look at progress and success to date, identify obstacles encountered and highlight any future adaptations planned for the project.

It is hoped that the project will prove inspirational for NCT tutors and lead to further open and networked projects.

References

Boyer, E. L. et al. (2016) Scholarship reconsidered : priorities of the professoriate. 2nd ed. [E-book]

Costello, E. (2019) Bronze, free, or fourrée: an open access commentary. Science Editing, 6 (1). pp. 69-72. ISSN 2288-8063 [Online] Available from: http://doras.dcu.ie/23048/1/bronze%20access%20open%20access%20free_ocr.pdf (Accessed on 3rd November 2019)

Donelan, H. (2016) Social media for professional development and networking opportunities in academia, Journal of Further and Higher Education. Routledge, 40(5), pp. 706–729. Available from: https://www-tandfonline-com.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/doi/full/10.1080/0309877X.2015.1014321 (Accessed on 30^th December 2019)

Kelly, K. (2019) Conversation with Helen Darlaston. 30^th November 2019.

NCT (2020) NCT Training. Available from https://www.nct.org.uk/get-involved/nct-training (Accessed on 2^nd January 2020) Stewart, B. E. (2015) In Abundance: Networked Participatory Practices as Scholarship, International Review of Research in Open and Distributed Learning. Athabasca University Press (AU Press), 16(3), pp. 318–340. Available from: http://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/2158 (Accessed on 30^th December 2019)

Veletsianos, G. and Kimmons, R. (2012) ‘Networked Participatory Scholarship: Emergent techno-cultural pressures toward open and digital scholarship in online networks’, Computers & Education. Elsevier Ltd, 58(2), pp. 766–774. Available from: https://www-sciencedirect-com.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/science/article/pii/S0360131511002454 (Accessed on 2^nd January 2020)

Weller, M. (2011) The Digital Scholar: how technology is transforming scholarly practice. London, Bloomsbury Academic [E-book]

I need more guidance…

Often, when I am trying to write an assignment, as I should be doing now, I find myself floundering and not entirely sure what I should be doing. I feel I need more guidance. My own students are submitting drafts of an assignment and they are also asking for more guidance. Some have even openly voiced what I feel like saying to my own tutors, “JUST TELL ME WHAT TO WRITE!” (Sorry for shouting but that’s what it sounds like in my head.)

As a tutor I know there is a fine line between guidance and coaching. If you coach a student, tell them what to write or say, then you’ll never find out what they have actually learnt, and that’s before you get into Academic Integrity issues. So you try and gently guide them in the right direction. It’s a fine line between not enough guidance and too much. One module I worked on used to have twice as much written guidance on the assignment than the actual word count of the essay. It was done with the best of intentions but the result was some very confused students!

It’s interesting being a tutor and a student at the same time, as my first blog ‘That Student!’ illustrated. It’s providing me with some insights into my own behaviour and the behaviour of my own students. So, with that in mind, here’s some advice I’d give my own students if they were feeling like I am and wanted some more guidance.

Read the logbook/assignment guide. And then read it again. Every time you come to a ‘block’ or feel you don’t understand what you are being asked, go check.

Underline or highlight the key words in the assignment title. The key words are the ones that will relate to Blooms Taxonomy and the intended learning outcomes of the module or course. The image below gives some helpful explanation about what these words actually mean.

If there is a marking scheme or a grid read it carefully. It would be a shame if you wrote 1000 words on topic ‘A’ when only 5/50 marks of the 2500 word essay were for topic ‘A’, and 45/50 marks for topics ‘B’.

If you are still confused, talk to your peers. One of the advantages of working openly in my current OU module is that I can see what others are doing. The advantage of this is if I am really stuck there is normally someone ahead of me, I can look at to see how they have approached a question. We have the advantage of all working on different topics, so little chance of accidentally plagiarising. The downside of this is that we could ALL be doing the wrong thing, but it’s unlikely. If you aren’t working openly with other students then ask on a student forum for the broad approaches to an assignment or phone a friend. Talk it through. It helps.

If you still need guidance, ask your tutor, preferably in an open forum as you’re probably aren’t the only one confused, you’re just the first one to ask. From a tutor perspective this also means you will, probably, only have to answer that particular question once.

If you can, submit a draft. Your tutor will hopefully provide some feedback that will guide the direction of the final assignment.

So with that in mind, back to writing my assignment taking my own advice.

And yes, I have a post all about procrastinating in my head, but I’ll save it till I have something ‘really’ important to write!

Living in the future

“Connected” *by marcoderksen is licensed under* CC BY-NC 2.0

It’s the time of year when everyone is connecting. In person as old friends and family visit, or, as I connected with my brother who lives in Canada on Christmas day, by the wonders of the net.

I was born in 1970 in a world without computers or the internet, As I grew, so did technology and by the time I left university in the early 1990’s the web had been born. Shortly after that I got my first mobile phone. Now my phone is my mobile office, classroom and my connection to the wider world. I love technology and the connectivity it brings but I sometimes feel like I am living in a sci-fi movie or the future.

I attribute this to having a 1970’s analogue brain, one that was born in a world of book pages rather than electrons. I feel it goes deeper than that, even so-called digital natives have primitive analogue brains evolved over millennia that have to adapt to a digital world that has existed for just 30 years. Clever technology design takes advantage of this and rewards the connections we make.

I’ve been thinking about connections from a learning context a lot recently due to my current MA module. In H818, The Networked Practitioner, we work openly and socially to create our assessed work. We are encouraged to create and increase connections and networks. It’s scary and liberating in equal measure. This blog is another way I am trying to connect with the wider world.

I could argue that all learning is about making connections. Between facts and between theories. Technology facilitates these connections by making it quicker and easier to ‘join the dots’. Education is moving from being taught in a classroom to a set syllabus (pedagogy), to self-directed (andragogy) and self-determined (heutagogy) learning. Self-determined learning can be all about following the connections you make, and can result in amazing discoveries or those ‘rabbit hole’ moments.

It’s not all positive. The connectiveness of the modern world creates paradoxes. Putting yourself out there can be tricky. More connections means more exposure and greater risk. How we navigate this risk is a nuanced constantly changing negotiation with ourselves, and the wider world. Deciding what to share becomes the real question.

Having decided that I want to be more open with the world, more connected, how much risk am I willing to take? Quite a lot it turns out.

So, despite having an analogue brain, I plan to take full advantage of this digital connected future I find myself living in and hope you’ll join me on my journey.

Feeling the fear

Last week I was sitting alone in a white-washed room trying not to panic and failing. My hands were shaking, my vision was tunneling and any confidence I had was quickly draining away. You can see the fear on my face in the picture above. I was about to take my Grade 1 singing exam and had acute stage fright. In the exam itself I couldn’t breathe properly and forgot the words to a song I’ve known for 20 years. It took every ounce of will to not burst into tears and run out of the room and keep running.

The previous week I was talking at a work conference at double speed while shaking and hyperventilating. I wanted to be sick. I forgot my key points. I felt like an idiot.

Stage fright, or performance anxiety, has been a constant of my adult life. Whether it’s presenting at a conference or singing on my own, once I am aware that the focus of a room will be on me, I begin to shake violently and panic about worst case scenarios. I’m fine if I’m not alone, in a chorus or choir I can sing loudly and confidently. If I have a co-speaker I am fine. It’s the spotlight just on me that terrifies. I’m not sure when it began but I remember a child conflicting emotions of wanting everyone to watch me, and yet dreading letting anyone down. Gradually the fear overcame the confidence.

It’s irrational, but then anxiety is. When faced with stressful situations our cave-person brains assume the worst, we get flooded with stress hormones, and our rational brain shuts down. No amount of logical arguments at this point will work until we can persuade our ancient brain chemistry that the danger has passed.

I’m not alone. Many people suffer from stage fright, including, I was reassured to find out, some very talented people. John Lennon was sick before every concert performance and Stephen Fry, in a move I can deeply empathise with, left the country rather than go on stage.

So what helps? In the week after the disastrous singing exam I’ve been doing some research into what might help. Whilst a certain amount of nerves can enhance performance it’s generally accepted that too much anxiety becomes debilitating. Good quality research into methods of dealing with performance anxiety seems to be lacking but there are plenty of articles, Ted-talks and You-tube videos on the subject. Here are a few of the tips that resonated with me.

Practice: The more you know something the more confident you’ll feel with your material. I’d add to this by saying that it’s even better if you can practice in your performance or presentation space. One of my big fears is the unexpected and the more I can remove the unknown the safer I feel.
Breathe: If you focus on long, slow breaths, right down to your belly it physically reduces blood pressure, heart rate, and calms. I should know this. I spend a lot of my working life practicing breathing with women as birth preparation; applying it to myself is trickier.
Visualise: Rather than imagining what will go wrong, focus on a best case scenario and break the downward spiral. If you do start catastrophisng then make that a more realistic, and therefore lesser, version of the disaster. For example, in my singing exam the worst that would happen was I would fail the exam and have to do it again, not that the world would end.
Smile: Smiling, or even laughing if you can, releases happier hormones and reduces anxiety. In a presentation or exam it can also help you connect with your audience, to humanise them. If you can convince yourself that you are among friends anxiety should reduce.

Tonight I’m singing in a concert, but with 150 other people. I know that it will be amazing and I will come away buzzing and full of joy. One day I’d like to feel like that after a solo performance of singing or presenting. Until then I’ll keep my focus on not running out the room screaming.