What are we so afraid of?

I remember the day vividly: I was in grad school and singing on a masterclass for an accompanist who played for several of the opera world’s great singers. It was my hope that I would open my mouth and he would shout that I was the operatic equivalent of the second coming. I would be plucked from obscurity and whisked off to NYC to become the next great…something. As is traditional in the masterclass format, the singer (me in this instance) sings all the way through the piece and then the master gets up and coaches, questions and challenges the singer into a deeper exploration of technique and interpretation, all the while putting on a good “show” for the audience in attendance who is hoping to gain some gem of knowledge that will make them a better singer, vocal coach or listener. As a young singer with lots to prove, I found this situation exhilarating because I felt that this moment in time could be a game changer.

Well, indeed it was! After singing through my aria, the master teacher asked me to try a few things. Nervous at the on-looking crowd of people judging me and trying my best to be perfect, I found that the more I tried to “get it right,” the more my voice started to close up. I was hit by not only an attack of phlegm, but also a huge wave of stage fright. (I like to call phlegm the uninvited party guest. The one that shows up unexpectedly and never knows when to leave!)

I had experienced stage fright before. Once, as a middle schooler, auditioning for a local production, I got so scared that the same thing happened except that instead of having the wave of nausea, my right leg began to shake uncontrollably. The people behind the desk watched in horror as my gravelly phlegm-covered voice sang and my right leg did its own interpretative dance that telegraphed how insanely frightened I was. Since that time, I had always had to deal with the “leg shake”, but I was older and wiser now. However, here I was going through this same exact thing.

I excused myself saying that I did not feel well and left the stage. I went into the bathroom and for the next fifteen minutes convulsed, sobbed and shook all the while replaying what had just happened. I went through the entire gamut of negative emotions from blaming someone in the audience for the “judgmental” stare, to hating myself for being such a punk-a$% to feeling like walking out of that bathroom and never returning to singing again.

After that moment, I went through a very tough, but liberating journey into why I was so afraid? Why was the act of standing there in front of a group of people and having someone assess my voice, my languages, my acting and my musicality such a terrifying exercise? I began to question why something like singing, which felt fairly natural and was certainly something I had come to love very much, was causing me such anxiety. And more than that, why was the act of being judged turning my normally chipper, confident and fun-loving self into a bathroom-blubbering mess?

Like most things that we consider our “issues” today, we merely have to go back and look into our childhood to see where they originated. As a very small child, I was an exceptional student and very creative and talented. I even skipped 2nd grade because I seemed to be what is now labeled as an “advanced” learner, meaning someone who can pick up material, process it quickly and show comprehension with ease. For that I was often praised…and praised a lot to the chagrin of some of my family and friends. During that time, I remember that I loved to sing and would sing often. One Saturday afternoon (why does it always have to happen on a Saturday?), I was singing when one of my cousins commented that I sounded like a whale in heat. (I don’t think it was THAT bad!) Of course, no one had ever said anything like that to me. I was shocked, surprised and hurt. Another key moment was that I had another cousin who was (and still is) an exceptional singer. She had one of those voices that moved people. I wanted so much to be like that and every time someone praised her and not me, I became jealous. Finally, and this is very significant as well, being an only child of a single parent who wanted me to be my best, even when I didn’t want to be, I experienced a lot of criticism that I saw as a negative, but where the intention was to make me my best self. (This was all discovered during some intense journaling which has served as my therapy over the years.)

Through this process I discovered the origins of my fear of being criticized. What was also fascinating to discover during my journaling was that there was already a large part of me in place that wanted to resolve this issue. So how does one go about resolving one’s fear of criticism in their adult life? By pursuing a career where criticism is an integral part of the business. (In therapy, they call this the “aha” moment.) There is a reason that artists are temperamental, insecure and sometimes (often!) crazy. We are dealing with two main voices: the one that is telling us we suck and the one that is telling us that if we practice (draw, sketch, paint etc…) enough, we will be amazing and have a chance at making/creating/doing something greater than ourselves.

From near-nervous breakdown to my current period of self-awareness took about ten years to work through. I decided to write about it because I had a friend share with me their recent experience in a competition and all of the memories of exactly how that felt came flooding back to me. I wanted to share my story for two reasons: 1) to show that most artists go through periods of fear about what “they” think and 2) to show that the process is ongoing, but when we sing to express as opposed to impress, we change how “they” affect us.

Today, I try to remind myself whether it is an audition, a rehearsal or a performance, that it’s just singing. I love to sing and perform and if I spend each moment working to bring out the words, the music, the language, the style and the drama, then I spend less time worrying about whether they like it or not, because while I love having the audience’s response, the ultimate reason I sing is for me. Of course I want to tell “them” the story using all my gifts, but I look at it more like I’m sharing something wonderful as opposed to putting it out there to be assessed. It makes it a lot more fun!


Peace,
Eric