I learnt a secret…and a huge lesson.

I’m a ‘head person’. I think a lot. I think too much. I wonder and ponder. I question, no, I doubt. Doubt myself. Second guess others. And as such I can be quite indecisive. Put simply I can get stuck in my thoughts and in my own head.

That’s where anxiety loves to breed. Inside your own head is safe space for anxiety to be nurtured and grow. Any Client I have, who is crippled with stage fright and nerves when presenting knows this for certain.

At this stage you would be reasonable in asking – ‘how is this blog in anyway helpful’. Well, because the truth is that despite your mind dominating your emotions it is not actually the boss. Your body is your boss. If you let it be. If you just trust that it is.  The body comes first, and the mind takes its ‘cues’ from your body. Not the other way around. Let me say that again, the body tells the mind what to think.

Don’t believe me?

Wherever you are, right now, do this. Bow your head, cradle your hands about your skull and squeeze your shoulders. As a guide, imagine being on a plane in the ‘Brace, brace’ position.

You felt instantly timid right? Defensive? You literally reduced yourself physically and your mind told you, you’re ‘less’ ‘less than’, ‘less powerful than…’.

That little exercise demonstrates something that we all know. It’s not a revolution. You were unlikely to be surprised by that reaction, and yet, and yet, the simplicity of the equation consistently evades most people. The body makes us feel emotions, not the mind. Even when we give ourselves a pep talk, say for example, when we say to ourselves ‘You got this! You can do this’. I’d argue it’s the subtle nodding head gesture, or mini pump of the fist that tends to accompany that instruction, has more impact on your emotional state than the sentence or the words themselves.

This is arguably the lay man’s understanding of what Michael Chekhov called the ‘Psycho – physical’. Chekhov (acting guru, different from the playwright, Anton Chekhov, of ‘The Seagull’ fame). My training at the Royal Central School of Speech and Drama, in London, had its foundations in the teachings of Michael Chekhov. It was here that the penny dropped first for me and the secret to conjuring emotions was explained. Over time I have improved at also controlling emotions when performing or presenting.