The Mind Over Finger Podcast - 143 Practice Room Superpower: Self-Compassion

Episode Date: September 23, 2022

How self-compassion (or self-respect) can/will dramatically impact your results in the practice room. Sign up for the FREE Mind Over Finger Fall Workshop here: The Confident Musician – Everything you need to prepare for an optimal performance where you feel confident, play your best, and enjoy yourself!   Reflection: If my inner voice was a character right now, would it be a loving and supportive mentor, or a nagging bully? What sentences do I most often repeat to myself in the practice room? Are they helpful?  How can I turn them around into sentences that are helpful? When I say those things to myself, do I feel supported, or do I feel judged? Would I talk this way to a beloved student?   >> DOWNLOAD THE TRANSCRIPT FROM THIS EPISODE HERE

You're listening to the Mind Over Finger Podcast, episode number 143. Welcome to the Mind Over Finger Podcast, discussions on mindful music making, efficient practice, optimal performance, and building a purposeful life and fulfilling career. I'm your host, violinist and certified performance and life coach for musicians, Dr. Renée-Paul Gaultier. Hi, everyone. I hope you're having an amazing day as you're tuning into this episode. Today, I bring you the last of three practice room superpowers I've been covering in the month of September. In episode 141, I talked to you about the concept of mind over finger, how to make sure

we prioritize alignment over effort. In 142, I covered patience and how by harnessing this superpower, we learn better and deeper. And today, I bring you my absolute favorite, one that can be a massive game changer, and not just in the practice room, but in your life in general. and it's so great because it's not a pill or a chart or an app or a priceless instrument. It's something you already have. It's your own inner voice and how you use it to practice self-compassion. And before I say more about that, I want to make sure that you head over to mindoverfinger.com and sign up for my upcoming free workshop, The Confident Performer, where I'm going to expand on that. And I'm going to share with you the three pillars you need to

prepare for a performance where you feel confident, you play your best, and you enjoy yourself. It's possible, and I'm going to help you get there and experience it. That's going to happen on October 14th at 10am Central. I'm going to have very fun surprises live in the workshop. But I know we all have really busy schedules. So don't worry, you'll get a link to that replay when you register. Once again, that's at mindoverfinger.com. And I will have that link for you in the show notes. Okay, self compassion, or as I also like to refer to it, self respect. Let's talk about it. I'm so glad that self compassion is getting more and more mainstream because when I first started talking about it, so many people saw self-compassion, treating yourself with respect

and kindness as self-indulgence. But believe me, they are not the same thing at all. The power of your own inner voice is probably the most influential thing in your life. And developing a genuine empowering self-talk is one of the most effective ways to dramatically transform your practice. I don't know about you, but I used to say all kinds of rude things to myself when I practiced. Over the years, it got worse, and it got to the point where I thought to myself, if this keeps on going on, I don't see the point in continuing to play because this is no fun at all. I was suffering, and I was seeing my students suffer, and that really broke my heart. So I started to really think about it and made it a part of my doctoral research. And now I get to

tap into the incredible power of a healthy inner dialogue and share that with my students and clients and with you today. Studies show it. Harsh self-judgment is detrimental to our practice, our progress, and ultimately our performance. It causes physical tensions that negatively impact our bodies, our ease of movement when we practice, and when we're trying to perform. It causes psychological tensions that cloud our critical thinking. It's like we're shaking a mean snow globe in our own heads, and that completely prevents us from coming up with effective strategies when we're trying to solve problems in our playing. Also, negative self-judgment and self-talk keep us in the past. They trigger a downward spiral of distraction and self-hatred

that affects everything we're doing in the present moment. Just think about how you react when someone starts to be verbally abusive with you. What happens? All sorts of feelings rise in us. Unworthiness, defensiveness, anger, frustration, desperation. It's very difficult to do our best work when we're feeling this way. So we're launching this bullying attack against ourselves. And at the same time, there's a part of us that enters the defensive mode. So there's this raging war happening in our heads and our hearts. How good do you think you are at solving problems with a mental and emotional war going on? Now to be efficient, we need to face the music. Okay, I know this is a bad pun, but I couldn't resist. What I'm talking about is not to indulge in less

than what you're capable of or tolerate or give in to bad habits in the practice room. But there is a way to be demanding with yourself and to expect excellence while being completely respectful with yourself. We need to notice what happens while we're playing. We need to solve the issues and see the problems so we can learn and progress and grow. But what we need is assessment, not judgment. Constructive, not destructive criticism. And you know you're in observation mode, in assessing mode, when you're noticing with objectivity, when you're neutral, when you're curious, when you're solution-oriented. Now that promotes efficiency. You know you're in a destructive mode when you're judging and comparing yourself. Your way of looking at the issues is

subjective. You're attacking your character. This drains your resilience. It leads to confusion, not to improvement, or at least it hugely delays it. Assessment language sounds like this. This was out of tune. I'm still learning this technique. She sounds good. Judgment sounds like I have no intonation. I should know better than this. She's way better than me. it's easy for me to see which approach which type of language would lead me to be very efficient in the practice room one motivates me and the other makes me feel discouraged one lifts me up and the other shuts me down when I feel respected I operate at my best and I think it makes sense that the respect should come first from myself. So with this episode, I want to invite you to

tap into the power of self-compassion, of self-respect, and develop an empowering inner dialogue. Here are some quick tips to get you started. Try to catch yourself in the act and notice that harsh self-criticism is happening. When you do catch yourself in judgment, take a breath and go back to the present moment. Find a go-to sentence that calms you down and puts you in a positive mindset. Focus on assessing what is instead of judging and attacking your character. Notice the language you're using and change it to positive, effective words and point of view. So for example, you can say, I've missed this several times now. What's going on? What's the root of the problem here? What can I do about it? Versus, I've missed this so many times. What's

wrong with me? I always mess up. I'm such a blah, blah, blah. So you get the idea. If your inner bully keeps popping in, take a quick break, do something that brings you pleasure, and go back to work when your disposition is objective, positive, and encouraging. And here are some powerful questions to ponder on this week to help you with the reflection. If my inner voice was a character right now, would it be a loving and supportive mentor or a nagging bully? what sentences do I most often repeat to myself in the practice room are they helpful how can I turn them around into sentences that are helpful when I say those things to myself do I feel supported or do I feel judged would I talk

this way to a beloved student so this is what I have for you today think about it and let me know what insight it brings to you. Try all this for size and tell me how it fits. Get comfortable with objectively assessing your playing and tame your inner bully in the never-ending character assassination. I'm sending much love your way. A bientot. thank you guys so much for listening i hope you enjoyed this episode of the mind over finger podcast if this content was helpful for you please share with everyone you think could benefit from it take a screenshot share on social media and tag me i'm mind over finger everywhere so reach out send me a dm and let me know how this content helped you let's keep the conversation going as

always i have all the information related to this episode in the show notes you can find them via your podcast app or by visiting mindoverfinger.com where you can also find more free resources on efficient practice and performance preparation links to sign up to my free workshops and information on how to work with me. Don't forget to sign up for my newsletter to receive your free guide to a productive mindful practice. Transcripts from the Mind Over Finger podcast episodes delivered to your inbox every week and more. Also, join the Mind Over Finger Facebook community, my private group, for access to my live videos and to exchange with a community of like-minded musicians. So make sure you're subscribed to the podcast. And if you have specific questions for me

or my guests that you would like answered in an episode, share them with me using the link in the show notes or send me a DM on Instagram or Facebook. That's it for today. Again, thank you and à bientôt! Thanks for watching!