Janie's Upset

Hi Janie,

You last post is an excellent example of the challenges we can all face with self-esteem, managing stress and confidence on the job. I am wondering if dancer's / performers establish territories for various roles and positions. I am going to guess yes. It would be the same as in the corporate world when someone gets bumped or "traded," even if th eposition is ill suited and stressful. We 'own ' the position/role and the stress that goes along with it.

A close friend was fired from a high powered job last week that he tried to love and hated. He was told they were going in another direction when he clearly knew that it was the result of long standing conflict with his boss. HOWEVER, now only one week later his physical pain has diminished, he is happier, and he realized that HE would have never quit, yet sees how sometimes the "universe" takes care of us in strange ways. he got fired!

In your work, you don't always, rarely have any say so with regard to your role in a piece. You are cast. You are to do your best no matter what the choreography, the personality of the dancer, the costuming ... and on.

In this case Janie, you let yourself personalize this switch rather than seeing it as a gift. You struggled with the choreography, the partner and other aspects. It caused you stress, big stress. You realize there is a cost to that.

In your world, lack of control over your body, illness, joint pain, injury, poor performance, low emotionality. In other words the body does not lie in its expressions and performance ability.

When you personalize, you add stress to the change. rather than allowing the not knowing what is going on to be just that until you find out. You always have a choice, Janie. What if you decided with a big sigh of relief, I am happy that they changed that. I was too too stress for many reasons.

Remember you don't have control over who is cast and when changes are made. And it is not always about you. There job it to set the stage with the best dancers for the choreography. Everytime your personalize you lose the VALUE of the change. there can be a feeling of loss for sure. Can you simply acknowledge. I feel sad at this change. OR I am relieved.

Got it?

Love ya -
Sanna Carapellotti, MS CHt
Performance Hypnotherapist