We all “perform” in life. Whether we are preparing for a concert, a thesis defense, a big meeting, a public talk or even an encounter with a difficult member of our family: we step on stage.
Drawing on the psychology of performance and the creative process, this four-part seminar series will explore what it means to perform authentically, viewing the stage not as a place of judgment but as an opportunity for engagement, vulnerability and self-expression. The seminars will first explore fear – its physical and mental signatures, the way judgment (external and internal) narrows attention, and how complexes manifest in comparisons, perfectionism, and labelling, which distort our sense of self. We will see how product-over-process thinking fuels over striving, procrastination, and creative blocks, turning joy into shame or self-sabotage. By mapping these interferences —audience projection, idealized futures, collective standards, and the “addiction to perfection”—we will gain a precise language for understanding performance anxiety and creative blocks.
From there the series will focus on recovery: cultivating non-judgmental awareness, learning to witness rather than identify with the thoughts and emotions of our complexes and remaining within the protected space of creativity where play, experimentation and discovery can emerge. Through patience, surrender and a renewed relationship with time we can indeed learn to relinquish excessive control, reconnect with our art and creativity and expand beyond the limitations of a fixed persona.