Performance anxiety is the sign that this need to win is causing your conscious mind to be overactive. In short this means that you are thinking about it too much. Thus the solution is to not think as much with your conscious mind without getting caught in the endless loop of thinking about not thinking that creates even more anxiety.

 

Ancient sages realized that you cannot stop thinking by thinking about it. This is why they introduced meditation as the means whereby you realize the quieting of your conscious mind. Thus every form of meditation involves stopping and-or quieting the activity of your conscious mind.

 

Meditation is like being the only person in a pool of agitated water where you know that the water is crystal clear and that there is a very important message written on the bottom of the pool; yet you cannot see the message because of the water's agitation. In this case you know that when you remain still, the water will naturally settle down in its own time and then you will be able to see at great depth; thus you actively do nothing. In this example the agitation of the water is akin to the activity of your conscious mind and the message at the bottom of the pool is akin to the wisdom of your subconscious mind.

 

Two meditation techniques that have stood the test of time are:

1) distraction

2) emphasize space

 

Distraction is the technique where you simply change your focus from whatever you have been anxious about to something other. It is much like giving a child an interesting toy to play with. One of the best things to focus on in meditation is the flow of your breath. Thus it is no surprise that the majority of meditation techniques involve watching the flow of the breath. Besides distracting your conscious mind the activity of watching the flow of your breathing enhances your mind-body connection. This is because the breath is literally the glue that is the link between your body and your mind.

 

Another distraction technique is to focus on a particular sound as in japa. Japa is the repetition of a mantra and a mantra is divinity encased within a sound-structure - mantra is the conscious repetition of a sound, word, or phrase.

 

There are many forms of mantras, most invoke divine energies and one that is has proved to be very effective at quieting the conscious mind is bija or seed mantra practice. A bija mantra is more powerful the less it is used because you only chant it when your conscious mind has become active; therefore the greater the period of time your conscious mind is silent, the less you have used your bija mantra, and the more empowered it has become (it is best to be initiated by a qualified teacher in bija mantra practice).

 

Emphasizing space is a simple and very powerful meditation technique. It is the process of relaxing your concentrated focus from a particular thing and allowing it to naturally expand. This engages your ability to feel as in getting a feeling for the space around your body, a feeling for the space in a room, or feeling the space that is realized when you let go. Thus emphasizing space is a means to switchover from thinking to feeling whereby you relax your conscious mind and simultaneously activate your subconscious mind.

 

The practice of emphasizing space is like the archer in Merton's poem above where the archer intends to hit the centre of the target and yet it is necessary to behave as if he was shooting at nothing. Thus conscious emphasis is given to nothing which your conscious mind understands as space or emptiness. In this way your conscious mind understands this emphasis on space as the target that is not a target. Thus it relaxes and the feelings of wisdom and action of your subconscious mind is revealed (now you are easily able to read the message at the bottom of the pool mentioned earlier).

 

In this light the remedy for performance anxiety is effortless effort because you realize peak performance when you perform effortlessly as when you are playing. And the play that has the greatest impact on your performance is the one between the wisdom of the childlike innocence of your subconscious mind and the knowledge of your conscious mind. The harmonious communication between the thinking of your conscious mind and the feeling of your subconscious mind is the instrument that allows you to realize effortless effort. In other words their living relationship is the whole that is exponentially greater than the sum of the parts.

 

Performance

 

Peak performance and performance anxiety are two sides of a single coin and your mindset determines which side is emphasized.

Two conditions are necessary for you to realize peak performance:

1) it is necessary that you have the particular knowledge that is appropriate to the situation - this is concentration, or focus, of your conscious mind.

2) you also need to be able to behave like the archer who is shooting at nothing - this is the meditative connection to your subconscious mind.

If you over-emphasize one or the other of these, then you will either have performance anxiety (overactive conscious mind) or simply poor performance through lack of focus (overactive subconscious mind). When the two are together as a couple in a harmonious living relationship then you have a fine tuned instrument that will allow you to realize peak performance.

 

 

¹The Need to Win by Thomas Merton, from THE COLLECTED POEMS OF THOMAS MERTON.