As I was finishing packing up after a performance last week I was asked by one of the newer members of the Australian Institute of Magic whether I get nervous before starting a performance.

I told him I don’t.

He looked a little surprised by my answer. I talked a bit about what works for me. I’ve actually only learnt some of these excellent and effective techniques in the past year.

I know that panic attacks are dreadful and I used to get them. Often the only thing that saved me from being totally overcome with stage fright before a show was that I was too busy being concerned that everything was in place and all my props were ready so I would forget about how nervous I was.

I stumbled on a method of allowing fear to subside which didn’t mention stage fright specifically, but it works.

The exact same technique can be applied to pretty much anything that’s related to the emotions or causes panic, dread, fear, insomnia, worry, and other emotional stress.

In my case when I suffered panic it was often brought on by thinking about overdue bills. I would get intense feelings in my chest and throat area. The worst was when I would start worrying before going to bed.

Panic can be so debilitating, and it gave me a lot of restless nights. I didn’t like admitting I had insomnia because I always thought insomnia was ridiculous. I mean c’mon. Insomnia! Just sleep it off. You’ll get better. It’s not so simple when it’s happening.

I remember just two years ago always being tired, and that affected every area of my life and work. I tried hard not to let it show, so I may have gotten away with it somewhat.

I am so glad I no longer have those panic attacks as I have found a way to deal with that horrible dread. I can now recognise the early stages of panic and immediately put myself into the right frame of mind. It seems to be something I can do automatically now.

I came across different courses that take you through a step by step process showing you how to bring those kind of emotions under control.

Though some authors make big claims, such as the course showing the way to achieving abundance, and reaching your life’s dreams and goals and such, I targeted my expectations to the area of dealing with panic and stress. The results have been very good. If I also achieve the other claims then that’s a bonus on top of my expectations.

I’ve used three such courses and I can say that I like them all. There is a free on too which I haven’t tried. And that is the Dhamma.org 10 day meditation retreat. The courses I can tell you about can be gone through with a set of CD’s and maybe an accompanying workbook, or as one course calls it, a Playbook, which is cute. You’ll be surprised how placing a positive spin on everything in your life can start making everything easier to deal with.

Even though I thought I had already heard a lot of the best advice available on dealing with worry, I was still curious enough to see if maybe someone had a novel approach.

Stumbling on these various courses was a result of a little exploring and willingness to discover something new.

What got me interested initially was pure and simple curiosity. I wanted to know what formulas people have come up with for dealing with life’s challenges. And it didn’t hurt that some of them claimed to open up your life to abundance. But I am going to recommend these courses as an excellent tool for learning how to deal with stress and that includes stage fright.

As I was taking a walk in the park today with my wife we were talking about how the fear of embarrassment can be greater than the fear of death, and yet we know that the latter is inevitable. It kind of seems illogical that fear of failure often rates so much higher. But emotions are not logical. The intense feelings of dread can be so difficult to deal with. I have been so pleased to find out that those feelings can be changed. They can be under our control. And this is the best thing I got out of the following courses.

I guess when fear of failure and fear of death are compared like that we can see that perhaps being willing to spend a little effort on dealing with the fear of failure makes sense.

These may seem like more than adequate for dealing with a seemingly abstract issue like stage fright.

I believe they are extremely effective for the sole reason that they are not dealing directly with stage fright.

Yes you read that right. And this is why: by going through any of the following courses you gain a skill for life: understanding and managing emotions. And by not focusing on stage fright you can slowly let stage fright ease its way to the periphery, that is the edge of your awareness, and drop out of your experience.

The Courses

the following two are based on the work of physicist Lester Levinson.

The Sedona Method

Don’t ask me why it’s called the Sedona Method, but it’s a memorable name. So, points for good branding.

I applied the processes set out in this CD set to tackling challenges and big hurdles that were in the way, with good results. Because this CD set is quite extensive I also benefited in other areas such as anger management, time management, and general contentment. These aren’t even the main things featured on the advertisement for the Sedona Method. I’m sure everyone differs a little in how they benefit from something. This one is made by Hale Dwoskin who was one of Lester Levinson’s students. He does a fantastic job of wording the course in a way that gives you confidence in how easy and do-able it is.

The Release Technique

This course really struck a chord with me. I like Larry Crane’s down to earth approach. He just jumps right into the exercises without too much explaining, which worked for me. At first I was getting a little annoyed at hearing the same 30 seconds of musical intro on every half hour section. The course is about how to deal with stuff that annoys you, and soon I found that it didn’t annoy me anymore, and if I was fast-forwarding the music, it was no longer done out of frustration but because I was eager to get to the content. Larry Crane’s personal story is also quite interesting and how he ended up continuing the work of Lester Levinson and making The Release Technique available to the world.