From Overthinking to Flow: How One Musician Resolved His Performance Anxiety in 90 Minutes

A case study in performance anxiety and the return to embodied expression

Shared with permission; identifying details have been altered to protect privacy

John, an accomplished orchestral violist with years of international experience, entered our session with a familiar request:

“I want to work on my fears. Fears of making mistakes when I play.”

He had a solo performance coming up that Sunday, just days away. Despite his years of high-level training, deep preparation, and genuine musicality, he sensed himself holding back. His teacher had captured the issue perfectly after a recent performance:

“You could use a little bit more bow. Not the fear of making a mistake.”

John laughed when recounting this, but he knew it was true. He could feel the subtle restraint in himself — that protective tension that kept him from fully committing to the music. He wasn’t terrified, but he wasn’t free. He was performing with caution instead of expression.

By the end of our 90-minute session, something had shifted so fundamentally that he messaged me after Sunday’s performance:

“The last session was extremely beneficial. The performance went very well. I was able to perform the solos with confidence and stability.”

What changed in that short time? And what does it reveal about the deeper nature of performance anxiety?

What follows is not a transcript. It is the story of a transformation — one that illustrates how quickly things can shift when we work at the level where performance anxiety actually lives.

When the Mind That Helps You Practice Hurts You on Stage

John described his challenge clearly:

“My over-seriousness, my over-academic mind. It’s having too much of a grip.”

He’d spent years studying the phenomenon that most musicians know instinctively: the conflict between Self One and Self Two.

Self One is the analytical mind — the part that tracks intonation, bow distribution, phrasing, posture, intonation, sequencing. The mind that says: Don’t miss that shift. Use more bow. Be careful here.

Self Two is the artistic mind — the intuitive, expressive part that deals in images, shapes, and colors; the part that can surrender into the music.

Self One helps you practice. Self Two helps you perform.

John understood this. But understanding is not the same as accessing.

“I’d love to have a little more abandon in my approach,” he said, “a little more trust. Then he added something revealing: "And it might be due to... you know, the past is always part of you. Fears that come from a long time ago, maybe."

He could articulate the landscape but couldn’t shift it.

This is the paradox most high-level performers face:

The analytical mind that helped you master difficult passages—the one that can break down a complex phrase into its component parts, that understands structure and technique—is the same mind that freezes you when it's time to perform.

Making the Intangible Tangible

We began by leaving the intellectual description behind and entering the somatic experience itself.

“Think of a time you were deep in Self One,” I said. “Let me know when you feel it.”

A pause. Then: “Yes. I’m feeling it.”

“Where do you feel it in your body?”

“In my head.”

This is where most people stop. “In my head” is a concept. But the unconscious communicates through image, sensation, metaphor — the language beneath language.

So we went deeper:

“If it were solid, liquid, or gas, what would it be?”

“A gas.”

“What color?”

“Transparent… a misty gas.”

“Is it moving or still?”

“It has a stillness to it.”

“How much space does it occupy?”

“All of the head. And more… like a cloud around the head.”

There it was: the shape of overthinking.

A transparent, still, misty gas surrounding his head.

On a scale of 1 to 10, the intensity was a 6.

Now we had something to work with.

Your 'Problem' Has a Positive Intention

“Ask this gas what it wants for you.”

John listened inward.

“It wants a successful outcome.”

This is one of the most liberating realizations performers can make:

Your anxiety isn’t trying to sabotage you. It’s trying to protect you.

The problem isn’t the part — it's the context in which it’s trying to operate.

When John thanked the gas for wanting him to succeed, its intensity dropped immediately — from 6 to around 3.

And with that drop came a new experience:

“I can feel my inner body, my center of gravity. I’m less in my head.”

This is what happens when we stop fighting the anxious part and instead acknowledge its positive intention. The nervous system reorganizes. Tension softens. Inner awareness returns.

The “problem” is revealed as a helper that is simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Letting Each Part Do Its Job: The Self One / Self Two Agreement

Once Self One felt acknowledged, we asked it a simple question:

“Where do you do your best work?”

John lit up.

“In the practice room. When you take a bar apart and look at it analytically — that’s where Self One shines.”

He was right. Self One is a brilliant technician. But in performance? It overwhelms and constricts.

When we invited Self Two forward, the shift was immediate:

“It’s in my center of gravity… my lower plexus.”

Self Two didn’t live in the head. It lived in the body.

We then established a clear agreement:

• Self One takes the lead during preparation

• Self Two takes the lead during performance

  
  

Self One wasn’t eliminated — just given the right job at the right time.

But there was still resistance lingering under the surface.

Self One hesitated.

“It’s hard for him to trust,” John said. “He thinks that if he lets go, everything will fall apart.”

This hesitation wasn’t coming from performance. It was coming from somewhere much earlier.

The Deeper Origin of Performance Anxiety

When we asked Self One where this mistrust began, the answer surprised even John:

“Unpredictable parental behavior. My father was very up and down. I always had to be on my guard.”

Hypervigilance. Scanning the environment .Trying to predict danger. Living in the head to stay safe.

Self One wasn’t created by performance. It was created by survival.

It helped five-year-old John navigate an inconsistent environment. But now, decades later, it was still running the show.

This is why surface-level performance tools — breathing techniques, mental strategies, positive self-talk — often don’t touch the root. They address the symptoms, not the architecture that created them.

When we engaged the deeper layer with care, something softened.

“What would adult John say to that 5-year-old boy?” I asked.

He smiled.“Give him a chocolate bar. Tap him gently on the head. Tell him: you’re going to be okay.”

That image — simple, tender, grounded — became the missing resource.

When he imagined offering that reassurance to his younger self, something uncoiled in him:

“Peace. For both of us.”

The hypervigilant part no longer had to be the primary guardian. It had support. It could let go.

And with the tension released at its origin, something new could come forward.

The Emergence of a New Performance State

With Self One relieved of its childhood burden and Self Two stepping into its rightful place, John experienced a new internal state:

“It feels peaceful, safe, and free. Like an energy… a freeing current.”

We spent time letting this freeing current spread through his body — a somatic anchor his nervous system could return to.

Then came the integration.

I asked him to imagine Sunday’s program from this new state. He took his time and eventually returned with:

“All of it comes from here — that inner smile. The whole system works better.”

He mentally rehearsed his performance this way several times, letting his body and unconscious mind encode the new pattern.

By the time he opened his eyes, he felt like a different version of himself.

And three days later, he proved it on stage.

What Actually Changed — And Why It Worked

For musicians accustomed to practicing their way out of problems, John’s transformation may seem mysterious. But there were clear psychological and neurological mechanisms at work:

1. The problem became concrete, not conceptual.

A misty gas can change .“In my head” cannot.

2. The anxious part was revealed as protective.

Once appreciated, its intensity dropped. The nervous system downregulated.

3. The true function of each part became clear.

Self One = preparation

Self Two = performance

This clarity alone is powerful.

4. The historical origin was addressed.

Hypervigilance was not irrational. It was adaptive — once.

Releasing that burden freed the part from its survival role.

5. A new embodied state was installed.

“Freeing current” is not a metaphor. It’s a felt experience.

And because the body learned it, the body can return to it.

6. Mental rehearsal encoded the change.

The brain rehearsed performing from this new state, strengthening the neural pathways for flow.

This is why the change held during the actual performance. It wasn’t psychological. It was physiological.

Principles You Can Apply in Your Own Playing

Here are the key takeaways that musicians can use immediately:

1. Your anxiety has a purpose. Honor it.

Ask the fear: “What do you want for me?

”The answer is almost always positive.

2. Make the feeling physical.

Give it a shape, a temperature, a texture, a color.

What becomes tangible can transform.

3. Use the right mind at the right time.

Self One is for the practice room.

Self Two is for the stage.

Confusing their roles leads to tension.

4. Look for the deeper root.

Performance anxiety often begins long before performance.

Curiosity heals more than control.

5. Anchor your performance in the body.

Flow comes from embodiment, not analysis.

6. Rehearse the feeling, not just the music.

Your nervous system performs the way it practices. If you rehearse tension, you’ll perform tension.

If you rehearse freedom, you’ll perform freedom.

The Real Work

After the session, as John blinked his eyes open and returned from the deep work, he said:

“That was exactly the kind of work I was looking for. That’s where the work really is.”

He felt it, that shift from performing against something to performing from something.

From protecting himself to expressing himself.

From trying not to make mistakes to letting the music speak through him.

From overthinking to flow.

This is the territory where true artistic freedom lives.

And it is available, often much sooner than musicians think, when we work at the level where performance anxiety actually lives: in the unconscious mind, the nervous system, and the body’s learned history.

If you’re a musician struggling with overthinking, performance anxiety, stage tension, or the gap between how you play in the practice room and how you play on stage, this deeper level of work can create profound and lasting change.

You can learn more about this approach at michaelsundellcoaching.com.