MINDFULNESS AND MENTAL WELLNESS FOR MUSICIANS

VANESSA CORNETT          
MINDFULLNESS AND WELLNESS FOR MUSICIANS

I loved this session! It was absolutely the best so far. Besides that, the speaker is well known and a friend from the great state of Minnesota. Vanessa had a wonderful sheet of notes on her session. I haven't included those in this post, but my own miscellaneous notes from the session.

Have you ever wondered how far you should go in being a mentor and advocate for a student who may trust you with their innermost feelings, problems, and difficulties. This was so well defined and clarified today in Dr. Cornett's session:

Teacher’s Role

DO	DON’T
Be a teacher, mentor, advocate, supporter.	Be a confidant, parent, therapist, buddy.
Remember the teacher-student relationship is sacred, private and intense.	Forget that students are vulnerable and often susceptible to teachers they idealize.
Listen carefully and take students seriously.	Brush off students.
Teach with the student’s best interest in mind.	Rely on student accomplishments as an indicator of your worth.
Know when to recommend therapy to a student or parent.	Accidentally err on the side of neglect, err on the side of carefullness.
Know what resources are out there for teachers and students.

“What a liberation to realize that the ‘voice in my head’ is not who I am.

Who am I, then? The one who sees that.   ---  Ekhart Tolle

Dr. Cornett's definition of Mindfullness: The deliberate and gentle focus of awareness, without evaluation, on the thoughts and events of the present moment.

Meditation: The practice of using contemplation to train the mind for a specific purpose (e.g. to cultivate mindfulness).

Meditation can be the practice, mindfulness can be the goal.

This Does Not require: cushions, incense, chanting, New Age philosophy, yoga, etc.

In an exercise Dr. Cornett had the audience pay attention to our breathing while watching a blank screen. A minute or two into the exercise she flashed a photo of a paperclip briefly on the screen. Then a few seconds later, a picture of Easter eggs and brights colored jelly bean. Both times we were to be aware of the presence of the photos and dismiss them quickly, bringing our focus completely back on our breathing. 

Later the neutral image of colors and squares was flashed on the screen and a few seconds later, an image of BUGS; those were harder to dismiss and bring my focus back!

Tenets of Mindfulness  (These are difficult for musicians under stress to do)

Non judging

Acceptance

Patience

Beginner’s mind

Trust

Non-striving

Letting go

These were then put into the context of a performance

Mindfulness	Performance Context
Non-judging	During the performance
Acceptance	Of both good and bad
Patience	With the self, body, mind
Beginner’s mind	Listening with fresh ears
Trust	In good preparation
Non-striving	Process not product
Letting go	In the zone, a flow state

Tips for Beginners Regarding Mindfulness and Meditation:

• Start simple
• Taking a breath.
• For meditation, aim for 10 minutes maximum. (If you can do 10 minutes, 5 minutes is great; if you can’t do 5 minutes, 1 minute is great.)
• Choose a spot where you will be undisturbed.
• Use extraneous sounds as practice for non-judgement
• Make the body comfortable
• Guided meditations are easy to find online

Some Things to Remember

• There is no such thing as a bad meditation
• The goal is not to calm the mind or quiet the thoughts
• Simply observe what is
• It is the nature of the mind to wander and drift
• Acknowledge and release thoughts without judgment
• Adopt an attitude of friendliness to your thougts as you gently set them aside
• Give yourself permission to think about it later

Simple visualizations

• Thoughts
• Bubbling
• Up and
• Popping
• One by one

• Labeling
• Thoughts
• And
• Setting
• Them
• Aside.

• Observe
• The self
• That is
• meditating

Looking forward to tomorrow!