“Excited and Scared”: How a singer turned clinical hypnotist now prepares.
I was in Midtown Manhattan, sitting in a white folding chair in an Audition Workshop at a professional acting studio.
Jen, the teacher, had just dropped this gem of a bombshell when it came to auditions: nerves and excitement are the same physiological response. The same racing heart, the same buzzing electricity running your body, the same pit in your stomach. The only difference, she said, is the story you tell yourself about it.
Someone made the inevitable Into the Woods joke about being excited and scared.
We laughed. And I nodded my head. I understood the concept, intellectually. I could explain the physiology back to you. The cognitive reframe made perfect sense to my thinking mind.
But when it came to executing that reframe, my body failed. Every time.
Which meant that when the fear, those dreaded nerves, came at the next audition, the next gig, hell, even the next time I got up in class to do a work session in front of people, and the reframe didn't work, I had a new problem. The fear now had company: shame.
The shame that came with the less than kind inner thoughts: You're a smart, trained singer, why can’t you just f-ing do it?
That came with the pit in the stomach, the procrastination (which caused more unkind thoughts). The shame that came with the perfectionism that tried to be helpful with “oh maybe, you’re just not ready.”
The shame with the overthinking mind that couldn’t shut off. A running commentary of viciousness and criticism. That kind that led to shutdown and collapse.
What I didn't know, in that studio in 2018, was that intellect (my greatest strength, my most prized possession at the time, the thing that had got me to that white folding chair) would only take me so far. And while the exercises in class, the acting techniques taught were designed to get you to connect with your intuition, your creativity, your flow state, I couldn’t get there and sustain it. Yet.
My work wasn’t with the thinking mind. It wasn’t even with lessons or techniques. It was with something deeper, somewhere beneath the surface where my patterns of fear and shame spirals first took root: the subconscious, the nervous system, the body. To go forward, I first had to go inward.
Eight Years Later, “A Way Back To Then”
Yesterday I hopped onto my weekly Zoom hypnotic breathwork session.
After a deep exhale, I set an intention around singing. My first gig in 8 months is on Wednesday and I want to share my gifts uninhibited and unafraid. On the next inhale, I followed the breath inward.
The track that came on through my headphones was a remix of Coldplay's The Scientist. I have no warm feelings about this song. It was the lead track on a burnt CD an ex-boyfriend from college gave me for my 21st birthday in an attempt to win me back after serious mistakes on his part were made.
And yet, that one line:
Oh take me back to the start.
Did exactly what I needed in the moment.
The perfect example of what I mean when I tell my clients that entering trance state allows you: to go wherever you need to go, see whatever you need to see.
I drifted back through performances, auditions I showed up for, and ones I didn’t. To lessons, classes, and gigs, to the basement cabaret rooms of the City. As simple as pressing the rewind button on a remote.
And then I arrived somewhere I hadn't expected.
The formal living room of my childhood home.
The one with the nice furniture, where you were afraid to eat or drink for fear you’d spill something. Or leave a trace that made it look like people actually used the space. That Connecticut country blue room with the piano in the corner, the record player, tape deck, and speakers tucked away in a New England colonial-style cabinet.
And right in the center of the room, there I was. In a white sweatshirt covered in neon puffy paint squiggles with black lycra biker shorts. (Don’t judge, it was the early nineties, I was the height of childhood fashion).
The original Broadway cast recording of Annie on the record player with me, alone in that room, belting Maybe and Tomorrow at the top of my lungs, creating original choreography to You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile.
Adult Caitlin observing Little Caitlin in a moment of pure childhood love and joy.
That's the evidence my subconscious needed. To witness my younger self singing uninhibited, before fear, doubt, nerves, and tension took over. Before the patterns of avoidance formed. Before my nervous system shut down because it wasn’t safe to be seen. Evidence that told older Caitlin: You know how to do that. You’ve done it before.
I stayed there for a while. Watching, feeling, resonating, anchoring in.
“Come to the Cabaret,” My Mental Rehearsal in Action
And once that scene felt complete, I came to the mental rehearsal. Still in hypnotic trance, I floated up and away from my childhood living room, landing softly in the exact room where my gig is happening on Wednesday.
I know this room: the glittery red walls, the intimate arrangement of tables and chairs. The bar along the back wall with folding glass doors to the outside. The stage with the keyboard, the microphone, and the mic stand. I built the performance in my mind with specificity, engaging with all the senses: sights, sounds, smells, things to touch, people to connect with.
I put myself on the stage in my full performance get-up: black jumpsuit, fur coat, satin shoes. I went through sound check. I watched the audience arrive. I went on the journey with them. I sang in a conversational style, making old songs new again, present in the story, sitting with whatever emotions arose without needing to manage them.
And then I did it again. And again. And again.
The brain does not distinguish between real and imagined. A vivid, sensory-rich experience in a hypnotic state is processed as evidence. The neural pathways associated with that identity begin to form.
That’s the identity I’m showing up with tomorrow. To sing and tell stories. To be witnessed. To be seen.
To do the thing I love to do.
Your first step in
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See you in the muck.
Caitlin
The Future Self Session
20 minutes clinical hypnosis audio recording Journaling guide to future scripting