208. Using Meditation for Confidence and Competitive Success with Amber Fahey

208 Amber Fahey

[00:00:00] Hello and welcome to Passion for Dance. I'm your host, Dr. Chelsea, and my mission is to create happier, more successful dancers through positive mental skills. And on today's episode, I'm joined by meditation and high performance coach. Amber Fahey. Amber has worked with thousands of athletes and individuals seeking to navigate more successfully through the everyday stresses of life and live each day with more intention and purpose.

And she's worked with some of the top nationally ranked dance teams. She understands our competitive dance world and has translated all of her formal training on meditation to create programs specifically for dancers. So today we delve into practical strategies for integrating meditation into your dance practice and the vital role of breath work and journaling how all three of those really come together.

Amber provides detailed examples of visualization techniques and breathing exercises to help dancers maintain focus and confidence during high pressure moments. [00:01:00] She even graciously agreed to let me share a guided breathing exercise of hers specifically for confidence and positivity. It's at the end of the episode so you can try it for yourself right away.

Let's talk about using meditation for confidence and competitive success with Amber Fahey.

Welcome to Passion for Dance. I'm Dr. Chelsea, a former professional dancer, turn sport psychologist, and this podcast is for everyone in the dance industry who want to learn actionable strategies and new mindsets to build happier, more successful dancers. I. I know what it feels like to push through the pain, take on all the criticism, and do whatever it takes to make sure the show will go on.

But I also know that we understand more about mental health and resilience than ever before, and it's time to change the industry for the better. This podcast is for all of us to connect, learn, and share our passion for dance with the world. 

Dr Chelsea: Hi Amber. Welcome to the show.

Amber: Thank you so much for having me. I couldn't be more excited to [00:02:00] talk about today's topic.

Dr Chelsea: Aw, thank you. Will you briefly tell us a little about yourself and your dance background?

Amber: Absolutely. So I actually grew up cheering, not dancing. However, my girls, I have two girls now, uh, 18 and soon to be 16 on Sunday, who have been competing in dance, um, since age three and five. So I have been a mom, a spectator, and for the last, almost five years now, a coach stage for all different things, solos, um, recitals. Um, specific competitions all the way up to national. So I've got many perspectives, but, um, I understand the jitters, I understand the nerves, cheer has very similar type competitions, but just to be specific, I did not actually grow up dancing, but I know quite a bit about it.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah, that's fair. And I think you're right. Dance and cheer are similar from a mindset [00:03:00] place in that you do all this training for two minutes on the floor, right? So the mental space is very similar. . So what brought you to mental fitness training? How'd you end up doing this work?

Amber: So long story short, my background is completely corporate. 15 years at a school with large corporations climbing the ladder, getting well trained. However, during Covid, I think like a lot of people had the opportunity, um, to step back and figure out what it is I love and what do I really wanna be doing in life. And so I was blessed enough to have that opportunity where my husband can support that. And I, I just realized meditation is one of those areas that I absolutely love. And to be quite honest, what really pivoted my world was listening to a podcast. Um, it was hosted by Danica Patrick, and she was interviewing Dr. Joe Dispenza. Never heard of him at the time, and he [00:04:00] was a very sought out speaker, neuroscientist, had an amazing healing story, it honestly changed the entire course of my life for the better. Um, after hearing his healing story and learning that we have so much power and control and that it just takes becoming a little bit more aware, a little bit more conscious that we can utilize our brain to even self-heal.

As a result of that, I started meditating every single day. And honestly feeling those benefits and noticing from other people how they were responding differently and asking questions to me, um, what's going on? You're definitely more calm. You're living in covid. How is this happening? so really that's how it all began. And then I just started diving into education, education, signing up to learn more about it. A facilitator under Unplug, um, then going into Pilates and, and, and high [00:05:00] performance habits training. I.

Dr Chelsea: I love that. That is one of my core values in life is learning because yes, we're always, always seeking that out and that's, I'm glad you brought up that background because , one of the main reasons I wanted to have you was to talk about mindfulness and meditation, because I can speak to the science of it, and I have talked about it on the show before and I have encouraged others to do it, but I will always be upfront and say of all the mental skills that I train, meditation is the one I have the least personal experience in. Everything else I've used regularly myself for a long time. But I have always struggled with meditation. I'm one of those people that's like, this is uncomfortable. I don't like it.

So it's nice to talk to somebody that's like, I know the benefits, I totally understand the science, and yet I know I have a hard time with it, so I know other listeners do as well. So let's talk about mindfulness. How do you explain my, well, I guess first, do you separate mindfulness and [00:06:00] meditation?

Amber: You know, I really do. I think, you know, when you hear the term mindfulness, it's so overused sometimes,

Dr Chelsea: Yeah.

Amber: really all it means is experiencing the moment without trying to judge it, escape it, analyze it to death and control it. You're just being there and present and that's a really hard thing to do. I don't think people realize how often they are not present.

Dr Chelsea: Right.

Amber: and I, through the study of mindfulness practice and just learning about our brain and how we operate and why we operate the way we do; it's quite disturbing to, to learn those statistics in terms of we are only using 5% of our conscious brain by the time we are 35 years old we are in default mode autopilot 46.9% of the time, which means we're physically somewhere, our body is somewhere like driving. For instance, which you know, is a safety thing, but our mind is [00:07:00] hijacked and it's somewhere else in the past or anticipating the future.

Dr Chelsea: Right.

Amber: Just imagine if you can have some more conscious time in a day and like grab some of that control back. So I would say the difference between the two is meditation is really a technique Practices, mindfulness that allows you to learn to have more mindfulness and more conscious time in your day, and the more you practice and sitting still and telling your mind to just be quiet creates some space in between your thoughts coming in. And you practice more awareness time, more consciousness time. And the more you do it, the more you recognize more things that are around you every single day, the more you have presence and conscious time.

Dr Chelsea: That's a great explanation. I, I think I see it that way too, where mindfulness is more the broader term. Meditation is the technique to help you learn mindfulness and I [00:08:00] have worked on mindfulness a lot and I definitely work on the awareness part, and I think that's where I see the biggest shift, like you just said, when people are aware of how much they are disconnected or how much they're not present. And dancers especially, we throw around the phrase I have to be in the moment. Like when you're dancing, when you're on stage to be present and be in the moment, and to a lot of choreographers and teachers, it's about the music. You have to listen to the music, let the music be that guide.

But if you aren't in the present moment, listening to that count and that beat and that rhythm in the moment, you can't stay present, your mind is gonna be all over. So. I definitely, uh, will bring that into competition and dance. 'cause I think meditation as a technique to help is huge. So what, what do you say to the skeptics like me, who come in and say, meditation is hard.

I don't like it. I tried it once.

Amber: Yes, yes. And you're not alone. I mean, there's some days where I'm like, okay, I'm just gonna turn to a breathing exercise and do something for [00:09:00] three minutes. Here's what I'll say. It's like anything else, your brain is a muscle ultimately you have the ability to train it, you have the ability to upgrade that software.

 I mean, if you learn and you actually resonate with the fact that you can upgrade that software in your brain to give you more conscious time, to be in more control, to be more intentional, to sleep better, to feel better.

To have less regrets at the end of the day and to be more productive, um, why would you not at least try it? It is a time commitment of a scroll of your social media once a day. This isn't a habit that takes hours of your daily routine that you have to carve out in order to get a result. You can feel a result from. 75 seconds to 90 seconds of a controlled breathing exercise, you can change your resting [00:10:00] heart rate. You can bring down all of the anxiety and get your body right into a focus point and out of autopilot or stress mode.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah.

Amber: why I, I think it's a choice. It's honestly a declaration to people who really are committed to performance, who are dedicated in progress. And really want more for themselves. It is a declaration, it is a choice, and it is not a large time commitment.

Dr Chelsea: That's a great argument. Uh, I am getting much better at it, and I do really enjoy it. That's why I wanted to ask you to challenge it, because I know there's a lot of people that your initial reaction is like, eh, this doesn't work, or I don't like it. But that's true with anything you know, the first time you try any a new skill in dance, you're like, oh, that was awkward.

I can't do that. It's like, Nope. It takes commitment and it takes time, and this one is not a lot of time.

Amber: No, and it takes being uncomfortable to grow. It takes, you know, when you are pushing yourself in a marathon to run that extra minute in that your training, it doesn't feel very good. It doesn't feel natural, but you [00:11:00] know you're gonna get rewards if you just push yourself and allow yourself to sit with the discomfort a little bit more.

It's uncomfortable. It isn't normal for us to sit still.

Dr Chelsea: Right.

Amber: have this brain that is trained to survive, so it's constantly on alert, on trying to detect fear and planning

Dr Chelsea: Yeah.

Amber: case scenario so you can survive and prolong life. That is the reality of what our brain is meant to do.

Dr Chelsea: Right. And I, so I was talking to a studio teacher just a couple days ago who asked me for advice, and I wanna pass it to you 'cause I think you could answer this in a better way than I could at the time about using this regularly in the studio. 'cause I know you've done this with competitive dancers and this teacher was saying, how do I convince the studio owner that it is worth it to spend our time on this. And I think that's the pushback I get as well with like add some journaling or add some meditation. And teachers are like, well, I only have them for an hour. I can't spend the time. So[00:12:00] 

Amber: Yeah.

Dr Chelsea: how do we convince them it's not a waste of time? Or how much time are we really talking about?

If you're gonna integrate this into like a dancer's schedule.

Amber: Yes. Well, first of all, I would always ask for like 10 minutes of the studio owner's time to just show them a little bit of information about it and share other teams that have been using it and why it's worked and how it's worked so that they can hear from people who actually have adopted. The type of practice that helps them.

But know, for this specific case, and you have somebody that's on staff that's really interested in doing it, it's really about asking questions like to the owner, like, gosh, how much unproductive time do you really think, you know, we have in a practice.

Dr Chelsea: Right.

Amber: you think it's like 15 minutes over an hour and a half?

 Asking that question and gosh, wouldn't it be great to have a more structured practice that has some specific goals and more intention behind it? Um, so asking those types of questions because it only takes about, you know, for my [00:13:00] program, I, I lay out specific things in terms of how to execute it, but it always ends up looking a little bit different as people start adopting the program.

But 15 minutes once a week together, first practice of the week, that is it. You already have a minimum of 15 unproductive minutes in a practice and. People in your class that feel valued, that are like, wow, we're gonna sit down and do this. Okay. Yes, because mental warmups and, and your performance on any given day is 50 to 90% mental. This should be something that we are practicing doing and, and thank you for taking this time. I think coaches will be surprised how the parents are going to embrace it, and as well as students. So back up because I'm kind of jumping all over the place, but I, the biggest pushback that I get is we don't have the time and are they going to buy in?

Dr Chelsea: Right.

Amber: those are the two [00:14:00] things. You know, those are the two things, hands down all the time. So again, not a long time commitment. 15 minutes once, one practice a week.

That's the longest.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah.

Amber: typically, this program is really meant for competitive teams that practice at least three times a week. A shorter version, but the one that I'm highlighting today, really, the seasonal one, it's three times a week. Those are really the competitive teams that need it more than anyone, that have the most pressure, that get in their heads, that have the most perfectionism in there, that take on more and they need more, and they just need that intensity, right? And so those mental warmups are really important for them. Um, so 15 minutes. And then the other two practices, you begin with a breathing exercise. That's two to three minutes. People are running from place to place. Everyone's head is in a different spot when they arrive. If you all can sit down, create a ritual of sitting in a circle, doing something cohesive, it just creates a natural bond and unity and like, okay, we're doing this,

Dr Chelsea: Yeah. 

Amber: this is the on switch.

And [00:15:00] you know, at the end of the breathing exercise, you create one little intention that takes two seconds in 

Dr Chelsea: Point. Your

Amber: practice with breath transition time. The third practice of the week, or sometimes, you know, whoever's coaching it, it might be that second practice, you begin with the breathwork, you end with a meditation so that is the gist of it.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah. And that,

Amber: times a week.

Dr Chelsea: that's so powerful and I think. That question, how much time are we already unproductive? Like how much unproductive time is already happening in practice? A lot, unfortunately. Right? Like they're distracted. And especially when you have practice after school or like even, you know, Saturday mornings or something, like, it is really hard to get people to come in and and be focused.

And if you could do that. Mindfulness practice at the beginning and get more out of the time that you have. Right? That seems like the no-brainer, like let's have that focus.

Amber: Exactly. And, and the thing is teaching a breath exercise for [00:16:00] two to three minutes. What I, the feedback I get, these kids take it, they use it before they, they have a difficult conversation before they take a test. It's a life enhancing skill that they end up utilizing outside of dance.

Dr Chelsea: Absolutely. I was talking to a team just last night. We were talking about this like pre-competition ritual, but it's the same idea and you use it in practice because if you've done it every day in practice, then when you show up at the national finals, it's comforting and calming and it's the same ritual that you've been doing and you can't.

You'll see the benefit rather than waiting for, okay, well now it's nationals and I'm nervous. It's like, no, you're, you practice that, you know, intention setting and focus at the beginning of a regular practice. Like the benefit is there during practice, but it really shows up in those high pressure moments.

Amber: It does, it does. I mean, there is such a thing as, you know, an emergency type, um, meditation that does help, but a hundred percent it is a muscle. The more you work it [00:17:00] out, the more natural that type of exercise is for you and will work for you and you will reap the benefits longer. For

Dr Chelsea: Yeah. Yeah. So let's talk about competition. How do you see this helping dancers at competition?

Amber: Yes. So at competition, my goodness, that is where, um, emotions are extremely high and I feel like competition is their brain. You get a snapshot illusion a lot of times is what I like to call that you, you have this unkind mind that shows up in the wrong moments and time and you don't want that there. So it misinterprets of what's going on over there. When you actually see a competitor, if you're at a solo, for example, someone warming up and doing, you know their thing, oh my gosh. You automatically create a narrative in your head, in your mind that I don't have that move. You know, and you start comparing and you get nervous and all [00:18:00] this doubt and anxiety starts coming up.

It's the snapshot illusion. We create this fear that we just aren't as good, and we start to feel inferior to them. We don't know who they are.

Know, we, we have no idea if that we're even competing against this individual, but it's

Dr Chelsea: Right.

Amber: Our mind is so creative and you know, it's going to create some narratives for you.

So. is so important in competition day is beginning the day. Now, this is my best case scenario. This is

Dr Chelsea: Sure.

Amber: I'm coaching. You know, from start to finish starting the day writing a few things down on a piece of paper. Hopefully it's the journal that we've been using all season long, but it's creating intention for your day.

What do you want? What is most important, I call it the win concept. What's important now. Every competition is different. Every, you know, performance, you're trying to get something new or different outta it. What's important now? That's the first question. You write that down, do I wanna feel? And then what is one thing I can do to support that what do I [00:19:00] need to let go of? always something you need to let go of, and then you run, you know, you,

Dr Chelsea: Yeah.

Amber: that. So a visualization technique would be at some point, hopefully before you arrive, unless you have all day there, then find your corner, find your headset, do your visualization. But that's something I think should be done individually and as a team, as close as possible before hitting the floor do your breath exercise. And you shout affirmations together, the affirmations that are necessary and needed for that specific performance.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah. Oh, so many good ideas. Okay, let's break this down. The first one, journaling in the morning. Love that. And I love that intention, and those are wonderful questions and. I would add to that, I think you would totally agree. When I talk to dancers about, you know, how do you wanna feel? What would make you feel successful today?

That kind of thing. It's making sure the answer to that is in your control. So trying to check in with dancers. You are like, you know, if it's, if success today is only [00:20:00] winning, or when my coach is proud of me, or you know, when I, my mom is happy, like it has to be a sense of success that's in your control.

And so as a coach, it's a good check-in where you can kind of see where's everybody at. Are we focused on things in our control this morning? And that helps again with maybe what I need to let go of is worrying about what our rival team is doing or what my coach thinks like it has to be about me this morning.

Do you agree with that, that self reflect reference?

Amber: Oh my gosh, that is so beautifully said.

Dr Chelsea: Uh, yeah. So I think that.

Amber: And I think the other one thing, sorry, is why. have to connect to your why.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah.

Amber: is like what lights, that little internal flame and that heart that always exists that wants to be turned up and on competition day, it is so important to remind yourself like, I am here because I love to dance. I am here because for myself and for my team. I believe in myself. I trust in myself. Like all those things. Your why is this [00:21:00] significant to me? Why am I.

Dr Chelsea: Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's really helpful. And I, I think, like you were saying, this is an ideal scenario. You have time in the morning to do this, and so I would add, you know, putting my coach hat on, I know sometimes like you're up doing hair and makeup at some ungodly hour in the morning, and if that's your competition schedule, do this the night before, like, let it be.

A way to still be in touch with that. And you can just read through it real quick while somebody's helping with your hair or whatever's going on. But give yourself that chance. 'cause sometimes I know these, these call times are awful.

Amber: I love that idea of having someone read it to you or ask the questions out loud together.

Dr Chelsea: That's a great idea.

Amber: the day of. Ask those questions together while you're getting ready and answer it with each other. That's a

Dr Chelsea: Yeah.

Amber: to do it.

Dr Chelsea: Oh, that's a really good idea. 'cause I know I'm, I'm thinking nationals now 'cause that's the season we're in for a lot of people that, you know, if you're in a hotel room with a bunch of dancers in a room together doing their hair, and it's like, you don't want them on their phone. You don't want them distracted.

[00:22:00] And so giving them this kind of intentional practice in the morning, like at some point during your. Time getting ready. Go through these questions together where it doesn't have to be a long time, like still be silly and keep it light and fun. But touch on these as we're getting ready this morning. I think the group aspect could be really helpful.

Yeah.

Amber: And I think just letting them know like your body is this vessel. It moves you place to place your mind is a navigation system. It absolutely needs some direction because if you don't give it any direction, it's gonna make a lot of wrong turns and just kind of wander around. So just kind of getting that straight right away and telling yourself, here's what I want.

Here's what I wanna feel, da da, da, da. That brain starts looking for that out in the areas where you place your body.

Dr Chelsea: Right. Yeah. And it's the ability to take control. I think you said this earlier when you were talking about mindfulness, is that we do tend to just let our minds go wherever they go [00:23:00] without understanding, like you have some control there. Like if. It is you find yourself ob obsessing over the dancer in front of you or the person on stage while you're warming up like that.

You can notice that it's the awareness. I'm like, okay, that's not helpful. And I see this a lot on the warmup floor, right? Especially places where like, you're warming up, somebody else is warming up next to you, you're, you're just stretching while you watch another team. Go, they, you know, nail their turn section or they have this really cool lift and all of a sudden you are panicking.

It's like that practice of, okay, notice that I'm worried about them. That's not helpful. And if you have this kind of strategy the way you're talking about where like I know what to do in that moment, I know to close my eyes, change my visual focus. Don't look at them, do the breath work. Like think about my why, like you have a strategy for like, you will probably.

Wander and panic and have some those negative thoughts. The stories like you said, will come in. So it's about having a plan, like what you do when your brain is drift [00:24:00] somewhere else.

Amber: One of the exercises, it's so simple and I love it. And we do it very early on in the season and it kind of becomes like their, their strategy, their own personal strategy and their words. And what they need is when you start to notice that the unkind mind shows up, you have an interruption phrase.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah.

Amber: they pick it, whatever speaks to them. So, no thank you. Not now stop. I've heard some people use a visual and they swipe like they're swiping on their social media and it's like a way to interrupt it, detach from it,

Dr Chelsea: Yeah.

Amber: and then replace it with kind words and affirmations and direction of where you wanna go.

Dr Chelsea: Oh, that's great advice because I hear a lot of dancers or they're, they understand affirmations and so they're like, oh, the positive self-talk helps. And that's very true. But if you are stuck in a negative spiral. You can't talk yourself out of it, like you have to have this interruption or this reset and yeah, so like [00:25:00] we're missing that step so that, that exercise sounds wonderful.

That chance, just like I have to intentionally stop that train of thought and replace it with something else, or I, you'll just continue down that spiral.

Amber: exactly.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah. So.

Amber: said.

Dr Chelsea: You also mentioned visualization, which I think is really helpful because dancers tend to visualize as a team, which means sitting down, holding hands, playing the music for their routine, and just picturing the routine.

And that's the extent of visualization, which can be helpful, not knocking it, but there's so much more that you can do with it. So when you talk about visualization for competition, what do you, what does that look like for you? What do you find helpful for dancers?

Amber: I find it helpful to, um, it's a guided meditation and it's a visualization, and I have several, depending on what competition you're at. Um, obviously nationals being the, the biggest one, so I'll just refer to that one. There's [00:26:00] one for every single morning of competition, day one, day two, and if you make it to day three,

Dr Chelsea: Yeah.

Amber: first is really getting yourself. Um. that ritual. So like the first day, we typically close our eyes together. We, um, get grounded with gratitude and the opportunity of, uh, being able to be here with our teammates, feeling our teammates around us. Feeling the power of everybody having the same intention and coming together in the same place. Picturing one or two faces of teammates that make you want to show up every day, that make you want to perform. And visualizing this light, uh, this heated light, like almost like a burner if you're cooking on gas burner, that you start to turn up that flame and you guard it and you get yourself backstage. And you feel the music, you, you, well, you actually [00:27:00] hear, um, the other team leave and it's your turn and you visualize walking out onto dance floor, feeling the ground beneath you, holding, um, hands as you walk out, releasing. I mean, it's every single detail to getting into your exact spot. taking your inhale, taking your exhale, relaxing the muscles in your face and in your body, feeling excitement and pride, and then that music starts.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah.

Amber: So that's kind of the first day, and it leads up to, you know, if you're in the second day and the third day. Going through that entire routine and feeling it. The second day is more about which part do you want more trust in? And everyone has a different part. So we close our eyes and we feel, and we picture the best case scenario and the emotions that come with the best case scenario. And then the last day it's like, it's, it's beautiful. It's

um, registered to that specific team. So

Dr Chelsea: Yeah. 

Amber: [00:28:00] write them for specific teams.

Dr Chelsea: Oh, that sounds amazing. I have done some, when I was the coach, I created something similar with that team, but I think, I love how detailed that was. Thank you for sharing, because it is about walking through the whole process up to getting on the floor, because that's where the anxiety tends to kick in.

That's where the panic happens. And again, it's like we need a plan. For what happens once you're backstage and especially for a lot of coaches, like you have to leave and go do the music, and your dancers are by themselves backstage, and having practiced that moment and have intention about where you're looking, what you're doing, what you're thinking about.

I love the flame imagery, uh, because you want, you want that flame, you want some kind of buzz and excitement. You're about to take the national floor so it's not extinguishing the flame. It's like controlling it. I think you said that you're guarding it on your way back. I love that phrase. Being able to have Yeah, protect it and it, you don't want it out, and you don't want it [00:29:00] blazing outta control and.

Having that visualization before you're in that moment would be so powerful to help the dancers know what to do when you get there. Right. I think that's sounds wonderful.

Amber: oh my gosh, the brain just craves the familiar, it goes

Dr Chelsea: Yeah.

Amber: because it's an energy saving mechanism for the brain.

Dr Chelsea: Mm-hmm.

Amber: the more you actually mentally rehearse desired outcome, the more your brain. Puts that out into reality

Dr Chelsea: Yeah.

Amber: it's, it's just, it's a beautiful thing when you actually master one visualization.

Like once you do it and it happens, you're like, manifestation, man. That's a beautiful thing. I mean, I feel like visualization and manifestation kind of go together.

Dr Chelsea: Yes. And the, the power of rehearsing that. I think that's where dancers miss too. And it sounds like, obviously your program has this built in, but just reiterating that, that if you do it for the first time when you're at nationals, it will probably [00:30:00] still help because it's that good, but it's not, it's not what it could be.

Where instead when you're in rehearsals at home, go through. Like your warmup on the floor. Go like, do the actual physical warmup. Do this visualization as you would, what is your breathing when you're backstage? You know, coach, walk away. You have two minutes. I'm gonna play a random song of the team that's on before you.

What do you do with that time? You know, like keep that rehearsal, you know, at home, in the studio. And then again, to your point, that makes it familiar so that when, when you need to use it later, it's there for you.

Amber: I know, and you talked in one episode about mimicking the actual competition floor as much as possible, because

Dr Chelsea: Yeah.

Amber: is what fuels confidence. So you're mimicking that, um, you know, in practices for the performances. But the mental piece, usually people are aware of it, but it's, I don't, it's not disvalue, I think it's just kind of forgotten, you

Dr Chelsea: Right,

Amber: it's just, yeah, not top of mind.

Dr Chelsea: right. And it's. Being able to practice it, [00:31:00] I think is so important for dancers, especially when you're going to a competition that you maybe haven't been to before or has a strange venue, right? Like it's, I'm thinking, you know, sometimes you're in an outside amphitheater or you're in a black box or like, are there lights?

Are you outside? Uh, where's the crowd? Where are the judges? Are they front row in front of you? Or they way the heck in the back, uh, and. Being able to add that into your visualization to understand it. Then you have, you know, the freshmen or the new members of the team who haven't been there before, have a chance to practice that and have a sense of it where it's not quite so scary and new because you've thought through it and, and pictured it and have that plan ready.

Amber: There was a professional golfer that had an interview, um, and I couldn't, I, it still, is it Mickelson? Or Michelson? Because that's the one I

Dr Chelsea: Yeah. I dunno.

Amber: golfer. So he had won the masters. And he was older than what he should be participating in the masters and he had won that year. So they did a [00:32:00] bunch of interviewing in terms of how did you do that? Like physically, you know, the stamina to make it three days and all these holes against all these 15 to 17 to 21 year olds. Like what are you doing? And he talked about his meditation practice, the visualization, what separates him being number one from number 15, I think that was where he fell last. He's like, I am on the green, you know, at the last parks, a lot of golfers lose. Um, and the putting aspect, and I am literally visualizing and telling myself where I want the ball to go. And some other guys, number 16 is, please don't play. Please don't. Three putt, please don't. Three putt. Whatever you do, don't.

Three put.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah.

Amber: the difference between number 16 and number one. This guy is telling himself what not to do, like and getting anxious about it. And this guy is visualizing and giving that direction. Here's the way that I wanna go. I see this going.

Dr Chelsea: Great. [00:33:00] Absolutely. I hear that with dancers. It's that, you know, you're trying to drill your turns before competition and you can either get stuck on like, oh, I keep falling. Don't fall, don't what if I mess this up, I'm gonna ruin it for everybody. Or This is what my turns are gonna hit today, it's going to hit, it feels amazing.

I know exactly where my posse goes. I know exactly how I should feel. And you get to back to our point about control. Like you get to decide how you're thinking through this and what you want it to be and yeah, especially the tricks that make you nervous. Being able to visualize those. Yeah.

Amber: Yes.

Dr Chelsea: I wanna pause for just a second and say hello to any new listeners and thank you for being a part of the community. If you're new to the show today or found us recently, I have a special resource for you. It's simply the new listener resource, and it has my best [00:34:00] recommendations for other podcasts or books to inspire you, as well as all my current free resources that you can download, which includes things like the competition confidence checklist, or journal prompts that might help you today.

It's actually a simple Google Doc because I'm constantly updating it and sharing new things for dancers and dance educators, and I wanted a way to give you all the links in one place so you can grab your copy today and it will always update as new things are happening this year. You can get it at passion for dance podcast.com.

You'll see it right on the homepage. That's passion for dance podcast.com. Welcome to the community. I'm so happy to have you. Okay, let's get back to the show.

Last piece I wanna bring in about breath work, 'cause you've mentioned that and how that adds in.

So will you speak a little about breath work. I think it's a really like approachable place to start for people who wanna dabble in this area. You tell us about breath work.

Amber: Yes, breath work. You know, a [00:35:00] lot of times you're coming from a chaotic whatever happened, you know, minutes before you're coming to what you're doing. And it's, it, there's a lot of unorganization going on up here. Lots of thoughts. Um, when you actually use something that's synchronized and controlled and you give it an order. And, um, a method or a rhythm that starts to create a method and a rhythm, an organization up in the mind. We have 60 to 80,000 thoughts in a day. We're making 35,000 decisions in a day, and eight to 12 unplanned circumstances come up for us in any given day. That's a lot of things that are happening up here.

Dr Chelsea: Mm-hmm.

Amber: Thing of sitting down and creating order through a pattern structured breath work, it slows the thought process down. It slows your resting heart rate down. It your brain, which allows energy to flow efficiently [00:36:00] and be created and creates a level of focus for you.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah.

Amber: in 90 seconds you can have that created with something that is accessible to you at any given time.

Dr Chelsea: Oh, that's a great explanation. I think people negate the power 'cause like, well, it's breathing, we breathe literally all day, every day. But it's, it's the rhythmic controlled part. And again, taking control of your physiology, bringing your heart rate back down, taking control again. That makes a lot of sense.

Mm-hmm.

Amber: said earlier, you know, it's about things that you can control. You can't control all those what ifs and anticipate and predict what's gonna happen. But you can take control of what's happening in your body and your mind and slow things down, and it gives you a sense of control a little bit.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah. Do you have a pattern that you like to work with with breathing?

Amber: , I have two favorite, and the, the first one is the box breath. And it's just because everybody seems to remember it and

very simple and you can just do four of them and it [00:37:00] helps. And it is your inhale and making your inhale four seconds long, and then keeping your breath floating at the top for four seconds long before you exhale. And then you exhale for four seconds. And then at the bottom you hold the, not hold it like, but you relax the breath and let it kind of hover for

Dr Chelsea: Yeah. Yep.

Amber: you start again.

. To one breath into 16 seconds.

Dr Chelsea: I like that one with dancers because sometimes we'll count it in eights and it just makes it more comfortable of like, breathe in, 1, 2, 3, 4, and you kind of hover there, 5, 6, 7, 8, breathe out, 1, 2, 3, 4, hover there, 5, 6, 7, 8. And it again, it's the comfort. It's the, like, I feel good in eights, I feel comfortable here.

And it makes that box breath really, uh, come pretty naturally. Yeah.

Amber: I love that, but I didn't put it in the eight. That's great. On my next recording, I'm gonna take that.

Dr Chelsea: There you go. It's, yeah, it's the same thing. We just, you know, dancers brain think in eights, so sometimes that's helpful. So you said there were two, [00:38:00] what's the other pattern that you like?

Amber: Oh yes. Okay. So the other one is the o, the overwhelm breath. When people are coming and they're like, I, I don't know if I can do this. I don't have two hours or an hour and a half of energy left in me. And so everything starts with the breath and I like to call it the capacity breath. So we begin, it's all, even as far as your inhale and your exhale are the same amount of time, we start at a count of four and four. We do that twice and then we increase it to five and five, do it twice, then take it to six, seven, and eight,

And then they. breathe as long as they possibly can. Just fully pulling up breath oxygen, loves big open spaces so that oxygen is like traveling all the way up to the brain and we hold it and then we exhale and let everything go that we're worried about that we can't control that is not going to be productive for us in our exhale.

Dr Chelsea: Oh, I like that one. I'll have to try that. That sounds great. Yeah.

Amber: And the one I sent [00:39:00] you seemed to be the, the dancer's favorites too. I sent you one about inhaling what you need and exhaling what you wanna release.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah.

Amber: it as inspiration and expiration. So breathing in confidence, exhaling out doubt. So doing the opposites,

Dr Chelsea: Yeah,

Amber: that also resonates with dancers.

That seems to be one of their favorites.

Dr Chelsea: that sounds amazing. And, and since you did send that to me, I think if you're all right with it, I would love to add it to the end of this episode and share it. You feel good about that?

Amber: I would love for you to do that. That would be amazing.

Dr Chelsea: Okay. So if you're listening, stick with us. We'll have that, uh, guided breath work at the end of the episode. Thank you for sharing. That's wonderful. I think. Like we said, it's a good, approachable way to start this and get a sense of what that feels like. So wonderful. So I know I said last thing with breath work, and I changed my mind because you use journaling so much with your programs and I am a huge advocate for journaling, so I, I would be remiss if we didn't ask [00:40:00] about it.

What does that look like in your programs or kind of the benefits you've seen with dancers who were journaling regularly?

Amber: Yes, and I, you know, journaling I think is the foundation for personal growth. It is a way to become more self-aware. It is a way to understand the patterns of your thinking. It is also a way to dissect a lot of things like wow. That is not right. That is, why do I think that that's not accurate? And it's a way to keep everything in one spot. Like, oh, I have an idea, or, wow, I had this great meditation and something popped up. Let me jot it down. And so a lot of times, you know, you, you, you think of something and you're like, oh, lemme get a piece of paper and you write it over there. So you have all these great things that are kind of scattered all over the place. Um, this journal is, the foundation of the actual program. So. asking yourself the right questions at the end of the day. And this is populated and it has , growth minded, topics. So it's very specific to what it is. We want our dancers to embody, to feel those, those aspects that you [00:41:00] want growth in and.

Coaches often find challenges. My gosh, we're really lacking in confidence. I don't know what to do here. We're, we're stuck on the failure that we had. So there's a topic, resilience, there's a topic, confidence, manifestation, judgment, unkind mind. What I like about it is you as a leader can decide where your team is at and what you need for that week in terms of, you know, the lesson.

You guys sit. down, you read together about the topic. You journal for five minutes and the questions are already there that provoke the right frame of mind of thinking,

Dr Chelsea: Yeah.

Amber: you're not just openly writing,

Dr Chelsea: Oh, I love that.

Amber: Asking yourself the right questions.

Dr Chelsea: And you've given some great questions as we've been talking, and I think it is the right question for the right time, which that's wonderful that a, a coach can say, I know where we're at. Like you said, coming off of hard feedback or going into a big day, or feeling a lack of motivation in those like hard slumps and just having the right question for the right time.

Yeah.[00:42:00] 

Amber: that's exactly right.

Dr Chelsea: So will you share the types of programs you have for teams and dancers out there and where to learn more?

Amber: Oh yeah, absolutely. So the, the one that originated with me is a seasonal program that is peer led mainly. What is great about having it be peer led is that you're giving someone a, a leadership opportunity. Um, and typically we ask a junior and a sophomore to do this that they can pass this on to somebody else and experience it, uh, the next year as well.

But build those leadership skills so when they are senior, they are, um, in a good leadership role and they've had. It's three things. You are journaling, you are learning about breath work, and you are meditating. There's a weekly topic that's introduced in the very beginning of the week. Um, you practice a different breath exercise as a team together every week, and you end one practice with a [00:43:00] meditation. Then there's a website that has a whole bunch of other stuff on it. It has all of the things already there. If you don't have your journal, you can go and find your questions. You can find your, um, breathing exercise. But it also has fun things like motivational videos, quotes, resources. it's just, it's. Tool for not only dancers coaches, but parents also have access to this. So if

Dr Chelsea: Yeah.

Amber: child at home that struggles with a little bit of anxiety, there's a sleep, body scan one that is, that has been used by families together just to help. So I think it's just, just a beautiful way to introduce. and anxiety reduction and getting a hold of how to manage these big emotions. So that's the signature program. Um, and then there's a, there's a new version that's coming out this year for teams that might have a little bit smaller of a budget, and it's the just journaling. So while my [00:44:00] method has the three things you lightly get introduced to breath work and meditation, , but you're really focusing on talking about those specific topics and having those pre-populated questions that you answer.

Dr Chelsea: Yeah.

Amber: has some weekly challenges in there. Um, that helped just with the doing and the executing part and holding people accountable.

So it's, it'll work. It doesn't touch on all three, but it absolutely is an amazing start and still is extremely beneficial if you're interested in mindfulness, but have a smaller budget.

Dr Chelsea: That sounds great. Okay. Where can people go to find out more?

Amber: So you can go to my website, which is, shift with amber.com. You can also, um, head to and, and you can send me a message and that's at shift with Amber. Or please just email me directly, which is shift with amber@gmail.com.

Dr Chelsea: Okay. Thank you. And I'll make sure those [00:45:00] are all linked in the show notes wherever you're listening.

Amber: Oh, yes. And on TikTok, I also have breathing exercises,

Dr Chelsea: Oh good.

Amber: about TikTok a lot, but yes. Yeah, TikTok, there's some good stuff there as well.

Dr Chelsea: Sounds good.

Amber: wanna say thank you so much for inviting me

Dr Chelsea: Yeah.

Amber: I love what you do. It is so valuable. I share your podcast with my kids all the time. Um. I just, I hope you never stop because happier, more successful dancers with positive mental skills. I am preaching and living and teaching and doing all these strategies, and I believe in them 150%. So

Dr Chelsea: Aw. Thank you. You're so welcome. Thank you for sharing that. That's really sweet. And thank you for sharing all of your knowledge today. I am really, I know that this will make a big difference for a lot of dancers out there, so thank you so much.

Amber: Thank you.

Dr Chelsea: All right. And if you're still here, let's get started with the breathing exercise, confidence and positivity.

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