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I don’t think I have a specific phrase I tell myself, but it usually falls in the idea of ‘it’s going to be okay/you’re here to learn/you’re here because you love it’. I’m really into the universe/divine timing so reminding myself that I am here for a reason and greater purpose helps me push through hard days. I’ve also been reminding myself a lot lately that I love dancing! I am so grateful to be studying something that i’m so passionate about and I want to dedicate my energy to learning when given the opportunity! - my self talk for that is ‘so many people would kill to be in your shoes’. It gives me perspective. :)

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“Real toughness isn’t just about helping you deal with pain or perform better; it’s about making you a healthier, happier human being.”

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A skill that i’m learning in ballet/contemp that helps me do hard things is trusting myself (confidence basically). Contemporary has really helped me become comfortable in my own body and the way that it moves. I had to shift my mindset from being performative to doing what feels right with my movement- trusting that I know myself and what i’m doing. Ballet was rough for me last semester, until I decided that I was taking class for me- that i’m at college to learn. I had to trust that my best was enough, no one was judging me, and i need to focus my energy on taking class instead of thinking about how ‘good’ I did that day.

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The skill I chose is kind of hard to teach, more something that you have to realize on your own. The biggest thing I could do to help a friend trust themselves is give reassurances that i’m here to support them if they ever needed it. It would be more about creating an environment for them where they feel safe enough to explore and encouraging them to be themselves.

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Someone I know who ‘finds their way through’ is my sister. She’s experienced a lot of hard things but leans on me and my family to make it through. She knows when to ask for help and when she needs to take a step back.

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”Throwing people in the deep end doesn’t work unless they’ve been taught the basics of how to swim.” I love this quote! I think it’s very important to remember that this is everyone’s first time living and we need to be more forgiving and thoughtful about teaching skills you might deem as ‘common sense’.

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A dance scenario that usually causes me stress is improv-ing when other people are told to watch us. I love to improv but adding in the factor of knowing i’m being observed makes me nervous. My appropriate, authentic goal would be to keep my eyes open and use levels while i’m improving (don’t just stay on the floor). I would define my judgements and expectations to simply dancing the whole time and staying calm, as long as I don’t freak out it was a success. I would course-correct for stress by going into it with the mindset of just dancing like myself, not trying to do anything ‘cool’ or trying to impress anyone. Finally, I would prime my mind by practicing positive self talk before I start dancing.

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One thing i’d takeaway is “Our expectations set the stage for our biological reaction.” It helps to remind myself that stress isn’t something that I can always control, it truly is a biological reaction and I don’t have to feel embarrassed about being nervous if other people don’t appear to be. With that, it can be controlled to a certain extent. There are methods I can use that will help me deal with and prevent stress because there are real statistics and studies done about the topic.

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Lower the bar:

1. staying focused when i’m around my friends

2. underestimating my ability (especially in ballet)

3. not engaging my muscles

Raise the floor:

1. it’s taught me tactics to keep myself ‘in the room’

2. it’s given me the attitude of always doing my best/giving everything even when I dont 100% know what’s going on

3. it’s taught me to think about how my body is placed throughout class

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1. quick memory/ learning and immediately doing

2. punctuality

3. doing small/fast movement

1. I try to focus on the details and break the dance up into sections that I can remember

2. I started doing a consistent morning routine to make sure i’m up and ready on time

3. once again focusing on the details and engaging my muscles when I dance

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I know I can use quality of movement! I feel pretty comfortable with experimenting and movement quality has been my strong suit since I started dancing. Coming to college built upon this more with the help of our body/movement practices- they help me with placement.

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My biggest takeaway is that false confidence doesn’t really work. As Magness elaborates on, we were taught as children to ‘fake it till you make it’ which is now being proven overall unhelpful. It’s definitely something I want to keep in mind for when i’m feeling unconfident or trying to help other people with their confidence!

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My real confidence role model is one of my friends, Maria! She’s still in high school so kind of unexpected that she’d be a role model to me and not the other way around, but I think she exhibits real confidence based on tangible success.

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I’m not sure I understand the question/what it’s referencing but I think i’ve seen other people exhibit hopelessness. In high school dance there were a couple people that started the year with high hopes, got put in the back of formations a couple times, and stopped trying to improve. They had the mindset that no matter how hard they worked their spot would never change- so why try?

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I use exercise #4 adopt a ritual. I have a hard time moving from task to task, so I dread getting up in the morning and getting ready before class. This semester I created a concrete morning routine that’s really been helping me start my day. As soon as I wake up I know what to do and where to start. Having this routine has made me feel a lot more prepared for class this semester and I think i’m able to devote more mental attention to it.

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I’ve seen Rachel use #3 allow them to fail, reflect, and improve. Ballet’s not my strong suit (and she knows that..) but I’m still encouraged to do everything without modifications (simplifying arms, slowing down, etc.). This has allowed me to learn for myself that I can pick things up faster than I thought and I need to stop underestimating myself!

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I have a hard time distinguishing the physical response of being jittery with being anxious. Most of the time when i’m jittery I just had too much caffeine- I don’t actually feel anxious or nervous. I can practice separating the two by noting when i’m having caffeine and when i’m feeling ‘anxious’ to actually think about the situation i’m in and what would be making me feel anxious if anything at all.

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prompt: Find an image that encapsulates what it feels like to misinterpret the connection between physical reactions and emotions

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Prompt: Magness asks if feeling and emotions are messengers relaying information or dictators pushing us towards a reaction with little to no control- do you think your emotions are usually more like messengers or dictators?

Answer: I think my emotions are more like messengers. I’m not usually someone who acts on impulse and I would say i’m usually very emotionally intelligent. Typically I can understand/anticipate my emotions and work through them.

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My helpless child appeared a lot last semester in ballet. I was pretty unfamiliar with everything we were doing while also just meeting and getting to know the other dance majors. Usually learning new things and styles doesn’t phase me but I think it was the feeling that I was the only one learning it for the first time (I wasn’t). My helpless child typically says things like “they think i’m a bad dancer”, “i’m the weakest link”, and “I don’t know what i’m doing”- the last one usually repeatedly.

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1. My calm optimist would come forward to comfort me and remind me that I belong here. They would try to ease my mind during class so I could actually focus on the material instead of shutting down. The calm optimist might say things like “it’s gonna be okay”, and “you’re here for a reason”.

2. Secondly, my proud rival would come forward to give me tough love. They would remind my helpless child that nothing gets done by feeling sorry for yourself. They might say things like “don’t waste your time giving 70%” paired with “you’re literally paying money to be here”.

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While switching between I, you, and my name I noticed that I feel more motivated using ‘you’ in positive self talk. Using ‘I’ feels weird to me, I think i’m a very community driven person so singling it out to just ‘I need to do something’ makes me feel too focused on just myself. Using my own name while talking to myself also feels strange- partly because it feels grammatically incorrect- and partly because it makes me disconnected from myself somehow. Using ‘you’ is the best option for me. When going across the floor for example, telling myself ‘you can do this’ makes me feel motivated while also silently sending out that message to other people; like we can do this.

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Self talk is a very effective tool in my opinion. It depends on the situation but I switch between positive and negative. If I was having a hard day outside of class, I would practice positive self talk to try and make myself feel better; but on a normal day I think negative self talk helps me the most. I’m a competitive person, so it helps me to compare my current self with my past self. I have to be a little harsh with myself in order to become motivated.

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I love doing this!! I have to say this isn’t my first time setting aside time to just sit and think. A lot of times when i’m feeling stressed or restless I sit in my dorm room and literally stare at a wall for 15-20 minutes. It gives me time to actually think about my day and the state of my emotions/mental health. I also have trouble moving from task to task, so I find that it helps me reset and prepare to move onto my next task of the day.

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One other takeaway I have from this chapter is the beginning part about activity in the amygdala. I’m in psych 301 right now and every chapter has coincidentally lined up with what we are learning about in that class. This chapter furthered my understanding on how our amygdala affects how we react to things and how we do in fact have some sort of control over it.

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I chose to do the temporal zooming: imagine the future exercise. This helped me a lot! Thinking about the things that i’m so stressed about now meaning nothing even 3 months in the future. I think this exercise can apply to almost anything, that with time everything will eventually get better.

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I spoke with my dad, who used to coach little league basketball and my old ymca basketball team. Our conversation was a little different than the examples Magness provided in the chapter because my dad was always working with children, but it almost amplified his points. On the subject of needing to feel like you belong a team for it to work well, children display this x10. My dad talked about how he encouraged his old team (and the one I was on) to hang out at school- not just practice- and encourage the parents to have us hang out after school/on weekends. It was interesting to talk to him about the book, he doesn’t really ‘get’ dance (he has no idea what I do all day) but these concepts were something he could grasp and relate to.

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A takeaway from this chapter that resonated with me was how people show growth after experiencing traumatic events, specifically that the more traumatic the event-> the more growth. Like most people I have heard a lot about PTSD but nothing about PTG. It’s nice to think about that some good can come out of any situation.

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Something I’ve taken out of this book is the mentality that I don’t always have to know what i’m doing. Reminding myself of the idea that it’s okay, and expected, to have to learn about something- not just know everything off the bat (because how would you?)- helps me get through hard situations.

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Something from the book that i’ll continue to use is the teaching methods. I plan on teaching as my main profession after college so reading about methods that do and don’t work for coaching teams, and why, was really helpful for me.