I remember well the first time shooting pain ripped through my forearm like a bolt of lightning from the tip of my left pinky. ⚡

It was while I was playing the violin, and the pain was so excruciating I couldn’t put any pressure on my pinky at all, which meant I had to stop playing immediately. No choice.

This novel experience stunned me. But instead of going to the doctor, I chose to rest without playing for a few days. Nearing the end of my bachelor’s at Indiana University, thankfully I was able to manage a couple days without playing without repercussions. I told no one about my situation.

After a couple days, I gingerly placed my pinky on the string and eased back into practicing, a little bit at a time. I was lucky. The pain had disappeared. For quite a while, it didn’t recur. I kept it mostly at bay after that with gentle yoga stretches, and when it made its surprise appearance again a couple times a year, I was always lucky enough to have time to take a break from playing. 🌿

But such an experience isn’t that unusual. Unfortunately, many musicians aren’t as lucky: their pain doesn’t just vanish by itself. After pain first surfaces, far too many musicians can’t get back to pain-free playing on their own.

When Serena found me on the Internet, she was at her wit’s end.

She had tried everything under the sun to heal the pain that plagued her when playing, but nothing worked. She was just about to quit altogether. Not only that, but she was in the middle of working towards a back-up master’s degree in musicology, just so she would have a fallback if her performing career became impossible.

Thankfully, her desire to keep performing was strong enough that she was ready to try one last time to overcome her pain. At our initial consultation, she told me she had decided this was it. She would go all in to learn what I had to teach her, but if it didn’t work, she’d give up and follow a different career path.

Within the first week of our work together, Serena felt a noticeable difference in her state of being. She felt calmer; her body, she noticed, was starting to relax. ✨

After about a month, she was able to play the viola for about five minutes a day without pain. This was definitely progress! Over the next few weeks, she felt more and more hopeful, as she was able to steadily increase the amount of time she could play pain-free. 🎻

By the end of her six-month coaching program, she was ecstatic. Not only was her pain gone, but so was her lifelong performance anxiety.

Now, Serena is devoting her career to running a music school that will help children prevent the kind of pain that for so many years she had to endure. ❤️

In Serena’s words:

“I had my first-ever pain and anxiety-free performance yesterday! I played three Easter worship services in a row at a local Lutheran church. I had several solos and was mostly improvising the entire time. I literally forgot to be nervous! I experienced a bit of tension in my playing, but not to the point of pain. No heating pad afterward, no pain killers, no ‘ouch!’ I haven’t been able to say that in . . . decades? CONSTRUCTIVE THINKING REALLY WORKS! AAAAAAHHHHHH!”

If you're curious about exactly how to bring full-bodied, soulful ease into how you play your instrument (or anything else), I have one coaching opening for a new student beginning in September. Just comment below if you're interested and we can have a chat about what's possible.

With Love & Light,
Jennifer ❤️