Some years ago I was introduced to the books of Eric Maisel, Creativity Coach extraordinaire. He’s a visionary, with a unique mission in the world: to help artists be the best they can be. As a fiction writer himself, he knows from experience what it’s like to live the creative life. And after decades of working as a therapist and coach with artists in all disciplines, when it comes to helping artists get their creative lives back on track, he is by far the most knowledgeable and credible person on the planet.
His workbook Performance Anxiety is out of print, though there are a few copies you may be able to get here. (Luckily, I got mine way back when!) The good news is that most of the ideas from the workbook have been integrated into a new book called Mastering Creative Anxiety. I highly recommend it, whether you feel held back on stage a little or a lot. Eric Maisel also understands the anxiety some of us performers live with in our daily lives, never mind just onstage.
Recently I had the pleasure of taking a series of one-hour classes with Eric. They were given over the phone with a system in place for participants to ask questions and converse with him. He would lecture for ten minutes, then open it up for discussion for five, back and forth like that for an hour. I was even more impressed once I experienced how he interacted with people. He was an unassuming, gentle soul, with none of the ego you might expect to hear in the voice of a guru.
Because the experience was so positive I decided to join an international artists’ support group lead by Eric. There are a dozen artists in a range of disciplines from the United States, Canada, England and Germany. As I learn from this process I’ll be sharing tidbits that I hope will be relevant to your own journeys as performers.