Renewing your mind and choosing healthy thoughts with musician mindset coach Chelsea Tanner

Michelle Lynne: Ready and welcome back to the Fearless Artist Podcast. I’m your host, Michelle Lynne, and today I’m very pleased to welcome on Chelsea Tanner. Chelsea, welcome to the podcast.

Chelsea Tanner: Thank you so much for having me. I know you said, you know, we just spoke a minute ago about how long we’ve been following each other on Instagram, and I’m so excited to to you.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah, yeah, that’s right. We’ve been following each other, I think since 2020 at least.

Chelsea Tanner: Mm-hmm.

Michelle Lynne: And, uh, you’re a flutist and mindset coach based in LA.

Chelsea Tanner: Mm-hmm.

Michelle Lynne: And, uh, yeah, I mean, I’ve been following you forever and I’ve always been really interested in your content. I think you’re doing a great job of talking about mindset for musicians and everything that it takes to be on stage. And a lot of that stuff is what we apply to entrepreneurial skillset too, because if you aren’t afraid of rejection, then you’re never gonna send a pitch. So, um, please tell us a little bit about you and your work, and then we can dive in.

Chelsea Tanner: Yeah, so like you said, I am a flutist. I, a flute teacher. I teach privately. Am also a mindset coach for musicians, which is one-on-one coaching for any musician who maybe doesn’t like their relationship with their instrument, maybe doesn’t believe in themselves as much as they’d like to, even after years and years and years of training and school and experience. It can still feel very daunting to, um, pursue a career in music and to feel confident in what you have to offer. And a lot of times, I, I work with people transitioning from, you know, school to post-life, um, just because those things feel really different. And, um, we’re always preaching—preached at—with scarcity, right? About jobs, about what’s possible for us and, um, you know, one of the best things I’ve found was coaching, and I thought, you know, everyone needs to know about this immediately because it changed my life and my ability to be confident in myself. Um, I think it’s, um, just, yeah, it’s my favorite things to do are teach and coach. So that’s, that’s what I do.

Michelle Lynne: Oh, that’s so great. And when you say mindset coaching changed your life— I mean, the mastermind that we did, I was like, everyone needs to know about this. Deanna and I did a mastermind in 2019, I believe, with some of her Juilliard colleagues, and it was a small group, four of us. We talked through habits and mindset and discipline and resilience and a bunch of different things. And I was just like, this is so needed. And again, like what you’re saying, the gap between studies and post-grad— like, what do you do with your life after? Yeah. Talk more about how coaching helped you with those mindset shifts.

Chelsea Tanner: Yeah, I think it, it first and foremost gave me a lot of clarity and helped me zoom out a little bit. I think in the music world we can feel like, I talk about this sometimes of about like looking through like a toilet paper tube or something like that. Like our career is this and so everything that comes up seems really big. If we sort of, like, take our sort of tunnel vision down, we can kind of zoom out and say, “Oh no, I’m a whole person. I’m actually a whole worthy person, you is in the world and regardless of whether I play my instrument or not.” Really kind of taking back power, um, to say, “Oh, no, actually, I like how I play. I like what I have to offer. I’m in integrity with myself. And people can like it. They can not like it. They can take it. They can leave it.” And it’s really empowering because, still going through the same trials anyway, right? We’re still going through all of the same, whether it’s competitions or auditions or job searches, whatever it might be. You know, we’re still going through that stuff and, um, if we don’t believe we’re a full, empowered human, or we do, the results and behaviors and everything is affected by that. So I think, um, the thing that really changed the game for me was knowing, “Oh, I, I love playing the flute. I do now. Still didn’t always,” and we have relationships with our instrument. We don’t always love, love what we do… all the time. I think that being able to take back control of that relationship and not have it be my only source of validation, um, really, on a deep level was the thing that totally changed everything.

Michelle Lynne: Oof. Yeah. Okay. So a couple things. You mentioned worthiness. I’d love for you to expand on—

Chelsea Tanner: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: —like this relationship idea with the instrument. I mean, that sounds… Yeah, I like that question. I don’t think I think about that question enough. My relationship with the piano— like, it’s another thing that I am, you know, obviously it’s on my mind every single day, so it is a relationship, but I don’t know if I ever framed it that way, but it feels safer to talk about it that way.

Chelsea Tanner: So the worthiness, um, component. I think a lot of times we conflate worthiness and our ability to play our instrument well or even the rate at which people choose us for things, which is even more scary. But I know a lot of people think, “Oh, well I’ve dedicated my whole life to this one thing and it still isn’t good enough.” And I can hardly think of a more painful thought than that.

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Chelsea Tanner: Um, so I think that being able to see ourselves as, you know, worthy humans outside of our instrument, outside of the music world in general, is really, really important and valuable. I think we are so singularly focused for so long that nothing else seems to matter, and if we’re sort of still swimming in that water and we don’t zoom out and understand that we were in a fishbowl in music school, you know, for a long time, we aren’t able to see that we’re, you know, whole humans that contribute to people’s lives in meaningful ways— um, of our instrument. And, um, really choosing what we value on purpose rather than just going along with what we’ve been taught and what we’ve been told and what we’ve been sold by the industry, um, and things like that. I think that, I had a client once say, “You know, I didn’t come out of the womb playing my instrument, so why would I think—”

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Chelsea Tanner: “—why do we think that it’s the gateway to feeling okay with ourselves? Once I get the job, once I do the thing, once I, um, accomplish X, Y, and Z, then I can feel settled.” Which is a huge ask because that’s not in your control. So it feels like we’re never on solid footing unless we kinda make that decision and shift for ourselves because, um, I think that a lot of people tie their self-worth to, you know, what they do, mostly because we’re told we have to work the hardest. “You have to want it more than anybody else,” like, you know, we’re told all those things. And I think that, um, that other people in other industries aren’t, aren’t told that. And, and when we have our livelihood depending on how well we play, when we have all of these things riding on it, when it’s supposed to be this artistic expression, but we’re in fight-or-flight all the time, that’s a lot to manage. Like if you don’t feel safe to create, you’re not gonna create, and you’re just going to try to like hunker down and be as perfect as possible. And it feels very, um, paralyzing in a lot of ways, I think, a lot of the time. So I think the self-worth component is, is huge just because it’s a point of operation. It’s a way of viewing yourself that, um, isn’t talked about. ’Cause it’s like a heavy topic. It’s not talked about in school at all, you know, and it’s talked about a lot, I think, in, you know, mental health, mental wellness spaces. But we, we tend to think that those two things are somehow separate. I think understanding that my, my body plays my instrument. Everything I feel impacts how I play and perform and am as an artist. So, um, taking the whole person into account is always like, I think just so, so important.

Michelle Lynne: Do you begin to… unravel someone who’s coming in with all of these concepts put on them? Because I mean, there is truth in what we’ve learned in the fishbowl, and that’s where things get confusing, because there is such a high standard—we have to know our stuff and to learn an instrument, I mean, it does require, at all, everything that we have to give to it, right? So in one sense, you understand why we need to go through this construction layers of our formation to learn, but then at what point do we start to keep that zoomed-out perspective like you’re talking about?

Chelsea Tanner: Yeah, I think the, the first thing that I always, uh, kind of introduce as a concept is the idea of thoughts and facts. Like we have an interpretation of every fact or circumstance in our life, and that makes us feel a certain way. The thing that’s great about that is we get to have a say in what that is. We get to choose our interpretations of things and build different habits around how we respond.

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Tanner: And, um, our brain has learned without our permission, right? We might have beliefs about ourselves that are like, “I’m not good enough. I can’t do that. I’m just not the kind of person that wins auditions.” I’m just not this kind of person. We have those stories. For some reason, we didn’t choose them. We weren’t like, “You know what thought I think I’m going to implement is this.” That usually doesn’t happen. We kind of pick it up and our brain kind of makes it mean one thing or another along the way. And I think a huge part of this is having compassion for ourselves and noticing what is actually happening in our mind. Because if we don’t know, we can’t own it. So I think that a huge part of this is taking responsibility for our own mind, for our own thoughts, knowing that we didn’t choose them. We don’t need to shame ourselves for having them. It’s not like they shouldn’t be there. Anyone else in your exact situation would also have those thoughts, right? You know, um, think that what we could do then is look at the neutral facts and say, “Okay, how could this be just neutral?” And maybe just practicing the neutral thought, right? I think a lot of times we go, “Okay, I need to reframe this positively.” It’s like, “Well, reframing it positively, you don’t believe that yet. You believe the negative thing, so jumping to a hundred—that’s why positive affirmations can feel empty sometimes.”

Michelle Lynne: Deanna says the same thing all the—

Chelsea Tanner: Yeah, it’s like, “I don’t buy it.”

Michelle Lynne: Exactly.

Chelsea Tanner: All of a sudden gonna think I’m the best flutist that’s ever walked the planet, right? So I think, um, I think going neutral is really great. Or even just “Oh,” “Oh, what if” question in the positive. Like, “What if it’s possible that I’m wrong? You know, what if it’s possible that this story I’ve been holding onto, I’m not right about it? What if the people who have been really encouraging to me are right? Like, what if that’s true? Like, could that be true?” And getting curious about maybe how that’s true. Um, not to believe it and like from this moment on I have to believe this or it won’t work. Like, that’s something I see a lot. We get perfectionist about our mindset, but that’s the, the thing that I, I feel classical music has really, um, set up these expectations in the industry that are so sort of anti-human nature, right? Which is, “Okay, how do I control myself enough to be perfect so that someone will choose me and be consistent and all that stuff?” instead of, “How do I work with my own body? Like, how do I work with my own emotions? How do I take my whole self on stage and still feel good at the end?”

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Tanner: “I just have to be a flutist right now. I just have to be a musician right now.” It’s like those two things, I think, are very different and go into, “If I only think of myself as a flutist, I’m so much less happy.”

Michelle Lynne: Mm.

Chelsea Tanner: You know, if I’m able to see my whole self. But I think there’s room. Going to just stating a fact like, “I just play the flute.” That’s true. I know I play the flute. I can do that. Um, I can make a sound on the instrument. I can, you know, that seems very fundamental and basic and almost like you’d roll your eyes at saying something so neutral and true. But if that becomes our practice baseline for how we think about ourselves, then that becomes our habit. We can build on that. Because once that’s believable and that’s our baseline, then we can say, “Oh, and I actually like how I played this phrase.” And it happens in little moments. I don’t think it happens all at once. Um, I think a lot of people think, “Well, once I get to the good-enough threshold that’s made up in imaginary, then I’ll feel—”

Michelle Lynne: Let me know where—

Chelsea Tanner: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Chelsea Tanner: “—then I’ll feel good.” Um, but so much of the time, um, we can do this work very steadily, slowly, imperfectly, and it still works. It’s not a one-moment sort of thing. So I think going neutral is such an underrated thing ’cause it kind of is boring, but I think relief from feeling all of that emotional pain is the first step in the beginning. Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: I think this is extremely important what you’re saying because it feels safer to believe in neutral thought because it kind of takes all of this, um, emotion out of it. If you’re like, “Oh, I’m not good enough,” “I can’t do anything,” you’re like, “Wait, I can make a sound on my instrument. Is that true? Yes or no?” Like, I learned this in therapy. The first question is, “Is it true the thought that you’re having?” And if it’s not, then we need to challenge it and say, start to pick it apart because you’re believing something that is causing you to act not helping you. So I love that you’re saying first concept is separating thoughts and facts. I love that. And then, yeah, making it neutral sounds way safer because then it takes all of this kind of fight-or-flight, like you mentioned already, taking that out of the picture. Do you have some examples of transforming— It’s funny ’cause I made a post about this yesterday, reframing negative thoughts. How would you bring a negative thought into the neutral?

Chelsea Tanner: So, is this one example—and someone in a workshop asked this the other day. They want you to know about comparison, right? Like, we always… that’s huge. It’s on social media. If we’re on social media, it can be a lot to handle. I talk to people of all ages, seasoned professionals. I still feel not, um, they compare themselves, you know, to what other people are doing. Um, so I, I think that someone asked, “Okay, well what about scrolling on social media? I tend to compare myself a lot.” Then I said, “Okay, I have this exercise called the Box of Neutrality and only neutral facts go into this box.” So if you draw a box on a piece of paper, only a neutral fact would go in there. Um, I think that, um, practicing recognizing what is neutral and not is really helpful because I asked this person who had just gone through the workshop, “Well, what would go in?” There was, “I can’t do that.” I was like, “Hmm, we think thoughts are facts a lot of the time, you know?” And, and I don’t know, like, is it true that you can’t do that? I don’t. Maybe that’s very interpretive though. So I always put sound waves in the Box of Neutrality—my own, other people’s things I see on the computer, you know. I think the most stripped-down, most neutral thing: there are sound waves coming outta my phone and my brain is having the thought that “I can’t do that,” right? So that’s how it’s interpreting that. So really saying, “Oh, I’m hearing sound waves on my phone.” Like even just practicing that, and if that’s your main reaction, then you have this sort of like emotional sneeze guard, one of my clients called it that, you know—between you and the sound waves. So it’s like, “What do I, I might have a reaction initially, but then I’m like, ‘Oh wait, okay. Those are sound waves,’” and knowing and owning that my own thoughts are creating these emotions instead of some sort of like a thing outside of myself is really powerful because I can then say, “Oh, I noticed I reacted this way and I tend to…” Would be neutral? You know, “What would be different? Could just be, ‘Oh, they made sound waves. I also make sound waves.’” And it seems so basic, but if that’s the practice, then actually doing that actively every single time—if you go into studio class, know that there’s just gonna be a lot of sound waves—and then maybe putting them into categories of like, sound waves in the box, all the thoughts go around it, so… kind of brain-dumping, like, “Oh, this means I can’t do that. There’s so much better than me. I’m never gonna make it. There’s so much further along; I’m behind.” All of those things are not facts, right? And so being able to see, “Oh, this is how my brain is thinking about this.” And if I saw this mindset like a piece of paper and I found it on the ground, like, this person would probably be pretty, like, they probably wouldn’t be feeling very good. And I think that’s a way to introduce compassion into the situation of saying, “You know what? Our brains are just taking in information all the time without our permission and it’s learned this stuff and it doesn’t have to be that way. We can learn other stuff.” That’s the best part, right? We can rewire our brain to feel differently and respond differently. But it is, I think, a really important piece to not say, “Oh my gosh, I can’t believe I’m thinking all these things. Like of course I’m not successful.” Like that’s just adding to it. But to come at the thoughts with neutrality as well, I think it’s just such a practice in forming those neutral habits.

Michelle Lynne: For someone who’s stuck in that emotional, like, “I’m not good enough, I’m too old, it’s too late,” like, do you find it hard to shift them into the neutral box? What are some of the pushbacks you get from people?

Chelsea Tanner: Oh, a lot of people, uh, find it very scary to think differently because they’re usually pretty successful already, right? They’re usually people who think they’re not successful but have achieved a lot of high-level things and they play very well, and they are high achieving, but they’re like, “Wait, what the heck? This is not adding up.” So the biggest pushback I usually get is, um, not wanting to hang onto their systems of operation, whether that’s like negatively motivating themselves, putting themselves down, because that’s their motivation system. They’re like, “Well, I’m not gonna practice then,” you know? “If I change my mind, if I don’t, um, pick myself apart, then I’ll never get better.”

Michelle Lynne: Right. Using shame as a motivator.

Chelsea Tanner: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah. I was there for a long time.

Chelsea Tanner: Oh yeah. Right.

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Chelsea Tanner: Yeah. And so I think that there, that’s a lot of why people hang onto these stories, because our brain isn’t there for us to feel amazing on stage. Our brain is there to keep us alive, right?

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Chelsea Tanner: Yeah. If it doesn’t feel safe, self-doubt comes up. If I’m scared, I’m super mean to myself. Like I, I’ll always know that, and like, “Okay, oh, okay, I’m hearing all of these not-so-good thoughts.” Underneath that is just part of me that’s so afraid, right? It could be, you know, of rejection; it could be of, um, you know, not fitting in— all of these very primal things. We as humans survived in groups of people. So if I’m in an audition and I want to be part of the group and I’m now separated and this thing is my voice and it’s all I’ve worked for, and it’s like, and then we add all those pressures on top of that, like, that’s huge. I think it’s amazing that we perform as well as we do a lot of the time. I think it’s amazing that we’ve adapted as humans, but I think to be able to enjoy it, um, is the part that I help people with. But there’s, there’s so many levels to the negative motivation and the, um, the shift in perspective that maybe is, it takes a lot of courage and willingness to let go of the old system and say, “Like, oh, it’s gonna come up still.” ’Cause our brains are habitual. We’re still gonna have that programming. But choosing something different is really, really scary, especially if we haven’t done it before. Anything we haven’t done before feels scary. But, but I think a lot of people clinging to the, um, you know, “Oh, I just need to get it done, or I just need to do it. I just need to, you know, feel okay,” but reframing of, “Oh, okay, well how am I gonna feel most comfortable tomorrow? Not like I just have to get it done to check off the boxes and no one can say I didn’t do it,” and so I just need to do it. It’s not, like, I’m practicing for my future self instead of to prove my future self. You know, it’s a really big difference in my opinion, because one comes from this, “Oh, I’m not worthy until I prove myself,” and one comes from a place of self-love of, “Oh, I’m taking care of myself, the one who’s gonna be on the stage.” So yeah.

Michelle Lynne: That’s beautiful. That’s a beautiful way to shift practicing mentality too, as someone who’s struggled for a long time. I mean, I worked with a life coach for like three years consistently to try and beat this perfectionism thing crushing my life.

Chelsea Tanner: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: Learning compassion at the piano, trying to see myself as not being chained to this instrument. And it was just such an unhappy—I guess I can say—relationship, because I realized when she finally told me, “You don’t hate practicing. You hate how you talk to yourself when you’re practicing.” It was like, oh. I never even thought about it like that. And you have so much self-awareness to, to say “I’m being mean to myself because I’m afraid.” I mean, that takes a lot of—

Chelsea Tanner: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: —zooming out for you to be able to recognize that, because otherwise we get just stuck in that spiral of thoughts. It’s the programming that we hear all the time, like the tape press play on the tape. It’s the same thing over and over. So how do you help people take that zoomed-out perspective? I mean, you’re talking about reframing to neutral or like practicing for your future self. Those are beautiful ways. Is there anything else with your, your clients?

Chelsea Tanner: Oh, so many things, so many approaches. Um, there’s, there’s so many. I think that, I, I think just to like share, you know, per my personal approach to this and how far I had to zoom out was practicing the thought that I am a human existing on planet Earth and my name was made up. Like, it got back to that far where I’m like, “Okay, so if I’m just a human existing on the planet and I’m really zooming out that far, okay, I could kind of do whatever.” And then all of a sudden, if that’s my baseline and that’s what I’m reminding myself actively and practicing every day, then I get to kind of build my days in a way that’s a little bit more in control. But most people think, “Oh, okay, I just have to get it done.” And anything that’s like a small task that’s a little bit… we’re focused in here, we can’t see everything else, you know? And so I think that, um, zooming out really far—it happens as a choice in the moment where you’re sort of like, “Okay, I could just go back and keep drilling this passage over and over and over and not ask myself,” and it feels bad and we’re getting worked up, right? We’re tense. It takes a lot of, like, courage and a lot of, like, even just reminders. It could be a post-it note on music. It could be—we have to like put in real-life reminders. Our brains will forget, right? To choose, like to ask yourself, “Okay, what’s wrong? What’s going on?” You know, and like actually answering and sitting with yourself through an emotion that might be painful, sitting through, and that’s something I go through with my clients a lot: how do you process an emotion?

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Tanner: Like, how, like, if I’m sitting there and I’m hurting my own feelings as I’m practicing, I instantly am like, “Oh no, okay, what are we doing after five years of practicing this?” You know? But it’s, um, it’s hard to get to that awareness level sometimes. So I think, like, check-ins, you know, if you know you’re in fight-or-flight in the practice before you practice, what are your preconceived notions going into this session? Is it gonna be a good practice session? What are you thinking? Just kind of automatically. And then, “Do you wanna believe the thoughts that you’re thinking?” And, you know, it’s like you’re gonna think ’em—we have 60,000 thoughts a day. We don’t have control. But do you, do you want that? You know, I think that’s the biggest, um, the biggest shift in agency is like, “Oh, I know my brain’s doing this, but okay, what would be wonderful this hour?” You know, like, “What do I think would be wonderful if this happened in this session?” You know, or whatever it, it could be. Because if we don’t expect it—and I think this is so true in music too—like, if we can’t hear what we wanna come out of our instrument, it’s probably not happening. We say that all the time unless it’s some sort of fluke. But, but I think the same is true in anything we do.

Michelle Lynne: That’s such a good example.

Chelsea Tanner: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: Sorry.

Chelsea Tanner: No. Yeah, but it’s like if I can’t see or expect good things to happen, and I feel like buying into that is like lame or delusional or whatever, it’s like it’s exactly the same thing as thinking something not good is gonna happen, you know? So I think that that sort of—and there’s so many parallels with playing music and all of these things, which is why I love coaching musicians—’cause we understand practicing to such a degree. And I think that mindset is so much of the same thing. It’s just shifting the focus and actually putting a little bit more weight on the mindset portion. You’re still gonna play notes. Still gonna happen, you know? But to get to this place where, “Okay, I can practice these notes and still feel good, can still feel neutral even,” is great. But that all of that emotional—that comes up—that is our relationship with our instrument.

Chelsea Tanner: Pick up my flute, I know people who pick up their flute and their nervous system shuts down after years of fight-or-flight with their instrument to the point where they quit.

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Tanner: You know, because it’s just too much and it makes so much sense. So a lot of what I work with clients on also in terms of zooming out is, “How do I emotionally relate to my instrument? How can I rewire this programming?” So I work from like the cognitive part of it—mostly what we’ve been talking to, the sentences in our mind, all of those things—but then also the emotional part of it too, which I think is not talked about as much because we talk about the emotions we’re expressing in music a lot, but we don’t talk about our own in lessons or other things. But it affects us physically. So, um, zooming out and being able to see, “Oh, I’m feeling this way ’cause I’m having this thought,” and then being able to make a different decision or practice a different way, I think is really, really… know, I think it changed the game for me anyway. Kind of saved my relationship with my instrument for sure. Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: Absolutely. I mean, I think what you just shared is so fascinating. Like we’ve been trained in our lessons of your inner ear. Imagine the sound that you want to come out and then you will play that sound. Or at least a lot closer than if you don’t have the sound in your ear. So how much more can we understand? If you walk into a practice session, imagine a great practice session. What does that look like? What does that feel like? What is that going to sound like internally? But I was thinking when you were describing this, the pushback from the perfectionist is just like, no, I just need to lock in and get this done, because that’s what I know and that’s what’s worked for me in the past. That’s how we did our master’s exams. It’s how we did our juries. We just had to lock in and shut out all the noise and focus hyperfocus. Then it just, it’s either not sustainable or you get out of school and there’s no one putting all this pressure, external pressure on you, and it’s a lot easier just to kinda give up on that. A lot of people get busy doing other things with their families or relationships or other jobs that come in to pay the bills, and then you don’t have to work in this hyper-fixated focused way. So just imagining a great practice session as long as you still get the results. I think that’s the perfectionistic mindset is like, yeah, but is it gonna work? Am I still gonna get better?

Chelsea Tanner: Mm.

Michelle Lynne: Don’t know, ’cause we’ve never tried it that way.

Chelsea Tanner: Right. Yeah. It takes—it’s why I said it takes courage. Like, it isn’t going to be, it doesn’t—it’s not gonna feel comfortable. And I think a lot of times we think, “Oh, well if I’m doing it right, it’s gonna feel better.”

Michelle Lynne: Mm.

Chelsea Tanner: You know? And so they… people come to me, they’re like, “This feels unsafe.” I’m like, “I know, but it’s this discomfort or this one.”

Michelle Lynne: This.

Chelsea Tanner: Choosing the discomfort and delaying the gratification, just like we do in our practice room, right. But it’s sort of, it’s taking a leap. I always say you can go back.

Michelle Lynne: Hmm.

Chelsea Tanner: Totally fine. Like, it’s not like you’re gonna change this mode of operation forever, and like—

Michelle Lynn: Hmm.

Chelsea Tanner: —it’s, but I’ve never really heard someone be like, “You know what? I was kinder and more compassionate to myself and I hated it.”

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Tanner: Know? So I think that, yeah, maybe looking at the motivation, but I wanna also speak to what you said. It’s like, “Why maybe this is gonna be a great practice session.” You know, like, “What if this was like, what would that look like?” And if you’re in a neutral spot, you can probably get there. But if someone’s going into their practice session being like, “I am so burnt out and I have like four gigs in the next week, and I hate this. I am so done,” like what that practice session might look like is, “What if I was like so gentle to myself while I did this?” You know, wouldn’t it be amazing if I just felt a little like relief from the negative? You know, something like that instead of saying, “Okay, I need to lock in and I need to just get it done at all costs.” Yeah.

Chelsea Tanner: And I think so many people are like, “Oh, I don’t wanna practice tonight, but I have to.” But it’s like, if you have a great relationship with yourself and you’re practicing, you can be really kind and gentle and be like, “Okay, we’re gonna get through this. We’re gonna do it.” And be like a more loving voice and encouraging voice rather than, “I can’t believe you can’t learn this fast enough.” Like, you know, just stuff like that. Which honestly, no one—if someone said that, like an external person said that, it’s like that would be really, really hard to work under those conditions. And so if we come at it from a place of self-love and compassion of like, “I want myself to feel prepared for this gig, so when I sit in the chair, I feel good with me. I know I’m feeling burnt out and I’m gonna still practice, but it’s going to be from this place of self-love and compassion instead of like, ‘I can’t believe you haven’t gotten this done yet.’” You know? Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Tanner: I think there’s two different qualities and people tend to think that the faster you can get something done without thinking about the quality of how you’re feeling is better. But back to the relationship component, we have emotional associations with everything—with every location, with every time we sit down with our instrument, we have an emotional relationship with every excerpt. We have emotional relationships to orchestral excerpts, right?

Michelle Lynne: I—

Chelsea Tanner: You know, but even just a piece—maybe you had a memory slip in a piece once or something like that. You have an emotional relationship with that thing because it elicited an emotional reaction in you. And so every time we approach our piece, you have this emotional connection to it, but if we go at our practice session and we make ourselves feel worse and worse and worse and worse, and then we’re like, “But I have to practice more and more and more and more,” that’s just gonna lead to so much burnout and so much quicker if we are cultivating a loving relationship with ourselves and our instrument and our kind and compassionate. Obviously this is work down the road. You know, it’s not gonna happen instantly necessarily, but it does take dipping your toe into compassion and, um, encouragement instead of, else. So, uh, yeah, I, I work a lot with people on like their emotional and, uh, I don’t know, mental relationships with their instrument because it’s one of the, I think it’s one of the most untalked-about things.

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Tanner: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: I think it’s so important. So do you have any highlight client stories that come to mind if you think about people that you’ve seen transform, or any stories that come to mind?

Chelsea Tanner: Yeah. Um, I had a client who came to me—I think that this, this happens a lot—but there’s always this thing we have as musicians or artists or when push comes to shove, we still just wanna do it. We still wanna play our instrument. And I feel like that—I’ve talked to people. I worked at a company called ToneBase for, um, building the flute platform there, and many, many adult learners on the platform—they’ve left their instrument, come back to it, but they have this desire within them to just like, they miss it. It’s part of them. And I think that we— I think that’s a superpower we don’t tap into all the time because there’s so much in conflict with it. But, um, I had a client who had gone to two years of music school, and, uh, had left, went to a different career, and then said, “Okay, this thing is still tugging at me. Like I still want to play—I still want to do this.” But every time they would make a bad sound, something wouldn’t go well, their nervous system just shut down and they just couldn’t move, right? Like they couldn’t get out of that place. So practicing felt so terrible. So they were in this conflict. I think a lot of us get in like, “I love this thing. This is like my voice,” but the experience of it at the moment was like, “I can’t do it. It feels almost—I can’t—I can’t change this.” So what we did within just—I think it was just a month-and-a-half program—was really re-relating to the practice session to the flute differently, emotionally. I think it’s one of the most effective things, which is creating emotions on purpose, using your emotions that you have that live inside of you that you’ve experienced before on purpose in situations, being able to conjure certain emotions and associate them and mentally practice them. I call it like emotional rehearsal almost differently. So that visualization isn’t just, um, “Oh, I played every note perfectly and I’m thinking about it intellectually.” It’s like, “No, I’m physically feeling what I wanna feel in that place, that audition, but in the warmup room, in the practice room, wherever it might be.” That was one thing. And then that client actually went on to pursue music again, um, because they totally shifted gears and, um, you know, that’s a huge part of their life. So they, um, they started, um, taking it a lot more seriously and, um, being able to create what they wanted out of it. So, yeah.

Michelle Lynne: It’s so beautiful. So for anyone who’s listening and they have this struggle, what is the first step? What do you recommend for them?

Chelsea Tanner: The kind of shutting down in this, the practice room or—

Michelle Lynne: Just anyone who needs to kind of come into this gentle, compassionate self-talk in the practice room, or as you’re pursuing a freelance career with all of the resilience and rejections that we face and the things we need to build, just—I think cultivating this mindset.

Chelsea Tanner: Hmm. I mean, I think the first piece is really observing your current mindset.

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Tanner: And owning it as your own.

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Tanner: I think a lot of times it’s like, “Well, I’ve had so many setbacks. You know, I’ve had so many failures. Well, they didn’t pick me, so I must not be good enough.” It’s like you’re allowed to think you’re good enough and they cannot pick you. You’re allowed to be good enough and then they didn’t pick you. Those two things can be true at the same time. So I think it’s creating space, I think observing. “Oh, if I have sound waves in this Box of Neutrality, what is my brain doing with that information?” and getting to know that. But then also knowing that you don’t have to believe your brain.

Michelle Lynne: Mm.

Chelsea Tanner: Just because you think it doesn’t mean it’s true. And that seems overly simplified, but I don’t think we all know that. You know, just be—

Michelle Lynne: Only to need hear it again. I’ve heard it before and I need to hear it again.

Chelsea Tanner: Right. Yeah. Just because we think something doesn’t mean it’s true. It might create an emotion which makes it feel true.

Michelle Lynn: Right?

Chelsea Tanner: But it doesn’t mean it’s true. So I think that’s a huge part of it. The second I, I’ve realized I was hurting my own feelings, I’m like, “No one else is here.” You know what I mean?

Michelle Lynne: The thoughts in your head are there, though—voices in your head you need to deal with.

Chelsea Tanner: Right.

Michelle Lynne: They’re not really real people.

Chelsea Tanner: Right, yeah. It’s like—but those are all happening within me. No one else is in my practice room telling me this.

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Tanner: It’s a story that a teacher said something to me. I’m the one repeating it.

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm.

Chelsea Tanner: You know, so owning that—not to shame anybody, but to say, “Oh, okay, this is what’s going on. It’s almost as if I’m like my toddler brain.” I always think of it sort of like that. If I have a toddler, I’m not—I can’t control what they do, but I am responsible for them.

Michelle Lynne: Right.

Chelsea Tanner: So I think in my brain, really similarly, where if it’s out of control, it’s a toddler with a knife, I’m like, “Okay. Oh, okay.” You know, like—

Michelle Lynne: That’s funny.

Chelsea Tanner: It’s like you don’t mean any harm. You’re just—you don’t know what’s going on right now and it’s okay. And that separation, that sort of writing the thoughts down—it’s gonna feel really silly. But I always say, like, to get separation from the thoughts, write down “I’m not good enough,” “I’m a failure,” “I’m never gonna be able to make it,” or whatever mean stuff is being said. It’s gonna feel really difficult, but as soon as you can see it, and maybe the next day you come back to it, you’re like, “Wow. Okay. That’s…”

Michelle Lynne: Right?

Chelsea Tanner: Yeah. And being able to have those moments where, “Oh, wow, that was kind of brutal.” You know? That’s really powerful in recognizing, “Oh, that is what’s happening upstairs here in my brain. I wanna make a different choice. I don’t necessarily wanna be in that environment.” Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Thank you so—

Chelsea Tanner: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: This is so much wisdom and it’s just been such a generous amount of knowledge that you shared with us. Um—

Chelsea Tanner: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: If anyone listening has one action point from what to do, is it observe your…

Chelsea Tanner: Mm-hmm.

Michelle Lynne: Anything else that comes up?

Chelsea Tanner: I mean, I think that separating the thoughts and facts on paper—

Michelle Lynne: Yeah.

Chelsea Tanner: That’s always so, such a good thing. If any, any of the perfectionism, the, the thoughts, um, of comparison— anything like that— saying like, “Oh, sound waves. What is my brain actually making that mean?” Because a lot of times, like, we think it’s a fact that we bombed that audition, we think it’s a fact that we, um, you know, weren’t good enough for this or that thing. And really questioning and observing, I think, is the absolute first step. I know it’s— I think it is hard. It’s easier said than done. So, but I think the more, um, we’re able to get our thoughts out on paper, able to, you know, do that— um, the more agency we have, um, in how we want to think and then implementing that. So, yeah.

Michelle Lynne: That’s so great. Thank you so much.

Chelsea Tanner: Yeah.

Michelle Lynne: How can people work with you? How can they find you?

Chelsea Tanner: Yeah. So, um, you can find me on Instagram. I’m @_chelseatanner. Um, and you can—my email’s on there. You can DM me. There’s a link in my bio. All the stuff—the normal things. And I also, if there are any flutists listening out there, I have a Summer Flute Studio that is going to be launching in the next week or so. Um, that’ll be on my Instagram, uh, for sure, and, uh, gonna be incorporating mindset work, integrating it into practicing actively and working on that process in lessons and studio classes and things. And not necessarily just, just flute lessons, you know, so that’s the idea. And I’m available for flute lessons or one-on-one coaching if anyone’s interested.

Michelle Lynne: Perfect. Thank you so much for your time today. Thanks, everybody who’s been listening. Make sure you screenshot this and share it to your stories. Tag Chelsea. Tag The Fearless Artist. We’ll reshare it. And until next time, be fearless. Thank you so much, Chelsea.

Chelsea Tanner: Thank you.