Powerful Pause Meditation: Confidence for Young Performers

This short meditation is designed to support young performers to feel more confident in themselves and their abilities. 

Our hope is that this meditation will help young performers reconnect to the part of them that knows that anything is possible and to keep trying - even when things don’t go to plan!

This meditation is suitable for ages 8+ and parents and guardians are encouraged to listen to this meditation along with their child. 

Parents and Guardians may like to follow up this meditation by asking their child the following questions:

• What are you learning about your confidence spark?
• What do you do really, really well?
• How do you feel now?

You may also enjoy listening to our Pre-audition meditation for Young Performers or Calming Nerves for Young Performers

13 minute listen. We recommend listening to this meditation with headphones on.

Listen to other meditations in the Powerful Pause series.

Meditation Transcript:

Bea Grist, Mental Health and Wellbeing Manager:

Hello, Bea here. I’m the Mental Health and Wellbeing Manager at Spotlight.

Thank you for being here with me today

This meditation is designed to help with confidence.

But what is confidence?

Confidence is simply the word we use to describe the feeling of believing in yourself and your abilities.

When we feel confident we’re much more able to enjoy what we’re doing
So we can then focus on doing what we love
And maybe for you that’s acting or performing.

So let’s begin by finding a comfortable place
You might like to wriggle a little bit
So take a moment to do that now
Maybe wiggling your fingers and toes too
And just see if you other part of your body wants to move too
And then when you’re ready just arriving into your comfortable spot

Now you’re settled
See if you can notice your breathing
Can you feel it?

Coming in
And going out
Almost like the waves on the sea
Rising and falling
See if you can feel your tummy rising as you breathe in
And dropping back down as you breathe out

Coming in
And going out
Just watching it

And now gently allow your eyes to close
There

Now with your eyes closed
Let’s imagine that a little door has been opened
Into your imagination
A place where your mind can make pictures

Imagine a little spark
Right in the centre of your tummy
Just behind your belly button
This spark might look a bit like the sparks you see
On a sparkler on bonfire night
But this is a very special spark because it’s your confidence spark
And it’s here to remind you of how brilliant you are.

Notice how bright and full of excitement this confidence spark is
It’s sparkling into life in front of your eyes

Now, let’s see if we can make the spark bigger just by breathing into it
Place your hand on you tummy
Can you feel your hand moving up and down?
Your breath is breathing life into your spark
Notice it getting bigger
Feel it getting warmer
And as you do you 
You start to feel a sparkly warm feeling inside of your tummy too

The sparkly warm feeling begins to travel from your tummy into the tips of your fingers and toes
This feeling is always with you and it’s here to help you
From the moment you wake up to when you go to sleep
This confidence spark is glowing within you.

On those days when we don’t feel very confident
It might sometimes be hard to feel it
And that’s okay
It just takes practice
A bit like learning to ride a bike
They’ll be some days when you have to try REALLY hard to feel it
But don’t give up
Keep trying and soon you’ll feel it

This spark is learning how to guide you
You may make mistakes
And that’s okay
It means you’re trying
So be kind to yourself
We all make mistakes
And when we do, we get to learn from them

Now it’s time to get curious about your spark
Notice if your spark has a colour
Perhaps it’s blue like to sky or green like the forest
Maybe it’s a warm yellow like the sun
Just notice
Does your spark have a sound?
Is it a sound you recognise?
Maybe it’s completely quiet.

Sometimes it can hard to feel good
Because we get caught up by comparing ourselves to others
But here’s the thing
Your spark is completely unique
There are no other sparks out there quite like yours
That is your special and magical gift
Your spark knows that you can do anything you want
And it also knows all the things that you do really well
Your spark believes in you
And is here to remind you to keep trying

Even if an audition or performance doesn’t go quite to plan
That doesn’t mean that your spark has disappeared
Life doesn’t always go the way we want it to
But that is okay because we’re trying
And by trying, we’re learning to be the best version of ourselves.

There may of been a time when you tried something new
Like perhaps learning an instrument, a new language or a new sport
But didn’t do as well as you hoped?
But every time you give something a go for the first time
Remember that it’s not going to be perfect, and that’s okay.
It happens to everyone.

So don’t be hard on yourself
It just takes a bit of practice.

When we don’t do as well as we hoped
We can sometimes start thinking negative thoughts about ourselves
Such as I’m not good at anything or I’ll never get it right
But instead of listening to these thoughts
Your confidence spark is here to remind you to keep on trying.

And the great thing is that the more you focus on your spark
The easier it will be to connect with it
What we focus on grows
So by feeling the warm and positivity that your confidence spark brings
You’re actually helping your spark to grow even bigger.

You give your spark a hug
And you feel again that warm sparkle inside your tummy
Your spark is always here for you
On days when you feel sad or unhappy
Your spark is still there
And it thinks you’re great - just as you are
How cool is that?

So now that you’ve found your confidence spark
You can take it with you wherever you go
You can bring that warm sparkly feeling 
into performances and auditions
It’s here to remind you how wonderful and unique you are.

So let’s take a deep breath in here
Letting that spark of confidence fill you up
From the top of your head
All the way down to your toes

So just becoming aware of any sounds
That might be around you
Maybe noticing the temperature of the room
Feeling your feet on the floor
And when you’re ready open your eyes
Bring some gentle movement back into your body

Main photo by Margaret Weir on Unsplash