Theresa Rudolph: Learning to Trust Yourself Again

S2 Ep #6: This episode felt like a conversation I'd been wanting to have for a long time — one that goes beyond the highlight reel and into the real, sometimes messy, always human experience of building a sustainable life as a professional musician. Theresa and I talk about injuries, burnout, rejection, perfectionism, and the surprisingly beautiful things that can grow out of our hardest professional moments.

Theresa Rudolph is in her 15th season as Assistant Principal Viola of the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, and she's also on faculty at the University of Toronto and the Taylor Academy at the Royal Conservatory of Music — the gifted high school program at the RCM. She's a chamber musician, a mother of three, and someone whose depth of self-knowledge and body awareness genuinely stopped me in my tracks more than once during this conversation.

What Theresa shares here is hard-earned. From recovering from a fractured bow arm early in her career, to navigating the emotional complexity of taking auditions while already holding a wonderful job, to learning what it actually means to practice smarter instead of harder — she brings honesty and warmth to all of it. And her perspective on professional disappointment and rejection as a pathway to self-trust? I wasn't expecting to get a little emotional, but here we are.

You'll Discover:

-Why breaking her bow arm became a turning point in how Theresa listens to and cares for her body

-How stress and emotional strain can show up as physical pain in the same spot as a past injury — and what to do about it

-What it really means to give your all when you're a working orchestral musician, teacher, and parent

-The role that professional disappointment and rejection played in building Theresa's sense of self-trust

-Why excellence over perfection isn't just a nice idea — it's a practice that changes how you play and how you feel

-How strategic scheduling protects your body and your playing — and why rest days deserve to be treated as sacred

-What the inner critic sounds like for both of us, and how to stop fighting it and start hosting it instead

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