For the majority of my life I have suffered from glossophobia, which is the fear of public speaking. I imagine that most people reading this can relate, as surveys have shown that three out of every four people tend to experience some level of speech anxiety that troubles them when they deliver public speeches.
Over the years, my own level of speech anxiety has gone from sweating profusely to having a full-on panic attack and, for a long time, I attempted to simply avoid speaking publicly. Yet, I’ve found it inescapable as I tend to frequently attract these opportunities. Here’s a snapshot of my continuing journey from Insecurity to Inner Security.
Back in late 2010, I took a 12-week course where I began to embark upon a powerful exploration of myself and my creative ability. In doing so, I discovered that I had an ability to produce and deliver poetry in a way that seemed to really move people. One of the teachers of that class, a poet herself, encouraged me to cultivate this raw skill by performing at open mics as well as any other available events. By that time, this teacher had earned my trust, so I decided to follow her suggestion, and I began frequenting open mics and other events around my hometown of Dallas, Texas. Although the thought of this scared me to death, there was an inner urge growing inside me to express myself without fear. So, I knew that I had to at least give it a try.
Over the past few years I’ve performed in front of crowds of 5 to 500 people, and I’ve learned a number of things about overcoming fear and insecurity, the most prominent being the essential life skill of REASONING. I now realize that fear is not necessarily a negative, or at least, it doesn’t have to remain a negative. Our fears are actually just a great feedback system that points to areas of our lives that need responding to. From this perspective, fear can then be used to work “for us,” through facing the fears and consciously choosing to reason through our experiences. Reasoning consists of the productive use of our memory, attention and our imagination.
Memory (Past)
Reasoning occurs in the conscious mind. Our brains are always collecting data and creating memories from our experiences. Traumatic experiences tend to leave a deeper impression in our minds and we tend to form beliefs based on those memories. Old memories (beliefs) can haunt us in the present without us having any conscious awareness of where the feeling comes from.
Somewhere in my childhood, I developed the unconscious belief that “I need others to accept me,” and thus what others thought of me became more important than what I thought of me. I didn’t feel secure if I didn’t feel accepted. So, as an adult, leading up to a poetry performance, my mind would be flooded with thoughts reflecting my worry, such as “What if they don’t like it? What if I forget the words? Is this material really as good as I think it is? What if I’m a one-hit wonder?” etc. Then, I’d begin to feel a small amount of anxiety, start to sweat and the momentum would build as thoughts of previous experiences of anxiety would come to mind.
Part of reasoning is using memory productively, being able to look at a situation that has occurred in the past and perceive how it can benefit us today. Panic steals our ability to think straight, concentrate and to access the higher faculties of our mind which allow us to perceive reality from this perspective. At this point, we must find ways to quiet or still the mind to slow the negative momentum that’s building.
Attention (Present)
Our attention is our most precious commodity. Think about it. For someone to converse with us, sell us something, teach us anything, we must first give them our attention. This is why businesses pay so much to ad agencies to create memorable commercials and to purchase expensive TV airtime. To that point, the 2016 Super Bowl was viewed by approximately 112 million people, allowing CBS to charge $5 million for a 30-second commercial, which is $166,666 per second! The reason that we tend to feel valued and important after being truly listened to is because the listener has just given us the most precious thing they have to give, their attention.
What we resist, persists. As I’d begin to feel anxiety before going on stage, I discovered that I needed to bring my attention into the present moment by first simply taking a few deep breaths. There’s a direct connection between breath and consciousness. Conscious breathing not only calms our mind, it makes us more aware of how energy is moving through us. Becoming more self-aware, we can then take a moment to face our fear by acknowledging the truth of our “present reality,” which for me was “I’m afraid and starting to feel panicked,” yet I’m not actually in any “real” danger. By doing that, I don’t attempt to ignore it, or pretend it’s not there, which tends to only make things worse. This type of movement in my thinking puts me on the road to overcoming panic by working with, not against, the panic and anxiety symptoms.
We become as we think. In that sometimes brief moment of self-awareness and self-acceptance that the deep breathing offers me, I achieve a small degree of separation from my symptoms, and arrive at a point where I can actually reach for a more productive thought and awaken to the fact that I have experienced “true” danger in the past and this is definitely not one of those times. Once I embrace that thought, I can bring my consciousness into a place of neutrality where I can concentrate and focus my attention on my purpose for being there in the first place, which is to share what I have to give and hopefully add value to people’s lives.
When I’m willing to continuously face my fears and move through this process, a foundation is being laid, upon which security is built. Each time it gets a little easier. The key is that we have to allow ourselves to explore our fears with the intent of gaining understanding.
Face your fear. A little less than a year after I began writing poetry, I attended a concert by my favourite poet of all time, Saul Williams. Before he began, he asked the audience if any of the local poets would like to share a poem before he got started. Part of me desired to and knew that I should go up there on stage, but I wasn’t confident in myself nor my material. I allowed my fear and insecurity to win out and didn’t go up. I immediately felt a bit deflated. After I heard the first couple of poets perform, I felt even worse because in comparison, I realized my material was adequate. Needless to say, the memory of not giving myself the experience of sharing my poetry while sharing the stage with my favourite poet of all time makes me feel terrible to this day. Since then, I’ve had a few experiences of bombing during a performance and I’ve come to realize that the pain of “not trying to succeed,” is infinitely worse than the pain of “trying and not succeeding.”
Imagination (Future)
Our thoughts create our reality. Visualization is the direct engagement of the imaginative faculty. It’s the cognitive process of purposefully generating visual mental imagery, with eyes open or closed. Productively using the memory, we can draw upon images stored in our brains and recreate them in our mind’s eye to maintain, inspect and transform those images into more desirable ones. Consequently, we change the associated emotions or feelings with the intent of alleviating psychological pain, including anxiety, sadness, low moods, improving our self-esteem and self-confidence.
During my time frequenting poetry clubs, I was introduced to the skill of visualization and I began spending a few minutes a day, either in my meditation area or out and about, visualizing myself successfully performing my poetry. Despite my anxiety, I had a few successful performances under my belt where I had received standing ovations. So, I’d imagine that type of reaction from the audience until I felt really good about it. My type of poetic delivery can be very energetic, so I’d imagine myself being inwardly peaceful while on the outside being boldly dramatic in my expression. It felt as though I was paving the way to having those experiences as more and more I found my experiences reflecting what I had imagined.
Now, whenever I hit the stage to share my poetry, I’m full of confidence because I have given myself numerous experiences of acknowledging, accepting and facing my fears associated with this. I’ve visualized myself succeeding over and over, as I actively look for the “good” in all of my previous experiences. And through choosing to focus my attention less on the OUTCOME of an event and more on what I BECOME through the experience of the event, I AM now secure in the fact that no matter whether I label my experiences a success or failure, all of them hold great value as they have all granted me what I most desire, knowledge of Self.
Read more on this topic in STOP THE FEAR: How to train the brain out of fear based thinking»
[su_panel background=”#f2f2f2″ color=”#000000″ border=”0px none #ffffff” shadow=”0px 0px 0px #ffffff”]by Rashard Garrett
