When I see a brilliant article, I have to shine some light on it. Jessica Swanson of Shoestring Marketing has written a brilliant article called “Creating A Brilliant Marketing Message.”
Her three step method for designing a marketing message that sizzles is excellent. Check it out at http://www.jessicaswanson.com/creating-a-brilliant-marketing-message
James Feudo has written a great post called “What to Do When You Are Asked to Give Speech.” Especially when you don’t have much time, like overnight, you can use his ideas to help you get it together.
People with fear of public speaking or stage fright are flooded with negative feelings and thoughts that tell them they are not good at speaking. But the feelings and thoughts are usually more about expectation of perfection than an accurate assessment of their actual talents and abilities. In other words, because they have fear and anxiety they assume that they are not good at speaking. But it may not be the truth. In fact, it may actually be that their anxieties are a sign of being very talented!
In order to heal stage fright, you have to deal with your perfectionistic thoughts and shameful feelings, separating them from the truth about your speaking skills. Until you transform, the perfectionism, you can’t really see how talented you are.
I have a student in my current class who is polished, professional and poised when she speaks. We all marvel at the lovely quality of her talks. Yet her face contorts with total disbelief when we give her feedback that reflects what we see in her. She can’t allow herself to receive supportive feedback because it does not match what she believes to be true about her speaking abilities.
In my coaching practice, I work with many people who are truly talented at speaking but who can’t let themselves see that they are good. No amount of positive feedback will make them accept their own abilities. I share this because I am wrestling with how to help people release the debilitating shame that drives perfectionism. And I see so clearly that people who are very talented are often very perfectionistic.
The impact of this problem is that gifted people often hold back their talents because of the negative self-judgments and expectations of perfection. As a result, the world loses much talent that could make a difference if it were shared.
Shame and perfectionism are interrelated. Shame is the painful feeling that comes from a deep-seated belief that “I am not good enough.” It is generated from an unconscious thought that “I AM wrong.” That means your very Being is not acceptable.
Perfectionism is what we do to try to avoid the feelings of shame. We think that if we just do it (whatever it is) perfectly, that we will be acceptable. Striving to be perfect allows us to get away from the feelings that happen in the body when we experience shame. It keeps us focused on doing something rather than feeling.
Shame has felt to me like my blood freezing. I have experienced it as a full-body hot flush of tension that made me want to turn inside myself and disappear. Shame is painful! Whenever I was seized up with shame, it would cause me to disconnect from others, because if I can’t accept myself, how could anyone else accept me?
What to do with the feelings of shame is simple – first, just feel it; then, express it. Here are the exercises that I have used for many years to heal my shame when I was flooded with it. Each of these exercises results in more self-acceptance. The goal is to develop compassion for yourself, to love yourself while you are in your body, so that you can be who you are and give your gifts to the world.
Exercise 1 – Love Yourself Anyway
When shame happens, let it be in your body, hold the feeling of it inside your body, and tell yourself that you love yourself anyway, even if you are not perfect. Let your heart melt with love for yourself. Commit to loving yourself anyway.
Exercise 2 – Kick, Punch, Shake, Stomp
Go deeply into the feeling of shame. Feel it all through your body. Then express it out anyway you can. The things that have worked for me were to kick my legs like I am trying to kick down a door, to punch the air like a boxer, to stomp around the room screaming “No, No, No.” and to shake my arms and legs to shake it off of me. Express until you are tired. Get it out of you. Then lie down and rest. Feel the freedom from the feelings of shame.
Exercise 3 – Change the Voice of Shame into the Voice of Truth
When you are seized up with feelings of shame, sit or lie down. Feel it all over you. Then listen inside your head for the words that are running in the background. Listen until you can catch what the voice of shame is saying to you. Usually it is something like. “I am not good enough.” Once you have caught the voice, challenge it and correct it. Ask, “Is this the truth about me?” and “What is the truth?” Then tell yourself the truth about ‘yourself. Truth is usually a much more reasonable voice. You won’t be perfect, but you won’t be worthless either. Allow yourself to know the real truth about yourself.
Now about fear of public speaking. The reason we fear speaking in front of others is that it triggers feelings of shame. We are afraid that we are just not good enough. And experiencing that feeling in front of others seems too much to bear. So we think to ourselves “Better to avoid public speaking if possible.” But, if we can’t avoid speaking, then we believe that we have to do it perfectly. We chase a perfection in speaking that does not exist. Again, the pursuit of perfection is just a way of trying to avoid the feelings of shame. You might ask, “How do I work with shame that surfaces in public speaking?” Here are a couple ways I have learned.
Learn to tell the truth to your audiences.
Tell them your story about what you have been going through to prepare for speaking. That is what Dr. Brene Brown did. (See my post just before this one.) Learn to share the truth with listeners so you take the wind out of the feelings of shame. I’ll share a story about my speaking to the Houston National Speakers Association group. This was a big test of authenticity for me. You can find this story in my book It’s Your Time to Shine: How to Overcome Fear of Public Speaking, Develop Authentic Presence and Speak from Your Heart.
Perhaps the greatest standing ovation I ever received was at the Houston Chapter of the National Speakers Association where I was a member. I was scheduled to give a fifteen minute speech to my NSA group. It was my first talk to my peers who were all professional speakers. I had prepared, prepared, prepared for over a month. I had written an impressive talk, full of metaphorical stories and grand thoughts. At 4 am the morning of the talk, after not sleeping a minute due to high anxiety, I realized I could not give the talk I had written – it wasn’t authentic, it wasn’t me. At 8 am, trembling, I stood before the group and said the truth. “I had no idea how very nervous I was going to be to talk to you!” I said. I went on to tell them I had written a talk and rehearsed it, but I couldn’t give it to them because I had written it to impress them. So, I said I was just going to share a little of my work with them. I talked about stage fright, presence and connection with listeners and I guided them through my grounding meditation so they could feel the difference between being grounded and not.
I recall so clearly how I became present with them and began to share my love with them in that moment. A sense of spiritual rapport filled the room as I connected authentically with them. I could sense how I captured their attention and drew them magnetically to me during my talk. When I finished, they rose to their feet and applauded for a long time. The president of the chapter later told me he did not ever remember feeling the quality of energy that was created in the group that morning.
Work on speaking in a safe group.
My work is facilitating groups of people to transform the fear and anxiety of public speaking into an authentic presence. Our groups allow people permission to feel the feelings of tension in front of a group, to express the feelings and to release the tension. Very much like Exercise 1 above, we are learning to love ourselves in front of others, even when we feel tension, anxiety and shame. I believe you need a safe group where you give each other permission to feel while being at the center of attention. In our groups, we release the shame, learn to be comfortable at the center of attention and free ourselves to speak by simply being authentic. As we learn to accept ourselves in front of others, we are freed up to shine when speaking to groups.
What’s different at Self-Expression Center. What we do differently at Self-Expression Center is work with emotion as bodily-felt energy. Feelings are just emotional energy flowing through the body. Negative emotions are just energetic intensities that are stuck and not flowing through the physical body. We don’t try to figure out where emotions came from, who did what to whom or what caused the feelings. We simply learn to feel the feelings and transform them into flowing energy. Once you learn to give yourself permission to feel and to express feelings, you can be authentic wherever you go and you can give your gifts, talents, ideas, insights and expertise freely. That is healing!
If you want some support for dealing with the energy of shame, we can help coach you individually through any of the above techniques and we’d love to have you participate in our group classes where you can become more comfortable at being the center of attention and speaking to groups. As a result of hearing and meeting Dr. Brene Brown, (See last post) I am formulating some classes for next year that will address even more of these issues. Stay tuned.
Once in a while, an idea comes along which changes all the other ideas that I am teaching. I met that idea this week at The UP Experience in Houston. Among the cadre of sixteen awesome speakers, who were all thought leaders in their fields, was Dr. Brené Brown. Dr. Brené Brown is a writer, researcher, and educator. She is a member of the research faculty at the University of Houston Graduate College of Social Work where she has spent the past ten years studying connection – specifically authenticity, belonging, and shame, and the affect these powerful emotions have on the way we live, love, parent, work and build relationships.
Brené spoke as if she had been coached by me. She started with her story of how hard it was to prepare the talk she was giving. Her own feelings of shame made her reluctant to speak at the UP Experience where she was afraid she did not fit with all the scientists and technology gurus. Sound familiar? Here was an honored scholar who had the courage to reveal that she was afraid to speak among these other honored scholars. And that her fear came from her shame! Her authenticity mesmerized the audience! Her personal story led her to talk about the connection of perfectionism and shame. Here is what set the cells of my body vibrating with excitement to revamp some of my own work…
Shame is the feeling that ‘I AM wrong.” Shame is not like guilt which is “I did something wrong.” OK, so I knew that part, but here is what I have not understood. Perfectionism is simply one’s attempt to avoid the feelings of shame! So, when a person is a perfectionist – as all people with stage fright are – that person is carrying the voice of shame which tells them that they ARE wrong.
This piece of information is exciting to me because I know how to deal with this issue! I have learned to handle shame through my own transformational process. It is really what handling stage fright is all about. I have been talking about releasing perfectionism for years, knowing that it is what people must let go of to be good at speaking. But I had not really had a way of teaching people to let it go. So, my work has not gone deep enough in this regard. Now, another piece of the stage fright puzzle has fallen into place, and I can add some elements to my method that will enhance it immeasurably.
I am going to follow this blog with another posting on shame, what it is and what to do about it. But for now, I want you to take a look at Dr. Brené Brown’s definition of authenticity at her website.
Visit Brené Brown’s website for much more about her work and insights about authenticity. Take a look at her book I Thought It Was Just Me.
I received a stunning email from a therapist in New York City. Emily shared an experience of coaching a client for communication and how the results impacted her “stage fright.” Here is what Emily said….
Hi, Sandra. I have worked with a person who had stage fright issues; they were really about standing up on any front. When she stood up on
her job and won the respect of the people there, she also overcame the stage fright.
Here is the back-story about how Emily helped her client. Emily truly understands how to coach people to be who they are and to stand up for themselves in the world.
Her client is an employee in a luxury hotel that handles special events. She really knows how to attract guys without complications. She is a very emotional personality, has New Age philosophy and is naïve in business skills.
When a conflict arose at work, she struggled to stand up for herself. With some coaching, she went to the union’s grievance department and got her entitlements. She thought everybody would hate her, but resentment is not the same as hate. Now she has respect on the job and more so as time goes by. People like her now, she says. She is pleased and puzzled at the way management shows appreciation for how many customers she attracts.
Here is where stage fright comes in. She checks out how people react to her when she goes into Starbucks. Emily told her the story about ‘turning on Marilyn,’ and she practices that.
True story. Marilyn Monroe was out shopping with a girl friend. The friend remarks “Nobody is noticing you.” Marilyn replied, “Oh, I haven’t turned on Marilyn.” “What?” said her friend.
Marilyn walks a little differently. Immediately, people turn around and notice who she is. Because she turned on Marilyn.
Here is what I shared with Emily….
Stage fright is really a fear to be our real self in front of others. It is a fear to be in our bodies – to stand in our own physical body and feel the feelings that occur. So, your client’s event was a kind
of initiation into her own power. She learned to stand on her own two feet, stand up for herself, take a stand in an important work situation. When she did this, it shifted her fear about being who she is in the world, so she learned to turn herself on when others were watching. That’s what Marilyn Monroe could do consciously.
Have you noticed how there will be some people in your audience who shine like headlights at you? For some reason they are already with you and are beaming attention at you! Learn to look for the lights in your audience members to absorb love and support for your talk. Link up with their energy before you start to speak. This will relax and strengthen you. If you are nervous, it will help transform any tension of being the center of attention into a delicious sense of connection.
Here is a communications subtle skills technique that will help you absorb the supportive energy from the lights in your audience:
As you step into the center of attention, first plant your feet and ground yourself quickly. Take a few seconds to breathe deeply and drop energy down through your legs and feet so you anchor yourself to the ground. His will help you feel solid, strong and open to connect.
Next, look around the room and scan the audience members to see who is already paying attention to you and seems tuned in to you. They will often be smiling at you as you look at them. As you make contact with one of these lighted people, use your soft eye contact technique to receive their attention. Gently link up through soft eyes by taking a sense of their energy into your body through your eyes. Feel yourself absorbing their support. Breathe that person’s energy into your heart. Move to the next person who seems to be beaming attention at you. Do this with three or four people.
Throughout your talk, keep coming back to connect with these people. Amazingly, everyone in the audience will feel connected with because you are making real connection with some individuals in the group.
This brief exercise before speaking will absolutely fill you up with warm feelings. You will feel bathed in love and energized to share your ideas.
I was waiting in the lobby of my massage therapist’s office this week. Happy to be there to have a massage with my extraordinary orthopedic massage therapist Deborah Cimo, I was feeling good and anticipating feeling even better after Deborah did her magic on my neck and back.
The door from her private office into the lobby swung open and the room was suddenly filled with energy, aliveness, love and presence! Into the room swept a well-known minister who pastors a very large Houston church community. I knew him instantly from his TV commercials. What delighted me was the loving power of his presence that filled the lobby. He literally filled the room with spiritual energy! He touched my heart as he looked at me and said, “How are you?” He could have passed through the lobby without acknowledging me but he did not. He took the time to connect soul to soul in a brief exchange of attention. I will bet he does not even remember, because he does this with everyone he encounters.
The quality of presence that this man radiated has been earned over years of intentionally loving others, being of service, reaching out to connect and letting his soul energy touch others. This kind of presence comes from consistently opening oneself to God and sharing that energy with others.
Speakers, communicators, leaders, teachers, the idea of developing your presence so you can fill a room is not frivolous. It is the way to have the most impact, make the most difference and transform people in your sphere of influence. Seek to open your mind and body to the higher presence of spirit so that your own presence fills the rooms in which you speak and touches the souls of all you encounter.
Here are some suggestions for intentional practice of presence:
When I am using the law of attraction to open myself to new clients, I look for people who sense that I am the right one to help them with their communication issues. In a meditative moment this morning, I had a thought about persuasion. Persuasion happens when people sense that you are the ONE – to help them, for them, who has the right solution, etc.
For them to sense that you are the ONE:
They must know that you understand.
They must feel that you care.
They must trust you to get them to their goal.
They must choose to change as you suggest.
They must get excited about going for their goal with your help.
Safety is a key to persuasion. All of the above statements add up to people feeling safe with you and your solution.
So, when you are creating persuasive messages, look for the words that help people sense that you understand, care, can get them to their goal, can make it safe to change and that get them excited about going for their goals.
Presence is a palpable sense of being all here – physically, mentally, and emotionally. It gives you a masterful command of yourself and it commands the attention of others.
Presence is spiritual in nature. It is the embodiment of spirit. Through simple mental and physical practices, you can develop this power.
Actors develop presence as natural outcome of their training. Actors are trained to stay focused in the feelings in their bodies while holding the center of attention. You can use techniques established by actors to develop the power of presence to support your professional and personal life.