Shit, I’m Scared

Standing in front of 250 people is not the best place to hide

I was about to go on stage and perform and feeling my nerves. I wanted to run away. I wanted to disappear. I wondered why I was putting myself through this. A voice came into my head. It said ‘if you want to hide, being on stage is a bad place to do it’. Then I remembered an old trick my mother told me as a kid. She said when you first walk on stage just stand there for a minute and scan the audience. Don’t look directly into anybody’s eyes, just kind of look a little above their noses. Then pick somebody specific, and start the performance. But what should be going through my mind while I’m doing the looking? I didn’t know. Then the same little voice said ‘well, why don’t you give the people permission to see you?’ As I thought these words, it was my turn to go on. As I scanned the audience I let the words arrive in my head ‘I give you permission to see me’, and with that I gave my performance.

The next day after bathing in the relief of not forgetting my lines, and in the glow of having made people laugh, I started to think about the words ‘I give you permission to see me.’ They were powerful. So I said them out loud. They sounded powerful. But did I believe what I was saying? Did I really want people to see me? Yes. I did. That’s why I was performing in the first place. I wanted to be seen. And I didn’t only want to be seen on stage, I wanted to be seen walking down the street, sitting on a bus, or standing up in front of a classroom of kids. I wanted them to see I was there and I was. That felt more scary than waiting to go on stage.

In order for me to give permission to be seen, I had to be prepared to show myself. Did I want to show myself? I realised that I was pretty good at hiding. I wondered if anybody could see through the masks I was wearing. I wondered how many masks I was wearing, and like a Russian doll, if I took one off, would I find another one underneath. I was terrified that people could see through my mask. I wasn’t sure if it was safe to take it off. I imagined the way I lived wearing my mask, and what it might be like if for a day I forgot to take it with me. How might that day be different?

I tried again. I started to breath and to feel a bit more calm. Were other people fooled by my mask? Did they believe I was confident and capable and fulfilled? I gingerly took off the mask and peered at the new reflection. Was I running away now that I looked at my maskless reflection? No, I was just warty and spotty and hairless, just human, but not scary. It is much easier to feel the sting of my personal criticism than the soothing effect of accepting that I also had something warm and precious to share too. Would people run away if they saw the truth? They hadn’t run away from me on the stage when I took off my mask. Maybe the mask was the thing that caused people to want to run away!

And so, in the spirit of an experiment, I decided to give it a try. I would go out without any protection and be vulnerable like I’d been when standing in front of that audience. I felt a bit chicken. Maybe I could take my mask with me in my pocket for security’s sake and slip it on if I needed it. I practiced putting it on and taking it off, like a cowboy might practice drawing his gun.