FACING PHOBIAS
A Withering Fear of Public Speaking and How I Got Over It. Mostly
Do you have glossophobia? If so, you’re not alone
For as long as I can remember, a wave of dread would pass through me whenever I was called on to speak. Grade school, high school, college. AA meetings, business meetings. Fear would grip me and render me weak-kneed, tongue-tied, and, well, speechless.
Up to 75% of people have at least a mild trepidation about public speaking. Others go into full panic over just the thought. That was me: visions of being led to the gallows.
Which is why it made absolutely no sense that I would put down $5,000 just for tuition to do a six-week yoga teacher training course.
How that unfolded: my daughter, Hilarey, was taking hot yoga and invited me to join her.
“C’mon Ma, it’ll kick your butt. You’ll love it.”
I wasn’t afraid of the yoga. But I had my home workout routine: a big library of workout videos that I used religiously, lunch-hour walks, early morning jogs, home weight set.
I resisted driving somewhere for a class when I was getting all the exercise I needed without a commute.
But I told her I’d go with her and she nagged me until I kept my word. And she gave me “that look.”
First class. The room is mirrored in the front and one side wall. It was crowded but I found a spot, put down my little piece of real estate — my towel-covered mat — a hand towel and water bottle. The room was warm: advertised to be 105 with 30% humidity. Ah, if only it had been that temperate! Once class got going, all those bodies generated another level of heat, humidity.
Eric led my first class, which was surprisingly familiar. And it came to me a few postures into class: this is the same yoga series from that Raquel Welch video.
The familiarity was a huge relief because I’m not good at anything resembling choreography. I don’t dance. No rhythm. Once I had dashed out of a Jazzersize class in something of a panic, never to return after just a few minutes of scripted moves.
From observing sacred dances from the Sufi tradition, I knew to put my attention on myself in the mirror: though eyes looked forward, I was focused within.
Instructions came in. My body complied.
And then I heard Eric departing from the scripted directions. “PJ, you’re going to training.” He said it more than once.
At the end of the 90-minute class, the towel covering my mat was soaked with sweat, and so was my hair, face, skin, clothes. A steady drip.
On the way out, Eric said one more time, “You’re going to training.”
“Oh no I’m not. I’m terrified of speaking in front of people. Why on earth would I want to go to training?”
“I was terrified too, before I went to training,” Eric told me.
I could see that if he had been, he’d gotten over it.
I hated the class: the heat and humidity mostly. It was hard. But oddly, I was exhilarated. And I couldn’t stay away.
About the time I started taking yoga classes, there began a hostile takeover at work. I decided to ride it out for the promised severance package — packet really.
And every day after work, I’d head to yoga but to a different studio than where Eric taught.
And Eric would send messages through Hilarey. “Tell your Mum she’s going to teacher training.”
Weekends, I’d do a couple of classes a day.
At the end of about eight months, my corporate job dried up and blew away.
Not knowing what to do, and no doubt influenced by Eric and my now love for this hot yoga, I decided that I would, indeed, apply my severance pay to training. Six weeks, two classes daily in Los Angeles, 964 driving miles from Portland, Oregon (1,551 km) where I lived.
The biggest segment of training was learning the “dialog”, actually a 90-minute monologue that conveys a class through from the opening pranayama breathing to kapalbhati breathing that ends the class. With 26 asanas — postures — two sets each, in between.
I didn’t have much trouble memorizing each posture, but delivery broke me every time. I’d anticipate it with dread, then while putting on the headgear microphone, my knees would go weak. Though I knew the words, I’d fumble through.
No one likes to watch anyone on die on stage. And that’s how it felt every time: a slow, miserable death. I could feel the energy sucked out of me, out of the room.
I made an appointment on my only free day — Sunday — and met with a hypnotist. Three hours later, it helped some, but I never felt very comfortable. I never got over the fear.
Though there were no grades, I completed the training and “passed.” But I definitely was not ready to get in front of a class for 90 minutes and deliver anything worthwhile. And I knew it.
Still, everyone encouraged me to sign up for teaching once I returned to Portland. One studio owner convinced me to do it, so I did.
That fateful first class rolled around. I showed up, but again, the fear, gelatinous knees. Quavering voice — only a whisper of a voice.
My “performance” was dull, lifeless.
I was terrified and no doubt it was the most suckful class for not only myself, but for everyone in it. And there were four other teachers in that room that day. Ugh.
After class, Johnny, one of my fellow classmates in LA, one of the many shining stars, emerged from the room. He looked at me, bright-eyed, like he had a gift of inestimable value.
“That was terrible,” he said. “That was just terrible.”
And it didn’t even hurt. Guilty. It was completely and utterly true. I owned it.
And I resolved then and there that I would never inflict myself on a class again. I would continue my practice on the mat but I would never get up again and try to lead class. Ever.
Fast forward a year and I’m living off grid in Washington state. My daughter and her beau, Justin, are visiting. She’s just completed Five Elements Acupuncture training and she gives me a treatment.
The next morning, she asks, “How do you feel?”
Initially, I didn’t notice much difference, but a few minutes later I told her, in a hushed, almost disbelieving tone, “This is strange. I know that it’s time to face the fear.
“What was that treatment all about?”
Hilarey said, “I see you up on the roof cleaning out the stove pipe. I see you splitting and chopping firewood.
“You live off grid all by yourself. You use your own chainsaw. You’ve managed to turn this distressed property into something welcoming and lovely. You cleaned this place up.
“You’ve got ‘back strength’ but what you need is to gently hold yourself, like a mother would hold a child.
“It was an esoteric treatment,” she continued. “I didn’t know what it would do, but it struck me that this is the treatment that you needed.”
With that, Hilarey, Justin and I decided to go to yoga. Turns out the studio where I usually practice was closed, it was a holiday, but the Olympia studio was open. We’d never been to the Olympia studio before.
When I signed in, I did so as a teacher — professional courtesy. Margot, the owner’s eyes got wide, “You’re a teacher? We need teachers!”
“Oh, I’m not a good teacher,” I assured her. “I did training more than a year ago, I’ve never led class. Well, one class …”
“No matter,” Margot interrupted in her excitement, “I’m putting you on the schedule.”
And that was that. Good or not, I now had a job teaching yoga.
As it turned out, I was on the schedule four times a week, which gave me some momentum. The fear was there, but knowing that powers beyond me had orchestrated this, I felt supported. And Margot and her husband, Anatole, were more than patient.
I realized that a baby doesn’t walk in one day, it takes time. The baby has to fall a lot before she takes off.
I gave myself some grace in learning this new skill. And I was not nearly as terrified as I’d been in the past.
Actually, after just a few classes, I found a rhythm and it was kind of fun.
Within three weeks of a steady teaching schedule along with my practice, the fear dissolved. I started teaching at studios in Gig Harbor, West Seattle, Bellevue, Kirkland, Issaquah and of course, Olympia.
What became apparent was the big conflict: I was terrified of even practicing speaking in front of anyone, and practicing in front of others is essential.
And the yoga students were a very supportive bunch.
And when the universe wants you to do something, it backs you with all that it’s got.
I taught yoga for ten years.
Though I got over the fear of being in front of the yoga classes, I still wouldn’t want to be called on to give an extemporaneous speech. And I’d still much rather write or text than phone someone I don’t know.
Getting my number: 552 — for touching toes to forehead. The blessing of short legs and a long torso. And flexible hamstrings.
When my friend, Helen, saw this, she said that I shouldn’t let men walk all over me.
In this case, it didn’t hurt.
This really spoke to me as I contemplate returning to the expensive US. By kiwi @sea-at-sunrise
https://medium.com/real-stories/why-this-kiwi-left-hobbiton-d6f772a2e1e0
