Growing Fearless: Mindfulness, Public Speaking and Performance Anxiety

Once when I was at university, I had to do a presentation.  Not a huge one, there were only about a handful of people in the room.  But I choked.  Literally.  I felt so uncomfortable that the words would not actually come out of my mouth.  I was mortified.  Afterwards, my tutor said ‘well you’ll have to do that kind of thing when you get a job’.

Not a chance.  I spent most of the next 20 years avoiding any situation in which I’d have to address even the smallest group of people.  In my first job, I would dread meetings where I had to deliver information to the team.  When I saw adverts for my dream job and knew I stood a good chance of being appointed, if the job description included giving presentations, I wouldn’t even apply.  When I arrived in a new department at the TV company I worked for, they joked that I’d have to do the studio audience warm-up: little did they know I was seriously calculating how quickly I could exit the building and hand my notice in if there was any possibility they might actually mean it.  When I trained as a coach, I made excuses not to do talks at gatherings where my work might be of interest.  And I stuck to one-to-one sessions which felt comfortable, telling myself there was no need to work with groups.

Then a few years ago, something started to shift.  That something was that I had been practising mindfulness for a while – and it was beginning to change me profoundly.  After about 5 years of engaging in meditation and daily mindfulness for my own benefit, I found myself embarking on mindfulness teacher training.  That in itself shows how much the practice had changed me.  I could have carried on avoiding the situations I feared.  But it felt important to share what had helped me through so many personal difficulties, and I was willing to feel uncomfortable along the way.

However, I wasn’t prepared for just how uncomfortable.  On my first training retreat, the prospect of delivering a meditation to a small group made me want to run away.  I even contemplated not going back for the rest of the training (I’m so glad I did though!).  But that retreat really gave me the space to explore mindfully just what was going on for me.

It became clear that speaking in front of others made me feel painfully exposed.  For me it was performance anxiety in its purest sense – an intense fear that I wouldn’t ‘get it right’ and that I’d be rejected by the people around me.  Getting in touch with this vulnerability was a catalyst for change.  Ironically, while in close contact with this feeling, I delivered my first meditation and I chose (what else?) a practice that included self-kindness.  I was aiming for just getting through it, but it turned out I was able to lead that practice pretty effectively.  And why?  Because I was practising exactly what I was guiding while I was doing it.  The only way I got through it was by offering myself deep, heartfelt kindness for how risky it felt.  I could acknowledge that of course I was apprehensive, it was all new, and was something I’d been afraid of for years.  I let that vulnerable part of me feel what it was feeling, and it felt a little safer knowing that – no matter what happened with other people – I’d never abandon it.  I was there for myself.

This was a moment in which all of the self-kindness meditations I’d done at home enabled me to transfer that skill into a difficult moment.  The more we practice self-compassion in our sitting meditation, the easier it is to draw on this when we need it in a challenging situation.  I didn’t have to try to remember to do this, it just arose naturally.

So this was one of my allies in facing this fear of mine – self-compassion.  I’ve written before in greater detail about how self-kindness helped me Make Friends With My Anxiety. But in what other ways did mindfulness support me in becoming more fearless?  Well, life certainly gave me ongoing opportunities to explore that one!  After qualifying, I began teaching on courses that had 25 people in the room, plus team members.  Even a few years before, I’d never have imagined that I could present anything in front of nearly 30 people.  But mindfulness made that possible.

I’ve developed a capacity to notice sensations in my body, without judging them so harshly or interpreting them as proof of my own inadequacy.  My strong heartbeat became an indication of alive-ness.  I knew that tension in my shoulders or fluttering feelings in my belly would arise, and then pass away.  And I knew that although they were uncomfortable, they weren’t dangerous – and they were just feelings, they didn’t have an intrinsic meaning.  I came to see how true it is that thoughts are not facts.  Instead of getting lost in a story in my head, I could be rooted in my direct experience of what was happening.  My thoughts about ‘I should feel calm, I shouldn’t feel scared’ were just thoughts.  Being caught up in my thoughts had kept me feeling isolated from the other people in the room, but disengaging from the story helped me to feel more connected.  Again, all of this just arose as a consequence of engaging with the mindfulness practice – day in, day out.  Putting the time into meditation does pay off in real life situations, if you can trust the process and have patience with yourself.

Something else that mindfulness helped me to notice was how much I craved praise.  It was the ultimate insurance; it was evidence that I had got it right, or right enough not to be at risk of rejection.  I came to understand why lack of feedback could feel painful.  And I began an experiment.  I wondered, what if I looked for praise less?  I often find ‘what if?’ questions helpful to open up new possibilities.  In this case, the questions were: What if I didn’t need to be seen a certain way by this person/people?  What would that be like?  What would be possible?

First of all, I noticed how many situations constituted a ‘performance’ for me – not just work but social occasions too.  I also became aware of how I wanted to be seen: competent, knowledgeable, relaxed, on top of things etc…  And so, before a ‘performance’ of any kind, I tried letting go of striving for a particular outcome, of wanting to have a certain effect on other people.  And afterwards, if no feedback was forthcoming, I let that gap be there.  Self-kindness has always had my back here, this isn’t easy! But sure enough, as I did this, I also redefined my relationship with possible blame – I came to fear it less.  The more I stopped chasing the positive feedback, the less I feared negative judgement.  It’s like two sides of the same coin.

This has been a big shift.  Approval addiction is a seductive trap for me, and I’m very much a work-in-progress.  But just catching myself wanting to be seen a certain way is like springing myself out of that trap: in that moment of awareness, a new response can arise.  I can release all that energy that goes into maintaining a performance and just be myself.  I can accept that in this moment, I don’t need to be anyone or anything.  This alternative response allows me to be more present, and to connect with others more deeply.  In the past I’d been seeing ‘the audience’ as bit-players in my own personal drama, looking to them to validate or reassure me in some way.  But by releasing my own agenda, I can relate to them as other human beings, with their own difficulties and imperfections just like me.  I can come closer to letting go of that undercurrent of anxiety about imperfection – and accept that life is imperfect, and so are we all.

To my surprise, I’ve learned that we can connect better with others when we are fully human and alive, including when we feel vulnerable and a bit wobbly.  I always knew it was important to me to share mindfulness, even if getting there was something of a personal challenge. But what a revelation to discover that when I don’t cling to being anyone or anything in particular, I even enjoy it!  It constantly amazes me that I can be at ease in situations that once terrified me so much I was ready to run away. I’m sure life will carry on offering me opportunities that feel really scary, but these days I’m much less likely to default to avoidance.  That’s because mindfulness helps us discover a different kind of confidence.  We learn that courage isn’t the absence of fear – it’s being willing to have that fear, and knowing that we can cope, by holding it in kind awareness.

I wish someone had shared this with me earlier, so that’s why I risk feeling discomfort on a regular basis in order to share it with others.

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Sheila Bayliss

Sheila is a Mindful Living coach based in South Manchester, UK. A qualified mindfulness teacher and coach, she has shared mindfulness and self-kindness with hundreds of people through workshops and classes. She runs group sessions in Heaton Moor, South Manchester, plus a 1-to-1 coaching programme via Skype. Her website is a resource for meditation recordings and mindful living tips sheilabayliss.com

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