My education in psychology is limited to Psych 201, which was literally the first class I ever took in college. Fall 2002, 9AM. That was almost 10 years ago. Oddly enough, I often find myself offering advice to friends when solicited [and sometimes unsolicited]. Recently, this has shifted into my professional life where I was faced with a student with an overwhelmingly low state of self-esteem and therefore is terrified of speaking in front of her classmates. Let's pause; I need to preface the nature of the class and how I approach this cruel mistress we call fear.
The apprehension in a public speaking class is palpable. Usually a good 80% of the class is completely petrified of the thought of standing in front of 30 of their peers, let alone having to share their ideas with them. So they look to me as a source of comfort and instead, before they make that long journey to the front of the class, this evil teacher greets them to the classroom with these words written on the board:
What is your biggest fear?
I'm sure a large number of them want to reply, "This class, you asshole," but I ask them to set aside the distress that the current class is causing them and to reach outside of that. The board ends up looking something like this:
Spiders
Rejection
Snakes
Failure
Heights
Disappointing Loved Ones
Clowns
Death
Escalators [true story]
I quickly assure them they will not die, this I am only 70% sure of, no clowns will be making cameos on speech day, our classroom will stay at the same altitude and I will pull the fire alarm if any spiders dare to invade our room. What I can't promise them are the two things they are most concerned about: Rejection and Failure.
So back to my student. We'll call her Lacy. Lacy told me very early in the term that she had incredibly low self-esteem. We've had a semi-ongoing conversation about it, but given the absence of a psychology degree and the limitation of only having 10 weeks to work-out much greater issues, I'm at a loss. Yesterday, she was in tears about her speech next week. Even with her best friend sitting right there assuring Lacy of her worth, she continued to shake her head and counter every positive statement with a negative.
"I don't like the things I say. I'm not funny. I'm not good at anything. I hate my voice, it's too deep."
I had to laugh at this last one. "Lacy, do you hear my voice? You know who else has a deep voice? My friend Oprah."
I told Lacy that we all have our fears, yet she sees her fear as my strength. My fears are plenty. Some of them are rational and others I'm reminded I'm crazy for harboring, but they are real nonetheless. Lacy is afraid of being vulnerable and being exposed. I suffer from a similar affliction and this space allows me to work on that.
Negativity is only effective if you allow it to be; this is something I'm still learning. Unfavorable experiences give birth to the confines of a comfort zone and death to positive thought, when we really should be following those foolish aspirations we had as children before "can't," "never," and "won't" became regulars in our vocabulary bar. The only think we can speak in absolute certainty of is death. We will all die [probably not in front of your Public Speaking class], but our story has the promise to live on.
I have an obsession with stories. Both the telling and consuming, and the language that is used to share them. My friend Dr. Seuss and I were similar in that way. Today our calendars mark what would have been his 108th birthday. See how his stories are still being told? That's exquisite.
I spent the first two hours of today confined to my infatuation. I read for awhile. I wrote for awhile. Then I found myself here, writing more. I think Dr. Seuss would appreciate this type of morning. I wish I had more like it.
"You will come to a place where the streets are not marked.
Some windows are lighted. But mostly they're darked.
A place you could sprain both your elbow and chin!
Do you dare to stay out? Do you dare to go in?
How much can you lose? How much can you win?"
-'Oh, the Places You'll Go!' -Dr. Seuss
Thanks for the fearlessness in your stories, Seuss.
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