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"Awareness, like a field of compassionate intelligence located within your own heart, takes it all in and serves as a source of peace within the turmoil." Jon Kabat-Zinn, Ph.D.
Personal Note from Janet
In early July I did a 5-day mindfulness training at Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, NY. It was a powerful week of practicing awareness - breath awareness, body awareness, emotion awareness, thought awareness, and awareness of the present moment. As I slowed down and purposefully took notice of what is truly going on inside of me, it made me realize things about myself that I had not been fully conscious of. The practice allowed me to come to know myself better, and to accept and appreciate myself more deeply, as I observed my inner world with curiosity rather than with judgments or direct attempts to change or control myself.
This was a truly profound experience for me and I wanted to share more about the practice of mindfulness and how it can help you work with the fear of public speaking or performing, and other life challenges, so be sure to read this month's article. Also, you can take a look at the May, 2010 archived newsletter for an earlier article about mindfulness. It seems that mindfulness is on my mind lately!
A few things to note before we get to that...
I hope you will consider attending the September 18-19th Getting Over Stage Fright Workshop - see www.performanceanxiety.com/september_workshop.htm for more details and be sure to sign up ASAP to reserve your spot as we have only a few openings left! This is the last workshop I am planning to hold this year so I encourage you to sign up very soon if you are interested and available. See www.performanceanxiety.com/testimonials.htm to read about the tremendous value people have received from participating in the workshop. It is truly one of the best things you can do for yourself if you have this fear.
I want to thank those of you who have given me such positive feedback about my books and CD. I am very thankful for your words of appreciation for my work and knowing it has brought such value to you in helping you with this challenge. If you are willing to write an Amazon review (or a Borders or Barnes & Noble review) on either (or both) of my books and/or CD, I would greatly appreciate it. I hear over and over that seeing positive reviews on books and CDs is a big factor that influences whether someone will get the item being reviewed. My heartfelt thanks to those who are willing to do this to support my work! J
If you have not yet read my new book, Getting Over Stage Fright, you can find out more about it and order it by visiting www.performanceanxiety.com/GOSF_book.htm. You can also visit www.amazon.com to read some reviews of my new book and order it there. Also, if you order my new book, be sure to request the special Checklist of Tips I created as a free bonus to those who purchase my Getting Over Stage Fright book. Many people have found this checklist to be very helpful in dealing with their speaking or performing challenges and I am sure you will, too.
One Final Note: I would love to receive some more Pure Inspiration stories for future newsletters so if you have any successes you would like to share - big or small - please write to me at jesposito@performanceanxiety.com and tell me about your victory so your success can help inspire others. Thanks so much to all who share their stories to allow others to see what is possible!
Pure Inspiration
This column is devoted to sharing stories of success and inspiration with others. If you have a success you would like to share with our newsletter community, please forward a paragraph or two to me, with your first name, last initial (disguised if you feel the need for more anonymity), and job title and field you work in and I will include it in a future newsletter. We can all be inspired by stories of success and victory, and it is a way for all of us to celebrate the courage, commitment, and effort we are putting forth to get beyond the limitations of this fear!
Here is what a recent workshop participant wrote about his experience 6 months after attending the workshop:
The Getting Over Stage Fright Workshop with Janet Esposito turned out to be a turning point in my professional and personal life. While the weekend with the group proved to be one of the most challenging things I have undertaken, the rewards were commensurate with the effort. Using the tools I learned in that two day workshop helped me grow in ways that many therapy sessions and self-help books over the years had not. I learned to begin trusting my "voice" and that staying emotionally "open" to opportunities to communicate will help me stay more calm. People in my life, both at home and at work, have noticed the growth in me, validating the effectiveness of what I learned from Janet and the group. I would highly recommend this workshop to anyone with a desire to grow beyond the fear that has been holding them back.
Mark, Consultant
Mindfulness: The Power of Non-Judgmental Awareness
Mindfulness practice requires us to slow down and pay attention to the nuances of our inner experience and the patterns in how we respond to life challenges. As we closely observe ourselves and become more self-aware, we learn to be less reactive to stressors in life and more able to make conscious choices in how we meet life challenges.
Mindfulness practice guides us to let go of our judgments of how we think we should be or how we think we should feel and it allows us to meet our inner experience just as it is without judgment, self-criticism, or a need to quickly change or control what we don't like about ourselves or our situation. It teaches us to be more patient, kind, and accepting toward ourselves and allows us to be less hard on ourselves when we meet up with our human imperfections.
This practice helps us to manage difficult emotions and experiences by learning to allow and welcome, rather than resist and reject, uncomfortable and unpleasant feelings and body sensations. It allows us to closely observe and bear these difficult emotions and sensations rather than getting "hijacked" by these experiences and feeling scared and helpless when they arise.
Mindfulness guides us to be more conscious in our responses to challenges rather than unconsciously reacting with resistance, judgments, stories and inner dramas, and attempts to control, conquer, or flee.
Practicing mindfulness with the fear of public speaking and performing helps you to be less afraid of feeling the fear. It guides you to be a kind and curious observer of yourself when you feel anxious and afraid. It allows you to pay attention to what is happening with your body sensations, emotions, and thought patterns when the fear arises rather than reacting negatively to what is happening. The point of mindfulness is not to try to rid yourself of these uncomfortable feelings and sensations, but to learn to meet your inner experience with an open mind and a kind heart. When we are willing to deeply know and accept ourselves as we are in the moment, this has a very healing effect and has the power to transform our experience at its core.
Mindfulness practice also teaches breath awareness and using your breath to stabilize and support you as you experience difficult emotions. It teaches you to trust in your breath to bring you back to the present moment and to help you through any challenging feelings and circumstances.
I strongly encourage you to create a meditation practice to gain experience and skill with mindfulness. You can start out small, with just 5-10 minutes a day of meditation. (It is highly recommended to do a regular daily practice as it strongly reinforces the skills you are learning.)
One simple way to start is to go to a quiet, undistracted place, set a timer so you don't have to wonder about the time, close your eyes, sit in an alert and "dignified" posture, and then move your attention slowly between the following areas: breath awareness (at the belly), body awareness (connecting with your body and noticing any areas of tension or discomfort), emotion awareness (noticing any feelings you are having), thought awareness (noticing your thoughts as they arise and then letting them go rather than allowing them to take hold in your mind) and open awareness (unfocused awareness of the present moment). The idea is to cultivate alert, attentive awareness of your inner experience without resistance, judgment, or reactivity.
The regular practice of meditation has been shown to create positive changes in the neuropathways in the brain. Consider investing a small amount of time each day to discover for yourself what meditation can do for you, not only in the area of public speaking and performing, but in facing any other life challenges as well.
This is just a taste of what mindfulness is - it is a far greater and richer experience than the little bit I have been able to share with you in this brief article. You can read more about mindfulness in Wherever You Go There You Are and Full Catastrophe Living, both by Jon Kabat-Zinn, as well as in some other books. I would be happy to help you discover more about the power of mindfulness and meditation in your own life, so please be sure to set up a coaching session with me if you want to learn more about cultivating mindfulness related to public speaking and performing, as well as in other areas of life.
Action Steps:
1. Set aside 5-10 minutes daily for a meditation practice and focus on awareness in the areas mentioned above. Also practice mindfulness whenever fear and anxiety arise (or other difficult emotions) and observe your patterns of reactivity, without judgment or criticism. See if you can learn to be with these difficult emotions when they arise and just watch them, rather than trying to control them or run from them, and notice how this feels.
2. Consider taking a Getting Over Stage Fright Workshop and/or having Private Coaching Session(s) with me to help you become much more effective in dealing with this challenge. This provides a great way to break avoidant and self-defeating patterns and helps you move a big step forward in your progress. Please contact me at jesposito@performanceanxiety.com if you are interested in an individual phone (or in-office) session and contact Mary at mary@performanceanxiety.com with any questions about the workshop.
3. Please take a few moments to write a review of my book(s) and/or CD on www.amazon.com, www.barnesandnoble.com, and/or www.borders.com if you have found my book(s) and CD helpful to you. Many thanks for taking the time to do this to support my efforts and help others learn about the value of my work.
4. Please send me any feedback and suggestions as I greatly value knowing what is most helpful to you and will give consideration to all feedback and suggestions I receive.
Something else to consider:
Many people have enjoyed being part of a yahoo discussion board that was set up by someone in our newsletter community for people who share the fear of public speaking or performing and want some support and camaraderie. I encourage you to visit this site and post something on the discussion board. It is incredibly helpful to come out of our isolation and aloneness around this fear and to give and receive support with others. The address for this discussion board is http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/speakanxiety.
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I hope to have the opportunity to help you make further progress with your speaking or performing challenges. Please be sure to contact me if you would like my help!
Warmest wishes,
Janet
Janet Esposito, M.S.W.
In The Spotlight
PO Box 494
Bridgewater, CT 06752
860-210-1499
jesposito@performanceanxiety.com
www.performanceanxiety.com
Copyright 2010, Janet E. Esposito, All Rights Reserved | 
