Managing anxiety: history stops public speaking phobia

Managing anxiety when public speaking can be dreadful. In fact, sometimes it is not so much managing anxiety but being paralysed by it. This level of anxiety happens especially if you have a public speaking phobia or stage fright.

Is it possible to successfully use anxiety management techniques when you have a public speaking phobia or fear? Yes. There are many successful techniques you can apply, so that instead of managing anxiety you're enjoying self-confidence!

There are also several different stages at which you need to be managing anxiety, don't wait until the spotlights are on and you're already standing on stage. You need to be managing anxiety many hours or days or even months before that. What ever you do make sure you are managing anxiety well before you start to speak.

What can you do? There are many things. We will cover one absolutely crucial one in the following article.

If you can't wait to go through each article, and want the full list of ideas you can get them immediately here in Rachel's book: "End the fear of public speaking - forever." Click here for full details.

Managing anxiety: what's your one historical event?

Here's the first thing you can do so that managing anxiety becomes a non-event and your public speaking phobia can dissolve. Ask yourself, "When did I first feel like this?".

The people I have met who are managing anxiety because of public speaking fears have often had an incident in their lives that has filled them with dread. They may not have associated this with their public speaking fears until they are asked the question, "When did I first feel like this?"

The types of historical events that leave you managing anxiety may not be public speaking ones.

It may have been some time when, as a child, you were embarrassed in front of a group of people when your buttons popped open on your blouse.

It may have been when you were shoved in front of your aunts and uncles to play the piano.

It may have been when you were a bridesmaid and on turning around for a photograph you saw 200 people looking at you in the church.

What can happen in public speaking phobia is that your body and psyche remember this fear at that time. Then when any similar event happens, whoosh, you are straight back there as if it is exactly the same situation, and you're managing anxiety AGAIN.

It doesn't register that it was 10 or 20 years ago and you are an adult now.

It is an automatic response learnt in childhood when you didn't have the psychological skills to deal with it or even understand it. It happened. You were frozen with fear and your muscles, brain and memory took it in and kept it there.

Now when you face a crowd and need to speak it engulfs you once again. Over and over again you find yourself managing anxiety. It gets so bad you think there is something terrifying about public speaking. You think there is something wrong with public speaking because every time you think about it you're managing anxiety again!

There is nothing wrong with public speaking, otherwise we'd all be managing anxiety over it. We aren't. Some of us can face large crowds with ease. It is the memory that is the problem.

When you ask "When did I first feel like this?" it might of course have been when you were speaking in public.

It may have been your first play at school when you forgot your lines.

It may have been having to stand up in class and answer a question you didn't know the answer to and being laughed at.

It may have been having to give a presentation at University on which you were being marked.

This is certainly what happened to Melissa. She came to me frozen with fright about speaking in public. When we traced back her history we found she had fluffed a presentation at University and frozen. Now when she had to speak it was as if she were reliving it all over again, and managing anxiety all over again. And this was happening before she had even gone to the venue to speak.

Her way of managing anxiety was to deal with the memory and learn how to let her fears go. And she did it!

She e-mailed me later to say she had just been the MC at her friend's wedding in front of many guests and done really well. Success! She had been managing anxiety so well it didn't even come back!

If you want to know what Melissa did to be so successful in managing anxiety in public speaking you can hear the techniques she used on: "Confidence for women in public speaking: How to cure stage fright". Click here to order.

Speak with confidence. Ditch the need to be managing anxiety.

Written by Rachel Green. Speaker | Trainer | Coach | Author

Author of "End the fear of public speaking - forever." Click here to obtain your copy.

Copyright Confident Woman Australia, 2009.

NB: Any information contained on this site is not provided as an alternative to the obtaining of psychological advice from an appropriately qualified practitioner.