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Welcome to In The SpotLight Newsletter!
October/November, 2007
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I live in the space of thankfulness and I have been rewarded a million times over for it…That’s because what you focus on expands, and when you focus on the goodness in your life, you create more of it.” Oprah Winfrey
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A Personal Note from Janet
As Thanksgiving approaches, it is a good time to take pause from the busyness of our lives and remind ourselves of all we have to feel thankful for. It is so easy to take for granted all of the abundance in our lives – both the small comforts and pleasures of day-to-day life as well as the larger blessings of our lives. In the rushed and hectic pace of life, often what calls to us are the problems and demands that need our attention and the many gifts in our lives tend to fade into the background and be taken for granted. It is wise to develop a mindset of appreciation for all that we have in life and to focus on this with a thankful mind each day. Looking for and focusing on the good in our lives very quickly raises our spirits and connects us to the greater web of life in a very positive way. This mindset not only helps to add more substance and richness to our lives but it also helps to support and uplift us in our darker times – such as when we feel alone and vulnerable, anxious and afraid. The more we focus on the good and recognize and appreciate all of the blessings we truly have, the more good thoughts, feelings, and outcomes we tend to attract to us, creating a very positive feedback loop of goodness. See if you can approach Thanksgiving this year with a deeper appreciation and thankfulness for your blessings rather than focusing more on the holiday festivities – even better yet, see if you can create a mindset of appreciation and thankfulness throughout the whole year!
In the spirit of giving thanks, I would like to thank those of you who responded to my request for help by submitting a review of my book (and CD) on Amazon.com or BarnesandNoble.com. I greatly appreciate your support and your quick response to my request for help (if you have not done this yet, please see my message below from the last newsletter, as I could still use some more reviews if some more of you are willing to take a few moments to do a review of my book and/or CD (though as I noted last time, please do so only if you have some good things to say about my book or CD that feel genuine and true for you). The reason this has become so important to me now, more than ever, is that recently I have had some publishers show interest in my book after seeing it on Amazon and reading the positive reviews. In fact, I had a very exciting opportunity come through last month, where a major publisher decided to publish my book in the UK and British Commonwealth and to seek out possible translations into other languages in other parts of Europe. I also had another European publisher show interest in a possible translation. So, this is very exciting news for me and I am happy that my book will reach even more people who may be feeling quite lost and alone with their struggles with this fear and who need help with this challenge. Once again, I am very grateful to anyone who can help support me with this effort by writing a review if you feel my book and/or CD has been helpful to you and would also be helpful to others who share this challenge.
I want to share a funny story that recently happened to me that I thought you might appreciate - and probably relate to regarding feelings of self-consciousness and embarrassment. I took a trip to California last month and brought something on the plane to eat for breakfast. It happened to be a container of wild blueberries with a protein powder mix that I eat almost every morning. I was enjoying my meal and didn’t realize until I was done that I had spilled some blueberries down the front of my khaki pants (unfortunately, I wasn’t wearing jeans, as this would have blended in quite well). I went to the rest room to try to quickly get the stain off so it wouldn’t set (especially as these were the only pants I brought with me in my effort to pack lightly) but I did not have much luck with the stain. As I made my way back to my seat, a woman on the aisle broke the news to me that things were even worse with this stain than I thought – the blueberries had somehow made their way to the back of my pants and I had a nice big stain on my butt! I realized I would be walking around all day with this very noticeable stain on my pants in the area of my butt (the stain on the front seemed pretty minor relative to the stain on the back at this point) and I started to feel very self-conscious about what people might think of me and what exactly happened to me. It was amazing how quickly I became self-conscious and concerned about what these perfect strangers might think! Heaven forbid they might think I had an “accident” in my pants or that I was some slovenly person who did not take care of her appearance or who left home so disheveled and unkempt! I was quite amused as I observed my reaction to all of this and my vacillation between using this as a challenge to walk around this way, throwing caution to the wind regarding caring about what others might think (which I did do part of the time, I must say) and covering up my behind by draping my sweater around my waist so no one could see my stained backside (which I also did part of the time, I must admit)! So, I stepped partly out of my comfort zone on this one and some of the time I did rise to the challenge of letting go of my concern about how others might judge me but I must admit, it was hard to let go of my self-consciousness concerns completely! I was further amused when a woman came up to me and quietly whispered in my ear that she wanted me to be aware of something… Before she finished her sentence, I turned to her and smiled and said, “Thanks, yes, I know”! Perhaps you can use my uncomfortable encounter with fear of judgment in such a silly situation to challenge yourself to begin to let go of the hold that the fear of “What will others think?!” has on you the next time you find yourself feeling self-conscious and embarrassed!
One last thing…I want to pass along the reference for a book that I am reading about how to reach your potential for success in life. It is by Jack Canfield (the Chicken Soup for the Soul author) and the title is, The Success Principles: How To Get From Where You Are To Where You Want To Go. I think it is well written and has some good guidance that can be applied to speaking or performing challenges, as well as to life in general. You can easily find this book on Amazon by visiting my resource page at http://www.performanceanxiety.com/books_tapes.htm.
A few other things I want to make you aware of:
~ I would like to ask for your help on something, which is not easy for me to do! Many people have let me know that my book and CD have been very helpful to them and I am asking for as many of you as possible to write a review on my book and/or CD ASAP – ideally on Amazon.com and on BarnesandNoble.com. While I have many positive reviews on Amazon, there have been only a few recent reviews and it helps tremendously to have more updated, positive reviews (please only do this if you genuinely have positive things to say, of course, as I would not want you to say anything that does not feel true for you). By contrast, I just happened to go on the Barnes and Noble site and there are very few reviews, with one having only an average rating as this person had only listened to the CD without having read the book and felt it needed to be complemented by additional resources, so the reviewer rated it only at average (which certainly doesn’t encourage others to read my book or listen to my CD)! My wish for some very positive updated reviews has become more of a need lately as a few publishers have shown some interest in my work lately and I would like the reviews to show my book and CD truly help people, and it would greatly help to have more recent reviews to support this claim. So, if you could spare a few extra minutes to submit a review on one or both sites (ideally both sites if you can – I imagine you can use the same review for both by cutting and pasting), I would be deeply grateful for your time and effort. For many people, the reviews have a big influence on whether or not someone goes ahead and reads a book or listens to a CD, so your voice really is heard when you submit a review. I am excited to say that I have just had my fifth printing of my book and have sold over 10,000 copies now, so hopefully these reviews will continue to inspire others to read my book and listen to my CD (the CD has sold about 1800 copies over the past few years since it has been out). My deepest thanks to anyone who takes the time to submit a review for my book and/or CD – I appreciate you sharing your genuine experience to help inspire others who could benefit from the book and CD too!
~ I am thinking about how to best offer the workshops, and a Refresher Course for those who have taken the workshop already, in the New Year. I value any feedback you may have about what you would like to see me offer, so please email me with your comments and suggestions at jesposito@performanceanxiety.com. I also am planning to launch a telegroup to help support peoples’ progress with their goals and would value hearing feedback about what would be most helpful to you with a group like this.
~ My webmaster just added a new MP3 player to my home page with two brief audio segments – the first segment is of me sharing some thoughts about my workshop for those who are interested in learning more about the workshop experience (a few minutes in length) and the second segment is of my recent radio interview with Sally Jessie Raphael (about 10-12 minutes in length). Please take a few minutes to listen to one or both segments, which you can find mid-way down on my home page on www.performanceanxiety.com.
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!
This email is from someone who lives abroad and who arranged for a few phone coaching sessions with me prior to an important presentation:
Hi Janet, just some quick feedback about my presentation of last week:
Everything went magically well!
What surprised me is that, on my awakening that morning (quite early because of the obvious excitement), I had two sudden intuitions of how to handle two critical passages of my presentation and those passages were the most appreciated by the audience.
Once again I had the evidence that the key to it all is building a strong rapport at the beginning: I started by saying I was excited to be presenting on a stage where, no earlier than a month before, I had seen my favorite theater actress acting and this helped a lot to build the rapport.
I managed to be free and easy throughout the day, the on-stage dialogues with my coworker flowed very smoothly.
There was a time when the idea of having to stop came to my mind but I quickly said to myself: "OK, thank you for the hint but I have other more important things to do now", as you suggested to me. It worked and I ended up really enjoying being in the spotlight before 200 people.
After the end, many people congratulated me for this brilliant performance.
Everything ok then? Not really: I still have so much work to do on my anxiety before the events (I can't afford to feel so bad several weeks before the planned date). Also, maybe much of the magic was due to the Paxil pills I am taking since a few weeks? (I also took an Inderal an hour before, by the way). Finally, being on stage with other people certainly helped (but it could also have been a source of anxiety fearing to be examined and compared, which didn't happen at all).
Anyway, what matters is the final result, which was really great. And your precious distance coaching certainly contributed to it, so I really thank you for your help and for being there supporting your teammates!
Very warmly,
Marco
Please write and share any successes you have with speaking or performing - large or small - as I want to continue to post your positive experiences in our Pure Inspiration column and could always use more stories of success to inspire others! Please know that your experiences will never be shared with our newsletter community unless you give me permission to do so!
Training Our Minds
I just completed another rewarding workshop last month with a very wonderful group of people. I am always amazed at the progress people are able to make over the weekend with the strong support and camaraderie of the group. It is truly an amazing process to watch how caring and supportive people can be toward one another when they share a deep mutual understanding of the feelings and experiences in dealing with this fear. While each person has his or her own particular experience with this fear, there is so much that people share in common and it provides much solace to know that we truly are not alone with this challenge. At times we have performers in the group in addition to those coming in to deal with speaking anxiety, and at this workshop we had someone in the group who has had performance anxiety related to playing the piano (and we had the pleasure of getting to listen to some very beautiful music as a bonus)! Once again, it is amazing to see how much overlap there is between people who have speaking anxiety and those who fear performing in other arenas, such as musicians and singers, and to also see how the methods we review apply equally well to all.
One of the things that came up over and over during the weekend is the need to train our minds to focus on more positive thought patterns that serve us and support us rather than undermine us. It is quite common to fall into the trap of conditioned, automatic patterns of thought and reactivity that fuel anxiety, fear, and self-doubt. It is very important to become more aware of these tendencies and to learn to identify when this is happening so you can pause, reflect on your self-defeating beliefs, thoughts, and images, and consciously choose to change direction. I have often used the phrase, “My mind is my ally” as a cue phrase to remind me that my mind needs to support me and encourage me, rather than thwart me, and it is up to me to train my mind to go in the direction I would like it to go, rather than let it go wherever it feels like going or where it is used to going based on past conditioning.
The key is to become conscious and aware when you are beginning to get caught in the web of self-defeating thinking and to redirect your mind as soon as possible with a positive attitude about your increasing self-awareness rather than feeling frustration with yourself over the tendency towards these self-defeating thought patterns. I have often shared an analogy of how planes get to their destinations. I have heard and read a number of times that planes are often off-course as they attempt to reach their destination. The way they arrive at their final destination is through a continual process of self-correction, where the instrumentation allows them to get back on-course over and over and over again, finally arriving where they set out to go. This is a very similar process – our minds will often be “off course” in how we are thinking about and responding to this challenge (thinking in negative, self-defeating ways) but the more aware we become that we are off-course and going down a path that does not serve us, the more quickly we can self-correct and get ourselves back on-course in thinking in more positive and supportive ways. Our thoughts have a huge impact on how we feel, so the more we can train our minds to focus on things that serve us and support our feelings of wellbeing, the more we will generate feelings that allow us to feel more comfortable with ourselves and our challenges.
One way to work on this is to consider the continuum of thoughts and feelings from the most negative to the most positive along the continuum. If you are in a negative mindset over speaking or performing - or something else in your life - see if you can “inch your way up” the continuum by thinking about one thought that would provide some relief from your current negative thoughts and feelings that is slightly better than how you are thinking and feeling about it right now. Then, inch your way up some more by thinking of another thought that helps to provide just a bit more relief and continue with this process until you start to feel a bit better (and keep going further if you would like until you are feeling much better)! We can’t expect ourselves to go from a very negative mindset to feeling really good in one fell swoop, so it helps to “inch our way up”, little by little, as the mind adjusts to small, incremental changes in how we think and respond to something that is upsetting us.
Action Steps:
1. As Thanksgiving approaches, consider all of the small and large blessings in your life and see if you can focus on appreciation and thankfulness for all that you have in your life, rather than take things for granted, as we often do. Consider focusing each day on the things you appreciate and feel thankful for and make this a part of your daily life, not just something to reflect upon around the Thanksgiving holiday.
2. Pay more attention to “training your mind” to focus on things that serve and support you rather than continue reacting with conditioned thought patterns that undermine you and fuel anxiety, fear, and self-doubt related to your speaking or performing challenges. Also consider practicing these more self-supportive ways of thinking in other areas of your life, anytime you feel upset with what is happening. Rather than fuel a chain of negative thoughts and feelings, see if you can redirect your mind to find thoughts that provide some relief from your negative state of mind.
3. Please send me your feedback with comments and suggestions for the upcoming Workshops, Refresher Course, and Telegroup I will be launching. Also, I would like to make individual phone coaching more accessible to people so please send along comments and suggestions for the coaching sessions that I offer as well. Please comment on your needs and interests and what would most lead you to participate in a Workshop, Refresher Course, Telegroup, and/or Coaching Session and send this to me at jesposito@performanceanxiety.com. I greatly value your feedback and appreciate you taking a few moments to send this to me!
4. Please take a few moments to write a review of my book and/or CD on Amazon.com and/or BarnesandNoble.com if you have found these resources helpful to you. Many thanks for taking the time to do this to support my efforts to help others!
5. You may want to consider aNo More Stage Fright Workshop and/or Private Coaching Session to help you create a more skillful approach to dealing with this challenge – if so, please let us know of your interest! What a great way to break avoidant and self-defeating patterns of thinking and behavior and move yourself a significant step forward in your progress!
IMPORTANT REMINDER NOTICE:
1. Stay tuned for more information about upcoming workshops and Refresher Courses in the New Year, as well as a new telegroup I am planning to launch. Please be sure to send me your comments and suggestions on what you would like to see me offer that would best meet your needs and interests. You can reach me at jesposito@performananceanxiety.com.
2. More and more people have been contacting me for Individual Consultations/Coaching as part of their action plan to help themselves make further progress. I encourage you to consider this as another step you can take to move yourself in the direction you want to go! I, myself, have had a wonderful coach and have found her support and guidance invaluable. Some people use the coaching calls on an as-needed basis and others schedule a series of phone sessions (or in-office sessions if you are local). Some people use coaching to help them mentally and emotionally prepare before a speaking or performing event, some use it if they feel stuck and are not making the progress they desire, some use it to stay accountable to working actively on this issue, some want to talk more about why they have this fear and what they can do about it, and some want to talk about areas of stress and anxiety in their lives and how to learn to become more relaxed and resilient to stress and generally work on self-improvement and personal development. You may want to give coaching a try and get some support and guidance in moving yourself forward! You can learn more about individual consultations and coaching for performance anxiety - as well as general life coaching - by visiting the Coaching page at www.performanceanxiety.com/coaching.htm or by contacting me at jesposito@performanceanxiety.com if you have any questions or want to set up an appointment.
3. 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 encourage you to take a powerful action step to forward your progress in overcoming your fear and sign up for a Workshop and/or schedule a Personal Coaching Session. If you are interested in getting further information about the workshop and/or signing up, please visit www.performanceanxiety.com/nmsf_workshop.htm or contact me or my assistant Mary by phone at 877-814-7705 (toll free). If you are interested in learning more about the coaching option, please visit www.performanceanxiety.com/coaching.htm or contact me directly if you want to set up an individual coaching session (by phone or in-office).
* If you have read my book and/or listened to my CD and want to encourage others with this fear to read and/or listen as well, please consider doing a review on www.amazon.com or www.barnesandnoble.com . People have told me it really makes an impact on their decision to order the book and CD and it only takes a few minutes to do a review. My heartfelt thanks to anyone who has done a review or who is willing to do so to support my efforts to help others who have this fear!
Happy Thanksgiving to All! I look forward to meeting and speaking with more of you in a future workshop and/or coaching session this year!
Warm Regards,
Janet
Janet Esposito, M.S.W.
In The Spotlight
PO Box 494
Bridgewater, CT 06752
860-210-1499
