By Amy Remmele

Amy Remmele is a personal and professional consultant, with her formal education and degree in Psychology. Amy co-owns Peak Of Success with her husband and business partner, Dr. Kent Bath. They are the authors of the book, Re-Phrase It: Adding Empathy and Emotional Intelligence to Your Everyday Life, the professionally produced six-hour self-help video, Life Enhancement, and the relationship workbook, Empathy, Communication and Conflict Resolution Home Study Program. Amy and Kent provide assessments, seminars, counseling and consultation to individuals, schools and businesses. Amy is the Convener of the Amherst Task Force for Healthy Communities and on the advisory board of the Small Business Council of the Amherst Chamber of Commerce. Amy balances her career with being the mother of a 14-year-old daughter and 9-year-old twin sons. Amy can be reached at 716-626-5977.

Ask the Life Coach
Answering Life’s
Important Questions

I welcome your questions. They can be emailed to amy@peakofsuccess.com or sent to Amy Remmele, “Ask the Life Coach,” 331 Alberta Dr., Amherst, NY 14226.

I welcome your questions. They can be emailed to amy@peakof success.com or sent to Amy Remmele, “Ask the Life Coach,” 331 Alberta Dr., Amherst, NY 14226.

“Fear of Talking”

The fear of public speaking is rated as the most common and severe fear there is. I think the one liner, “I would rather be the dead guy than the one who has to give the eulogy” sums it up well. But what to do about the fear is the real question. I know people who have gone their entire lives without dealing with their public speaking fear and I suppose if they were in certain jobs or professions, it was probably tolerable. But in reality, there are so many times when speaking to a group comes up even in everyday living that ignoring such a fear can really dampen the quality of one’s life. It’s not like being afraid of sharks and just staying away from oceans. The speaking thing tends to creep in where oceans cannot. Some people just have a little tingle when they need to talk to a group, but many have full-out panic attacks when faced with the prospect of talking in front of other people.

Being afraid of the spotlight is understandable if the spotlight was a bad thing in your household. Were the standards so high that nobody could meet them or was there more criticism than praise? If so, then a person growing up in such a family could easily make the connection that getting up in front of people would result in an aversive consequence and their body would learn through conditioning to avoid it. Since we all want to belong and to fit in, the prospect of being evaluated and judged by a group can give some of us the shivers about speaking in front of people. Being wary of groups is a built-in response. Think about how we “came to be,” evolving from prehistory to today. One on one would be manageable, but if the group ganged up on us, if we were excluded from the cave and the warm fire, then our very survival was in trouble. So if there is any concern at all that the group will not be accepting and open, it triggers our natural fear of being the odd one out with an angry, rejecting mob against us.
Life circumstances, such as having a traumatic experience around a group or public appearance, will strengthen this natural cautiousness with groups and can turn it into a full blown phobia. The development of a phobia is especially likely if there was no one there at the time of the traumatic or uncomfortable event to be supportive and walk us through the recovery. Trauma work with a professional may be necessary to overcome the fear of public speaking, but first let us consider another route.

The fear of public speaking, like any other fear, in the immediate situation is connected to the thoughts we have about the situation. A simple example is that the people who think a loud noise is fireworks are not afraid, while those who believe the noise is a gunshot become frightened. It is the monsters in our minds that make most things scary. Whenever you are afraid of something, stop and think about what the thoughts are around the feared object or event. Some people say that they have no relevant thoughts, but that is just because the fear is so “practiced” that the thoughts are subverted and automatic and they seem subconscious. In actuality, the thoughts are there and usually can be uncovered with a bit of un-defensive exploration. Keep in mind that many fears are highly adaptive. If the thought is rational, like “Driving 100 miles per hour without a seatbelt is not a good choice” then don’t try to get rid of the resulting fear. Respect it and allow it to help you make a sensible decision. But if it is a “mind monster” and you want to tame it and quiet it, then you are ready to begin your own Cognitive Behavior Therapy. It starts by tracing the flow from the “trigger” or the thing that causes the fear to the thoughts about the trigger to the resulting feelings to the actions and finally to the consequences.

Here is an example of such a flow. When the traffic light changes to red, you see it and tell your foot to go for the brake. Your thought was “I should stop.” The feeling is probably for the most part neutral, but there might be a bit of nervousness if the road is slippery and the thought was a self-instruction to “do this carefully.” Then your foot responds with the action part of the sequence and steps on the brake. Finally, the consequence is usually a successful stop without incident. Most of the time you are not aware of all these steps, but if you take the time to be mindful about it, you know that they are all there. Then you can start to practice with other events in your life. You hear a loud noise, you think it must just be a car backfiring, you relax and then just go about your business. Get the idea? That’s the process when we are afraid. It allows us to find out exactly what aspects of the event or situation scare us. Is it the dog chained up at the junkyard or is it the creepy guy who works there that gives us pause when walking by? If any counseling or self-help technique is going to work, it is important to find out what the fear really is. We don’t want to spend time de-conditioning a fear of dogs when it’s a fear of creepy guys we should just be respecting. Sometimes it is okay to simply admit that something is scary and to avoid it. Other times, this process of pulling apart the thoughts will give you great insight into how the fear is really operating and how to manage it. Much of the time, though, it will take some serious work and a professional to guide us. That is alright. And even if you do not intend to be the next great public speaker, diminishing this fear even somewhat will probably improve your quality of life.

Beware especially though if you are in denial about a fear of public speaking. I was in a group once where the leader was obviously extremely nervous every time she had to address the group, but she would never admit that she was afraid. There are a couple of common causes for this type of denial. First, she may have been so embarrassed that it was better in her mind to ignore the fear and to perpetuate it rather than risk the vulnerability of being exposed. The other possibility is that she just believed there was no solution so she chose to “sweep it under the rug.” Either way, if you or one of your employees is hiding a fear, find a way to gently bring it to the surface and to assure yourself or the other person that having the grit to face a fear and to take action against is the high road. Think about it as suffering with some short-term intense pain through the process of uncovering and recovering rather than having permanent and constant pain.

As professionals, we spend the time helping you to learn disputation, the art of arguing against the irrational parts of the fear. We also help you to come to terms with the parts you cannot manage. We may help you, through exposure under relaxed conditions, to de-sensitize yourself to some parts of the fear. And at times, we get lucky. I once worked with a very smart and talented “teckie” who was terrified of “looking like a fool” in front of an audience if he found himself unable to answer questions. I just shrugged my shoulders and said, “Most people don’t even understand what you do. Why don’t you just look out at the crowd and tell yourself that they are all dumb?” It worked like a charm and he is a great speaker today. You just never know!

Amy Remmele is a personal and professional consultant, working with people who want to overcome the roadblocks to success. She has her formal education and degree in Psychology. Amy authored the book, Chief Life Officer: Your Life Is The Most Important Business You’ll Ever Own and the chapter, “Great Communication Will Keep Your Relation-SHIPs From Sinking,” for the best-selling book Game Changers.co-authored Re-Phrase It: Adding Empathy and Emotional Intelligence to Your Everyday Life, and the relationship workbook, Empathy, Communication and Conflict Resolution Home Study Program with her husband and business partner, Dr. Kent Bath. Amy provides assessments, seminars, counseling and consultation to individuals and businesses. Amy can be reached at 716-626-5977 or by visiting her website at www.peakofsuccess.com.