Fearless Public Speaking: Overcome Nervousness and Own the Spotlight - Sara Giita Flores

Website: https://saragiita.com

https://www.meetup.com/sassy-soulful-women-entrepreneurs-denver/?eventOrigin=your_groups

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sara-giita-flores/

00:00 Welcome to Fearless Public Speaking, Overcome nervousness and illness Spotlight. I'm Sara Giita Flores. So I want you to grab a piece of paper and a pen and jot down on a scale of one to 10, how nervous would you feel about speaking to 100 people next week? 1 is love like, I'm feeling really cool and calm and confident and 10 is high like, my nervousness is overwhelming.  

00:33 So jot that down. I want to let you know that wherever you're at on that scale is completely OK. And this talk will give you tools to shift your state and feel even more confidence whether you're somebody like this first photo who says no, I do not like public speaking, I avoid it. And when I do have to get on stage or speak in front of a group, I feel like a deer in the headlights i feel like I'm in survival mode and my heart rate is just through the roof. These tools will also be relevant if you're someone who says, yeah, I can, I can do it i know I can do a pretty good job i have a decent level of confidence, yet I still feel like it takes so much energy to get on stage and that nervousness before takes a lot of energy and because of that, I feel like I over prepare.  

01:34 Or you might see somebody who feels like you already know how to own the stage. And yet, when it comes to taking on those bigger stages, to bringing your voice into a bigger level of visibility, you feel resistance. So this talk is for you if you're at any of these stages, I want to share with you a story about how I debunked the big myth about stage fright. It was 2017 and I was standing on a gray stairwell and my thoughts were spiraling downward. I was about to get on stage. My heart was beating so quickly, my palms were sweaty, and my thoughts were on this loop of worry and what happens if I mess up and what if this goes wrong and what if that goes wrong?  

02:37 And at this stage, I was focusing on my professional singer-songwriter career so I I got through the performance when it was my turn to go on. And it wasn't my best, but I was able to move through it. But afterward, I asked myself what happened? Why was it that I was so overwhelmed with nervousness in this particular situation? Because I had been on stage at least 100 times before then, and I usually felt like my nervousness was manageable, like it was there, but it didn't get in the way of me performing or speaking on stage.  

03:26 So in reflecting about why this experience on the stairwell was so overwhelming, I realized what was different was my nervous system state. Because at that time in my life, I was just starting to emerge from several years of intensely revisiting my childhood trauma to heal it in therapy. And the little girl in me, that five year old who was traumatized who, was, abused she was really dictating my nervous system state. And I had this belief that I had to be in. I had to like dig through all the memories and I had to get through the trauma as much as possible and actually what was happening was I was re traumatizing myself i was keeping my nervous system in this state of always sensing an experiencing threat even when there wasn't threat present.  

04:38 And because of this, I also experienced getting on stage as a threat, even though there wasn't threat present.  

04:52 And from this reflection, I started to think.  

04:59 About the fact that I had always thought that you were kind of either one or the other in terms of nervousness and stage fright. I subscribe to this big cultural myth that either you're born feeling nervous and uneasy and wanting to shy away from the spotlight, or you're just born being loud and proud. And well, there's certainly differences in temperament. What I learned is that by learning to regulate and shift our nervous system state, or in my case, becoming really dysregulated through the, through rehashing trauma, what I discovered was that we can change. We can change our numbers so if you were A7 at the beginning, you can become a four.  

05:52 If you are, we're A5 then you can become a three. And I, I learned that these tools of learning how to regulate and shift your nervous system state can absolutely work to shift your own nervous system state to move through this story that you always get nervous and I was was able to heal my own nervousness and get back on stage and create a career as a professional speaker. And keynotes, summits, webinars, podcasts, all kinds of speaking venues. And most importantly, I've seen that these tools and techniques help my clients they help others as well.  

06:44 So I've been a voice coach for 17 years. I've helped hundreds of people to get on stage. And this, these are just a handful of the clients who I've helped to shift their nervous system state in some cases, it's that they feel less nervous with getting on stage, and in some cases their nervousness completely disappears. So let's get into how this is possible for you. The first soulful public speaking secret we're going to share today of three is to befriend nervous system activation.  

07:21 So what the heck is nervous system activation? Well, activation is a word for the sympathetic nervous system response. So if you don't like technical terms, if they make your eyes glaze over, don't worry about that. Just think of activation and that activation goes with being active and feeling energized. So when you're feeling activation in your body, you will have an increased heart rate. You might have tense muscles, sweaty palms, you might have that jittery feeling and if you frame it in a positive way, you might feel active and energized. Relaxation, we all know what that is so this is the counterpart that ideally activation and relaxation are balanced in our lives throughout the day.  

08:14 So with relaxation you'll experience a decreased heart rate, relaxed muscles and deeper breathing. I like to think of activation as like climbing the hill and anticipating the view, and relaxation is like coming down the hill and enjoying the view. So here's the big thing I want you to take home about activation. Activation is neutral in and of itself. It's completely neutral.  

08:49 Now, that being said, we might attach a negative story to it. If we attach a negative story to it, then we call that nervousness. So if we have associations, a story, the belief and the experience that activation is bad, then we call that nervousness. But if we have a story that's positive around activation, we call that excitement, right? So the first thing that I want you to take home that you can apply today is that you can reframe those jitters so this mental reframe is the first step. And in addition to that, I guide my clients to learn how to shift their nervous system state.  

09:48 So when you can shift your nervous system state so that you can feel more relaxation in a moment, if your activation is starting to feel more a little towards overwhelm, then you can shift it and have a different experience. I want you to meet my client Carolyn. So Carolyn is a self-proclaimed introvert and a highly sensitive person who felt that she had this desire in her heart to become a coach. And somehow she knew that the journey of public speaking would lead her to be able to step into this new role because she was somebody who used to be terrified of public speaking.  

10:36 And when she came to me, she had already done Toastmasters and worked with two different speaking coaches yet she still felt like it took tremendous energy for her to get on stage it would take over her whole life, like difficulty sleeping, all of the that sense of overwhelming it, it takes so much. Even though she had gained some more confidence, so after a few sessions with me, Carolyn decided she was going to get on stage at a Moth Story Slam.  

11:11 For those of you who are familiar, The Moth is a nationally syndicated podcast it's all about storytelling from the heart and they have these local events where you can get on stage and share a meaningful personal story. So Caroline got on stage in front of 500 people. You can see in this picture here she is with her friend about to get on stage. And using these tools, she was able to show up with confidence. And she has told me that she often looks back on that experience and feels like, wow, I spoke in front of 500 people. If I can do that, I can do anything. And that is what propels her forward and gives her the confidence now that she's speaking on podcasts, now that she's speaking to grow her business.  

12:05 So these results, this transformation in this sense of more ease and confidence can come from learning to befriend activation.  

12:17 So you can just take a moment and reflect. How might you feel before public speaking? If you could befriend activation, you can jot it down.  

12:36 Let's dive into soulful public speaking secret number two, shift your subconscious and somatic patterns. There's a lot of information about out there about how to overcome stage fright, and most of it centers around practicing public speaking and preparing your speech. Now don't get me wrong, this is good advice. The vast majority of people will give a much better speech if they practice and if they prepare, and if they give it in front of some small groups before they do a big group.  

13:14 But what I notice is that this practicing model doesn't give the whole picture of how you can actually shift your experience of public speaking. So that's why I give, I guide my clients to heal the root causes of nervousness instead of focusing on over preparing to kind of put a Band-Aid on your negative story around activation. I guide clients to gently shift those beliefs to heal the stories that make them attach these negative associations with activation and very often along with shifting the the subconscious beliefs, healing the root cause of nervousness involves healing what I call voice ruptures. Voice ruptures is a term that I coined in my book called Unleash Your Goddess voice and voice ruptures are moments when your voice was dismissed, disrespected, devalued, or ignored.  

14:28 These can range from the time that you gave a presentation in fifth grade about Mozambique and somebody laughed at you, right, all the way up to major traumas, times when you were not allowed to have a voice because you were in a violent situation. All of this range can have the impact of us associating, being heard, being in front of people as being unsafe. So the way forward, the way to heal and move out of this is to heal that stuck energy in your body from voice ruptures.  

15:12 So I am trained in a trauma resolution technique and I guide, I guide my clients to move through that energy, to shift their beliefs, to shift those associations, and to create new somatic patterns rooted in confidence. So this is key it's not just about healing all the old stories and old wounds it's so much about creating the new pattern, rooting it, really helping yourself feel that this confidence is intrinsic, to get to know your intrinsic innate power within this is all part of how we heal the root cause of nervousness. And if you don't address the root cause, those subconscious beliefs and somatic patterns, you can be susceptible to ending up on the dark stairwell like I was.  

16:09 Meaning that you can build up your confidence and be confident in lots of situations, and yet it can feel like it's a little unpredictable, like the weather, right that if something goes wrong, depending on the day, how well you slept, all these things, you can feel susceptible to that downward spiral if you don't address the root cause. I want to introduce you to my client, Maggie. Maggie grew up on stage as a performer she did dancing, singing, acting, musical theatre.  

16:46 Yet she was crippled by perfectionism and stage fright. She loved these art forms, but when it was time to get on stage, she felt just this overwhelming nervousness. And Maggie joined a group coaching course that I LED where we focused on healing voice ruptures and creating these new patterns rooted in confidence. And what's amazing is that in Maggie's own words, her nervousness completely evaporated, gone and so now as she's starting her own business, she is making videos, she's speaking, she's posting all of these things that didn't feel possible before because of her nervousness.  

17:40 Now all these doorways have opened up, allowing her to be vocal and visible. I want to ask you what inner resistance or fear could gently dissolve when you heal the root cause of your nervousness.  

18:06 Let's move on to soulful public speaking secret number three open your channel. Often when it comes to public speaking, either consciously or unconsciously, we get in this loop of worrying what will they think of me?  

18:26 And what I guide people to remember is that it's not just about you. In fact, you are a vehicle for your message. So notice the the words you are a vehicle are small and your message is big because you are in the equation when you're on stage, you are that vehicle, that Channel that the message is coming through. And yet when we shift our focus and remember, oh, it's really about the impact that my message will have on my audience. It can help you step out of those fears of what will they think of me.  

19:08 And if you're someone who is spiritually inclined, opening your channel can be about connecting with your divinity and allowing it to come through in your voice, in your presence, in your message and how you show up.   19:29 And the beauty of this is that the expansion that can be created is limitless. When you open your channel, the impact becomes so much bigger than just about little old you or me.  

19:53 This, this shift of opening your channel was a game changer for my client, Chrissy Chard. So Chrissy came to me wanting to do a Ted X talk and she already had a script. Yet this fear of what will they think of me got in the way of her feeling confident sharing her story. So she had a script that had that had no stories in it. And when I guided her to think about the message and the impact, she realized that she could build her resilience and she could start to feel safe.  

20:33 And I guided her through this process to feel really aligned with sharing her story. And the other way that it showed up, the what will they think of me was about actually getting on stage, right and the having all those eyes on her and, and for Chrissy, it's was something that I see with a lot of, of entrepreneurs who've already empowered themselves in a lot of ways. At a certain point, the what will they think of me shifts from being, oh, they'll think I'm bad oh, they'll think I'm not good enough. And it shifts to they'll think I'm showing off.  

21:14 They'll think I'm shining too brightly. They'll think I don't belong anymore because I'm trying to stand out, right? Those fears of success and shining brightly. So the other really cool thing about Chrissy's experience is that I guided her to focus on the feeling. What did she want people to feel through her talk? And she honed in on wanting, especially the young people in the audience, the teenagers, to feel seen and to hear to to feel respected.  

21:51 And what's so cool is one of Chrissy's friends who did not know that intention. Her friend found a group of teenagers who was passing them after the show the The Talk event. And these teenagers were all talking about how much they loved Chrissy's talk and how much it made them feel seen. So teenagers of all people could feel Chrissy's intention and that way that her message resonated, has it rippled out far beyond just that talk? Because her talk is now in the top 3 % of TE DX talks for a number of views with 154 K views.  

22:38 It's her message is really spreading far and wide because she was willing to open her channel.  

22:48 I want to ask you, if nervousness or resistance to public speaking were no longer present, what positive outcomes would you create in your business or career?  

23:12 And with this reflection, I want to offer you something that will help you get started with applying the tools for shifting your nervous system state. Right now, the free gift that I'm offering you is the Speak with Confidence Workbook, 3 steps to turn nervous energy into this into stage power. So look around for the link this is available to you for free. And I want to leave you with this, when you learn to befriend activation, heal the root cause of nervousness, and open your channel, this expansion stepping into the spotlight, it's about so much more than just you.  

24:02 Yes, you will become a beacon of light. Yes, you will attract your ideal clients and customers. Yes, you will share your message in a way that resonates with others. But it's also about lifting up your voice in service of our collective empowerment. It's about allowing yourself to shine brightly and to invite others to do the same. So keep on shining your lights and I cannot wait to see how you bring your unique gifts onto the stage.