Shadow of the spotlight

So many things in life seem perfectly orchestrated to bring out our stuff. Like maybe everything.  But definitely some things more than others, and I think public speaking might be one of those somethings.

First, it has the quality of terrifying many a person.  But I’m noticing a very strange dynamic where I find myself waffling between two extremes of unease.  I thought I was mostly nervous about being terrible at it, but sometimes I think I’m even more scared of actually being okay at it.

The fear of being embarrassingly awful seems pretty reasonable.  It’s far more self-defeating to worry about being too good at it.  Because this means my actual fear is that if I do well, then other people might think, “Ewww, she thinks she’s so cool.” 

I think I have a lot of residual “she thinks she’s so cool” stuff left over from junior high.  Or something.  

Also, I can clearly remember a very specific instance from my childhood when I learned that being shiny might lose me some friends.  And by childhood, I mean the joy that was my freshman year of high school.  

What does this say about the way I handle success, or handled it as a kid?  I wonder whether there was something about my attitude that pushed people away, or made me seem holier-than-thou-ish. 

This morning while doing Shiva Nata yoga, during the first hard segment, I pulled off something I hadn’t been able to before.  And I got so busy congratulating myself that I completely flubbed through the next piece.

I laughed at myself, and then I wondered – is this a pattern?  Uncovering and rewriting patterns is one of the things Dance of Shiva does best… i.e. yes my dear, it’s a pattern.  Hmmm.  Do I often get so infatuated with my performance that I stop being mindful of what I’m doing and screw up?

Ick, that’s not flattering or pretty to face.  At all.

And is this all part of my dissonance with accepting praise or being recognized?  The knowledge that celebrating my own sock-rocking has sometimes gotten me into trouble in the past?

Well, here’s what sparked my recent fear spiral with shininess:

There was this teeny tiny, seriously small contest last week and I won.  Let me paint you the picture though: there were only three of us competing, and maybe twenty voters.  Small.  

And the contest had to do with public speaking (on a very beginner level, mind you).  Also there was no prize.  Only the glory of winning.  Which, you can see, is bringing me all of these constant bursts of effervescent joy. Pfffft.

Lately I’ve been noticing that when I hear other people speak, I really want them to do well.  And for partially selfish reasons.  It makes me incredibly uncomfortable to hear someone all shaky-voiced and crawling out of their skin.  I get so empathetic I can feel my own muscles and ligaments straining to dislocate.

And so I started thinking, in some ways learning to be more comfortable with public speaking is like a gift I can give to other people.  Hysterical, right?  At this thought, my inner people pleaser started nodding her well-groomed little head so fast I got a little seasick.  She l-o-v-e-d the idea.  

Interesting.  I started out afraid of making a fool out of myself.  Next came the fear that if I succeed, it will push people away.  And now there’s a part of me that wants to do well in order to make other people feel comfortable. Do any of these seemingly contradictory impulses ring true for you?

More about being shiny next time.  And yes, I’ll even be including the requisite Marianne Williamson quote.