Tips to Deal with Fear of Public Speaking

 Fear of public speaking is not just when you have to stand on a stage to face a crowd of an audience. So many of us are hesitant in speaking with a small group and with new acquaintances. This fear can manifest in many different forms and in different settings for different people.

And it is one of the most unpleasant fears as it robs us of many important moments and steals from us many opportunities.  So many of us get tongue-tied even when we would like to impress someone in personal or professional capacity. The important presentations that you have worked so hard for can go southwards leaving you feeling embarrassed. 

So what is this fear of speaking in public and how can we overcome it?

Fear of speaking in public is directly related to our self-esteem. When we harbor low self- esteem we are very self- conscious and mostly judge ourselves harshly. We do not believe that we can do anything good and are sure that others would not like us either.  This creates a fear of being judged which almost paralyses us in public appearances.

Also speaking confidently needs us to have adequate knowledge of general matters and our subject in particular coupled with fluent language skills. When we are not in a habit of reading or catching up news regularly we lack concrete knowledge to speak about most topics. Many people who have passed their degrees by merely studying for the examinations and do not believe in frequently updating their subject related knowledge, seem to be at a loss of adequate data to contribute knowledge even about their professional domain.

If we understand this then it is simple to understand the remedy. We need to work on gathering knowledge regularly, improving our language skills and working on our self- esteem. All three are also related because when we work on improving any of our skills or knowledge, it directly boosts our self-esteem. However many a time we may need to seek professional help from counselors, language trainers or domain knowledge providers. Asking help from close friends or family can create a safe learning environment where we can start working on our growth without being judged.

Every speaker starts from a place of fear. It is time, hard-work, perseverance and a strong desire to attain the goals that separate the ones who succeed from the others. Know that it is a process and it is never complete. You are always growing and always learning. Especially as a public speaker you are always better at the next performance compared to the earlier one, even if just a wee bit. 

Caution: If you are looking for quick results, remember that happens only in magical fantasies. Once we know it is a process, it becomes easy to start and to remain focused at it for a very-very long time. 

If you believe this can help someone, do share. To connect with Dr. Sapna Sharma for Personal Counseling WhatsApp on 8446229088 from wherever you are in the world.

How to Understand & Deal with the Fear of Intimacy

 In my counseling practice I often come across men and women with issues like,

• I want to get married but am afraid every time I think of it 

• We have a good relationship but am not comfortable with sex and that leads to fights

• I think my partner is sleeping with someone else because every time I try to get intimate he moves away finding some excuse or other

• My husband's family is very good but they are all into hugging and holding hands and that makes me very uncomfortable

These and similar stories are getting frequent by the day. When we dig deep into each case what we come to understand is that these people have issues with intimacy, more so physical intimacy. Most of them crave to be in a warm, passionate relationship but the thought of intimacy usually scares them off.  In my experience, the reasons can be variable:

• History of sexual abuse in childhood (Which can be much common than we can think)

• Past sexually abusive relationships

• Coming from a very orthodox family background with very repressive views on sex and intimacy

• Physical pain during sex (More common in women)

• Sexual dysfunctions (More common in males)

• Body Image issues

• Distaste for sex

And there can be more. 

It is important to understand that if you or someone important to you does have fear of intimacy, ridiculing or getting angry with them or running away from relationships can only make it worse. Bad things happen to us some time. But we need to believe that there are good things and good people too. If you have body image issues, a good counselor can help you to know yourself better and to learn to love yourself first. Once we can love and accept ourselves, intimacy comes to us naturally. 

There is nothing in this world that a lot of love and genuine care cannot heal. Patience is the key word here. However professional help may be required in many cases. You can seek help from a counselor or a sexologist, as the case may be. Know that there is someone out there who would give you the warmth of real love. That warmth of love can make intimacy beautiful. 

(Note: It is also important that if you have a distaste for sex or intimacy, and you want to avoid it by choice, it is your moral responsibility to let your prospective partner know about it. Unfortunately many people get into marriage and then deprive their partners of sex and intimacy. Sex is a natural energy and sexual satisfaction is every persons right.)

If you believe this can help someone, do share. To connect with Dr. Sapna Sharma for Personal Counseling WhatsApp on 8446229088 from wherever you are in the world.

Fear of Being Disliked

 I remember all of those times while growing up when I had felt this pit in my stomach with the dreaded feeling, “No one likes me, there must be something really wrong with me”, and then the sadness engulfing me. That had been a feel for a very-very long time.

Well, I don’t feel that way anymore. In fact it doesn’t matter what others might think or feel about me. Is that really possible? I remember asking this question to myself every time I read a self help book back then. It all seemed like a cliché pep talk coming from people who are naturally blessed with popularity. ? I am sure many of you would agree to that.

But then things changed and here I am genuinely knowing that I am wonderful as I am. Of course that did not happen overnight. It took time and it took a lot of tough thinking, self awareness and acceptance. Majorly it took a lot of time with myself and a lot of love for myself. 

That is what it is! Till the time I did not genuinely know myself, I of course did not like myself, I mean the most things about me at least. What was more damaging was that since I did not care about my own opinion, my entire focus was on the opinion of others about me. I don’t say that others did not like me, because for most part there is no way to find out what others genuinely think about us. 

I have something very interesting to share with you. While we are deeply concerned what others might be thinking about us, the others are also engaged in the same pursuit. After all who are these others? Think about it. If everyone else is ‘others’ for us, for them ‘we’ are the ‘others’. Can you see the game we play yet? We are all in the same boat but continuously ignoring the fact that all are in the same boat heading in the same direction and facing the same storm!!

And the more I understood this the more I realized that people do not really care about us or anyone else. I mean everyone has their own things to sort out. Why do we think that we are so important that they would be all the time thinking about us? 

With that cleared out of the way, I shifted my focus inwards. The questions I asked myself were- “Okay so… if no one has a genuine opinion about me, who am I really? And what are my traits? And what is really important for me?” You get it right? And here started the journey of becoming my own best friend.

Soon I found out I had lots of wonderful things about me. Even if others did not appreciate or acknowledge, I still am a wonderful person. And it was such a lovely feeling.  Of course there were things that I did not like about myself but interestingly they were not the ones I was imagining others were not liking about me. They were the things I wished to change. With that clarity when I looked at myself, I also knew that if I worked on it I could better most of that which I wanted to be better at.

Of course it took time. I also had to take help of my counselor colleagues to help me discover myself, to be gentle on myself, to differentiate between what was obviously some random person's opinion and my real observations. And slowly but eventually I could see the light at the end of the dark tunnel of the fear of others not liking me.

It works. It genuinely does. Please try it friends. And if you need any help on the way feel free to get in touch with me. But most of all keep patience. Believe in yourself and believe that the creator does not create defective pieces. There is always something amazing about all of us.

If you believe this can help someone, do share. To connect with Dr. Sapna Sharma for Personal Counseling WhatsApp on 8446229088 from wherever you are in the world.