Public Speaking

I can’t help it. My heart starts to race. My palms get sweaty. My mouth goes dry. (In nursing we call this the “fight or flight” response) Well, right now I want to run; run far away and hide. I try to open my mouth and nothing comes out. A little more effort and my shaky voice reveals my nervousness right away. I clear my throat, swallow hard, and try a little louder. Thank God I have my notes in front of me! I am speaking now, but I can feel my voice racing. I just want this to be over. Get it over and sit down without completely humiliating myself. I feel dizzy and loose my concentration. Back to the notes. But in the back of my mind I know that nobody wants to be read to or talked at right now. They just want me to be relaxed and comfortable. Maybe even funny. But I can’t. I race through my prepared notes and rush to my seat, red-faced.
Despite numerous attempts and forcing myself to take a Public Speaking class in college, the story is always the same. Failure. I have spent quite a lot of time thinking about why this might be. I’ve tried to imagine the audience in their underwear or funny-looking hats, but if it hasn’t made me nauseated, at best it just makes me want to giggle, which for sure I shouldn’t start doing, or I might not stop.

Recently, I have become more involved in the union at Crouse Hospital. I sat on the Bargaining Committee as we bargained our latest contract. A few times I had to speak up to the large crowd that sat around the room in a sort of round table format. That went well. There have been many other incidents when in front of fairly large groups of supervisors, managers, directors and others, I’ve had to defend an innocent co-worker or plead the case of our department to get some unfair practice or policy changed. That has all gone surprisingly well.
I almost started to think that I had overcome this fear of speaking in public. But then I was asked recently to speak at the going away party of a lady who is very special to me. She was changing jobs and I was asked to welcome everyone. I knew almost everyone there from our Bargaining Committee experience. And, although I prepared my notes and tried to calm myself beforehand, the same exact “fight or flight” response happened and I bombed the speech.
Currently, the union is looking to improve and expand our new employee orientation. They’ve asked me to help. Maybe I wouldn’t mind speaking to a crowd of anywhere from twelve to fifty complete strangers? Are they crazy?!?! I’ve avoided it for months. But then I keep hearing repeatedly from new employees how lame the union looks in our Crouse orientation. And I know that something needs to change. But as it stands right now, I know that if I were to try to do it, I’d do just as bad if not worse.

So, I’ve been talking this over with our new Crouse Union Representative. He was trying to convince me the other day, “Come on Grace, I know you can do this. I saw you speak up very well in front of 30 or more nurses the other day.” “But that was totally different“, I argue. “How?” “Well, we were all sitting down as equals. And I didn’t have the job of talking at them. We were all just having a sort of round table discussion.” And then the light bulb goes on! That’s what I hate is talking at people and being in a “higher position” than a whole group of people. Perhaps it’s a self confidence issue. I’m not sure. But if we are all at the same level, and anyone has the option of chiming in at any time, I’m comfortable with that.

He then suggested that we revamp our orientation completely. “You know what we’re going to try, Grace? We’re going to have everyone gather their chairs around in a big group circle and we’re just all going to talk about the Union.” We had our first trial run of this on Tuesday. There were 35 people of different ages and backgrounds all gathered in the circle. And we just talked. It was comfortable. The other people in the group seemed to respond favorably too.

The more I reflect on the idea along with our union ideals, the more I feel it goes along exactly with what we are trying to express with the union. No one person is more important than another. We are all on the same team. The playing field is level. One of the main ideas we want to express to our union members is that the union doesn’t fight our battles for us, it gives a voice so we can fight our own. The body language we use expressing that concept is probably just as important as our words. I like this new format for orientation.