Can't let it go

Takuan

Hello everyone,

Tonight, I had a presentation to do for University. I spent months putting this thing together with my partner and weeks practicing it. I got in front of the class and began speaking. At first everything was fine and then the stuttering began. After the stuttering, I lost my train of thought multiple times throughout the presentation. Then I was asked a simple question "what does A.D. mean?" and I can't even answer. I know the answer, but it wont come out. It just sits there...

I've replayed the situation over and over again. There's no reason why I should have frozen like that. I've done presentations like this before in front of scholars, yet for some reason this was harder. It should have been so much easier. I just don't understand what happened...

Anyway, I can't seem to just let it go. I keep coming back to it. I keep feeling stupid about it. It's all really depressing. lol Do you guys have any advice for letting such an embarrassment go?

Beej

public speaking is super difficult. i think it is commonly viewed as the thing that people fear the most, above death even. i had to do a ten minute monologue in a drama class in college and i couldnt get passed the four minute mark. i apologized to the teacher and the class, and just went and sat down. then i could feel my face reddening as the awkwardness enveloped me.... uggh. there was a girl in that class that i was sweet on, too. i was uber shaken by the experience, but i got over it. now i am a teacher, and have to stand in front of the class everyday, and talk talk talk talk talk.

just remember: this too shall pass.

vinlyn

Have you tried getting some professional help for this?

Takuan

@vinlyn
Professional help? I'm usually pretty good at public speaking, but this time I just fell apart. Like I said, I've done similar presentations in the past. This should have been so easy. It just hurts to think about... Maybe I just put too into it.

@thebeejabides
Ultimately, I want to work in academia. I just never felt so embarrassed in my life. lol Hopefully finals will take care of any lingering memories the class has of the fiasco.

Bunks

Probably not much consolation to you right now @Takuan but I am as sure as I can be that you'll laugh about this some time in the future when you think about it. It may just take a little while........

Patience is the key. It will pass.

vinlyn

@Takuan, let me ask you a question. How much did you rely on notes during the presentation?

Takuan

A bit more than normal. I usually create a script to give me an idea of how I'm going to do things, then take it with me on on stage to help me out of I get lost.

footiam

Takuan said:

Hello everyone,


Anyway, I can't seem to just let it go. I keep coming back to it. I keep feeling stupid about it. It's all really depressing. lol Do you guys have any advice for letting such an embarrassment go?</blockquote

If you look back at all the talks you have attended, most probably you'd have forgotten what had transpired then - good or bad; we tend to forget especially if we are not the one who blunders. Your audience may have already let go. So, why not you unless there is an 'I' factor that is difficult to dissociate with. Some people who do what you did can laugh over it and treat it as a learning experience. There may even be a second time but so what, the world still goes round.

vinlyn

When, as a school administrator, I had to start giving public talks, I started totally scripted. I would work hours and hours on a speech and essentially read it. I was boring...but thorough. As time went on I trained myself to write less and less...phrases...key words that I could glance at, but not need to read. Which took practice, but I got better and better at off-the-cuff.

lobster

Do you guys have any advice for letting such an embarrassment go?

You could record the perfectly practiced and implemented presentation. Upload it to Youtube, apologise to classmates and tutors and provide the link . . .

driedleaf

Just let it go. It's the past. People are too busy with their own problems to remember random events anyhow. Just focus on doing better next time. Try some metta meditation. Reflect on suffering and emptiness. We are similar in so many ways, and there is no pressure for anyone to stand out from this.

Takuan

footiam said:

Takuan said:

Hello everyone,


Anyway, I can't seem to just let it go. I keep coming back to it. I keep feeling stupid about it. It's all really depressing. lol Do you guys have any advice for letting such an embarrassment go?

Excellent point, @footiam. I do have a bit of an I problem that should be dealt with. I just didn't realize it before yesterdays experience and subsequent hours of sulking.

lobster said:

You could record the perfectly practiced and implemented presentation. Upload it to Youtube, apologise to classmates and tutors and provide the link . . .

I considered it, but I'm just going to let everyone forget it. I've got to let it go. There's only one more class in the semester. I'm sure the students minds are elsewhere.

Zero

It happens sometimes - when something is so important and so rehearsed that you just freeze... I do a fair amount of public speaking and have had this happen before... it was terrible, I lost my way on the notes and then I was all over tha place and then the questions started and it was like I was a question behind! tough tough... and my head felt like it was on fire!

How to get over embarrassment? Take it less seriously - laugh at yourself - pick yourself up and carry on - sometimes we fall flat on our face and it's hilarious... in retrospect!

I'm with @vinlyn - proficiency comes with experience - there is very little difference for me now between public and private speaking - just that the butterflies are still there for the public speaking until I'm on - then it's like I'm talking to my friends and boy do I like to talk!! Questions are fine - I know my area well enough to field any question and if necessary I have a neat trick of answering and then proposing a similar question to the questioner! It serves as a good reminder to the hecklers in the crowd...

That said, I was in a presentation last week and I was asked a question and I knew the answer but nothing! Stock phrase - 'I know the answer but in the heat of the moment the answer has jumped out of my head - I'll come back to you on it or we can talk after - but it was ok - it came back to me eventually.

Cinorjer

@Zero is right. We all have an off day sometimes. It's possible to get overprepped and tightly would up and psych our minds into locking up. Sounds like that's what happened in your case.

The thing to remember is, your audience was on your side and knows what you went through if they have ever had to give a presentation themselves. Now, you can examine what might have made this one an ordeal. Were you getting too detailed? Trying to cover a lot of info too fast? Sometimes it's just something in the middle of the presentation that throws you off balance, like stumbling over one word and suddenly you're self-conscious. It happens.

karasti

It happens It's possible perhaps your mishap will make it easier for someone else. Maybe there is someone in the class who was really scared and feels a bit more at ease knowing even if something awkward happens, you still survive it. That's how I'd feel if I was in your class, because I'd be that person, lol. I hate public speaking more than I hate going to the dentist (and I'd rather go through labor and delivery than see the dentist). Even when I've had to run meetings for my son's boy scout pack, I was terrified, and my audience was a group of 8 year old boys. I have to convince myself that no matter what happens, it won't kill me, and your experience would have reminded me of that and put me more at ease.

internale

I have the same problem with replaying things over and over in my head and not getting past embarrassments or other setbacks easily. Meditation helps me get back to the present. I also try to think long-term, think about impermanence. I think about how someday, I will be dead. Will this matter then? Truthfully, this will not matter a long time before that, and eventually I get to the truth that it doesn't matter now. It only exists in your mind, and that's actually very lucky, because you're the one who can turn that off. Having these feelings is normal and healthy. Feel them, acknowledge them, and let them go on their way. When you let them eat away at you and control you is when they can become unhealthy and poisonous.

Kangaroo

The only one reliving this is you. Everyone else has already forgotten it. Just as we do when we meditate, acknowledge it and move on. In time you may even laugh about it.

Takuan

Thanks for all the advice everyone. I'm feeling a lot better now. I just needed to meditate on the whole situation and come back to the present moment.

footiam

Takuan said:

Thanks for all the advice everyone. I'm feeling a lot better now. I just needed to meditate on the whole situation and come back to the present moment.

Glad to hear that. Cheer up and cheer up! Never mind if you have the 'I' problem. It's only human.

BhikkhuJayasara

Takuan said:

Hello everyone,

Tonight, I had a presentation to do for University. I spent months putting this thing together with my partner and weeks practicing it. I got in front of the class and began speaking. At first everything was fine and then the stuttering began. After the stuttering, I lost my train of thought multiple times throughout the presentation. Then I was asked a simple question "what does A.D. mean?" and I can't even answer. I know the answer, but it wont come out. It just sits there...

I've replayed the situation over and over again. There's no reason why I should have frozen like that. I've done presentations like this before in front of scholars, yet for some reason this was harder. It should have been so much easier. I just don't understand what happened...

Anyway, I can't seem to just let it go. I keep coming back to it. I keep feeling stupid about it. It's all really depressing. lol Do you guys have any advice for letting such an embarrassment go?

sounds like impermanence to me. I do dhamma talks on a weekly basis, sometimes I give a great talk.. sometimes I don't hehe, this is just the way things are friend. You said yourself you have done this many times before but you are stuck on fear and studdering you had for this one situation correct? chalk it up to the fact that you cannot be perfect every time, live, learn, and most importantly laugh at yourself, then move on to the next presentation with the past in the past. stay mindful in the present moment as much as possible and you'll always do well.

how

Most of us meditaters spend a fair amount of our time trying to just be who we are. Our success with that process frees us from pretending to be what we are not. Embarrassment is not so much about who we are but how others see us.
If just accepting who you are becomes the real priority of your life practise, embarrassment will no longer be yours to carry anymore.