I used to live when my life was enclosed by the fear of my own voice. It was a mental silence, not a silence of the physical nature, it was an inner muzzle, a feeling that my thoughts were not worth of the air between me and another human being. Confidence to me was a language I was not capable of speaking, a foreign dialect that seemed very lively yet magical and out of a grasp. I perceived it in the unforced manner in which a colleague could present an idea during meeting, in the casual manner in which a stranger would introduce him/herself at a coffee shop, and the unembarrassed laugh of a friend expressing a controversial opinion. All of them had a certain air of entitlement, as though they were created to be in the world not someone who should like to come visit the world but has a temporary visa where they might fear not being able to live in a world like this and one day would be asked to pack their bags and go. I was a life of minor premeditated retreats continuously negotiating with my own anxiety to leave me as safely as possible in the small, beige-coloured area of my comfort zone.
This insecurity did not come as a result of one dis renovative experience, but it was a gradual collection of minute corrosions. It was the F on a high school report, the name that is not picked in a playground team pick-up game, the off-hand, snarky comment about a new hairstyle on the part of a family member. I did not even notice them but they added to form a foundation consisting of self-doubt upon which I constructed my personality. I mastered the skill of disappearing. I would be in the back of meeting rooms and classrooms with my heart beating a mad rhythm against my ribs whenever I might even consider I might possibly raise my hand. I was making it a habit of starting any words with apology-filled lines such as, “This is perhaps a dumb question, but…” or “I am inclined not to be correct, but…”. It was an unconscious voice seeking forgiveness in the eyes of other people. The baggy clothes were not a fashion statement, but a sort of camouflage, a means by which I might conceal myself so that I could go invisibly about. My world was a castle which would have kept me safe of failure, but the castle walls were so tall they kept out the sun as well.
The initial crumbling in this castle was not with a boon, but with the faint buzz of fluorescent bulb in a basement of a local centre. At some good, but to me, scary initiative, my company volunteered to pay any employee to attend an evening course. At the same time as my colleagues were registering in pottery or conversations Spanish, I was too jammed. Each of the choices involved a fresh opportunity to be made to feel foolish. Pottery had the meaning of making an ugly pot that looked pathetic. Spanish was slaughtering a lovely language in the face of aliens. And, that is when I spotted the course set to be perhaps simultaneously intimidating, but attraction-ifying too – at least, that is, until I realized that the course was titled: Introduction to Public Speaking. I was not oblivious of the irony. It was as though an arachnophobe had enrolled himself/herself in a spider-handling class. But there was an indignant little fire in me. Maybe it was so ridiculous that it was hilarious, or maybe there was some element of me who had grown just so weary of being afraid. I registered with a shaking hand, and a feeling of doom.
Session 1 was all that I dreaded. It was a little room, and the atmosphere was heavy with shared nerves of everyone present who would have had just as soon been anywhere. Our teacher was a nice looking lady called Maria who requested us to make some rounds around the room and introduced ourselves, giving our names and the reason we came to be at the class. When it was almost my turn to talk I could feel my palms sweating and the two sentences I had carefully practiced before going on stage were lost somewhere in my head. When my name was called I could not help saying in a kind of strangling noise of squeaking. I swallowed, wishing to clear my throat, but all I could do was burn. I wanted to wipe all the sweat away but I could not move. I appypercacawed my name and that of being, I suppose, wishing to be more comfy in meetings. The whole thing took no more than maybe fifteen seconds, but it was life time of exposure. I collapsed in my chair because I felt I had done something wrong. Then I did lay the remainder of the session in a haze of shame proclaiming that I would never attend again.
However I came back. It is that spark of defiance, that inexplicable weariness of being afraid of myself, that carried me back through the door the next week. Maria was not interested in great speeches and in performances characterized by charisma. Rather, she took apart the process of confidence; she no longer considered it a gift: rather, it is something that can be acquired, like carpentry or playing the piano. The first time we really did something was not a speech, it was just to get up in the front of the room, look at three different people and count three seconds to each one and say good evening. It was frightful. The silence was long, my feet were clenched on the floor. Nevertheless I did it. And, when I sat down to myself I found the world was not ended yet. Nobody had laughed. I was not swallowed by the floor. It was a small triumph, one hesitating advance on a ladder of a thousand footholds but it was an advance.
Week after week Maria applied another coat. We got to know about body language, that, when you stand tall, with your shoulders back, you can ACTUALLY fool the brain into thinking you are being assertive. We embarked on controlling our voices at various levels and found that when we spoke using the diaphragm rather than the throat area we would end up having resonance and authority to our words that we did not recognize in ourselves. We learnt how to organize a basic talk, how to tell a simple 1-minute story about our day. Its tasks were small, easily doable challenges created just beyond our proverbial comfort zone so that we could become more comfortable in trying them out. The lesson turned into a courage workshop. We were all scared and in that common helplessness a weird and strong fellowship existed. We cheered one another on on small victories at gunpoint cellphones and we praised the phone man who cheered to make his voice steady, or to hold eye contact for once, a joke getting through. We were transformed to a group of small warriors of self-doubt, and we learnt how to combat the enemies who spoke in our own voices and had made us captives all the time.
The game changer moment was experienced in the fifth session. The task consisted in presenting a topic of our choice in 2 minutes. During weeks, I was having an idea to dread and my mind was a piece of blankness, non passion. However, I gave it a second thought of something I did truly cherish, something that lived in a small controlled area of my life, my small hoard of rare succulents. I was learned of their names, and where they came out of, and how they needed light and water. This was my stomping-ground. Something changed when I was up to the podium. The first two sentences were read in my characteristic scared voice. However when I started talking of the distinctive, geometric beauty of an Echeveria Lola or the interesting indestructibility of a Lithops, the living stone, my apprehensions started to vanish as a surge of real excitement took their place. I was sharing, I was not performing. I did not think of how the audience might view me since I was so captivated in the delight of the topic. I used my hands and explained what leaf was shaped like; I said even a little joking that my chats with my plants were my form of therapy. As my time of two minutes expired, there was a silence in the room which a moment afterwards burst in applause which I had never felt warmer or truer in all my life. The smile of Maria was first-rate. “You see?” softly she replied. Whenever you tap into something you love, you remember not to fear.
That minor victory acted as a stepping stone. But it did not turn me overnight into an effortless, confident speaker, that was the magic. But it did give me a concept of possibility in the starved field of my self-esteem. It taught me that I was not supposed to be like anyone to be confident; I was supposed to strike and trust the most genuine elements of myselves. I began putting my classroom lessons into practice in my life that existed outside that basement room. When something about which I had some knowledge was to be discussed during a team meeting, I realized that I had to give a thought and to do that, I took a deep breath, summoned the feeling of coming tall at the podium and said a thought. I did not apologize about it. I have just said it. I was not in full control of my voice and yet my manager listened and agreed that it was a good point. It seemed to be the gold medal of the Olympic Games. At my local coffee place, I began engaging in good conversation with the barista by asking how his days were going. I took upon myself to make a small group project presentation, which I would have never done previously whatsoever. Each time it was a little experiment and not everything turned out a great triumph. It was not fully without awkwardness, there were times when my voice cracked or I forgot what I wanted to say. The change was how I responded to these events. I began to view them as data rather than as reaffirmation that I was a failure instead of unlearning. I began to view mistakes as learning opportunities and adjusting to behavior next time. Gradually, the fear of failure was transitioning to the interests in development.
This new confidence made me make a larger jump. I had dreamed so much about traveling alone but that dream was always shot down by my inner board of fears. But now the world did not appear so threatening. I had made a reservation to a short tourist destination to a small sea town in a country where I had never been and did not even speak their language. It was a grand scale ten-day public speaking exercise. It literally made me go out of my comfort zone every-single-day. I needed to take care of myself in public transportation, to request things via gestures and smiles, to seek directions in unknown places with unfamiliar people and to cope with the loneliness without allowing it to turn into loneliness. There are times that were full of anxiety, such as when I was riding the wrong train, which resulted in 1 hour of being away to my target. Yet this old guy would have panicked and braced back. The new me breathed deeply, viewed it as an unplanned adventure, and was able to get my way back, with a tremendous feeling of pride in my own strength. I found out that the majority of the world population was good and ready to assist a lost traveler. What was more important, I found out that I was someone who was able to take the position of a lost traveler. My personal safety net was me.
I came back from that trip and you could just feel the difference in me not only to myself, but to other people. I held my head up, shoulders back and no longer pulled back into the wallpaper. My voice was also steady. I also noticed that I was sharing more in discussions where I did not have to do it before I knew that my opinion is needed. I enrolled into that pottery course, and my initial attempt at creating a pot was really crooked and ugly, yet rather than experiencing embarrassment, I giggled. I shot it, a tall tall monument to my readiness to be a kindergartener, to be a failure. Confidence turned out not to be the lack of fear or self doubt. We were led to believe that it was possible to nervously find the courage to do it even when the fear was there. Neither was it, a lasting, an indestructible condition of existence, but an active, organic thing–a muscle, which, the more it was used, the more it was exercised, the greater it became, the bolder it was, the braver the small service it performed. The spea king voice which had, after all, learned to be heard over the roar of disbelief was not a shouting voice, it was a calm, likening voice, saying, You belong, You belong. You can do it. You are good enough.”
This inner voice of encouragement started to transform my life starting in the core of my being, the impact of which spread out into places I had not expected it to reach. Professional environment, which used to be my place of most drafted anxieties, was my new training field. I was proficient talking; I had to learn how to direct. At work, an opportunity emerged, it was a high profile, infamous challenging project that entailed a coordination of various departments which hardly got along eye to eye. Previously, I would have become as little as possible and hope that they would just drop the responsibility on another person. My manager referred to the problems with the project, but this time, I did not view them as a threat, but rather as a puzzle that requires detailed solving. The echo of Maria was in my ears: When you are in touch with what you love you forget to be afraid. I was fond of puzzles. And before I could doubt myself I heard my own firm voice say, “I have some notions as to how we might tackle that. I would like to be the leader of it.” The silence which ensued was unlike my silences of yesteryears. It was not crowded in with my personal panics, but crowded in with the astonished attention of my coevals.
Being the in-charge of the project was not the same thing as making a two-minute speech. It needed a day-in day-out kind of confidence. I was forced to delegate, offer constructive criticism and put my foot into the murky waters of office politics. One of my first encounters with my old nemesis, judgment, took place early on in the form of one of my senior colleagues, a man named Robert, who as it happened was legendary in his skepticism. He expressed such open scepticism against my appointment into the project that he was to be found often killing time in meetings by calling my conclusions into question and doubting my schedules with an angry sigh. This new me would have crumbled and accepted his cynicism to be the final verdict that he had accepted me as being incompetent. But the new me who carried with me the memory of my little triumphs interpreted his doubt as not a denunciation, but as an evidence of his own squeamishness. I went out of my way to consult him, not out of supplication but out of pure regard of his experience. I would tell Robert that, you have witnessed projects of this nature to succeed and fail. What do you think is the greatest pitfall in my present practice?” I neutralized his negativity by aligning him as an adviser instead of an enemy, and in the process, progressively transformed him, in slow steps, to a valuable colleague. I was discovering not only that confidence was not in knowing all of the right answers, but also that confidence was being very brave and asking the right questions, and listening graciously to the replies.
It happened that days when my former self was trying to break through. A critical component of the project had gone terribly wrong, and during an entire afternoon, I was once again experiencing the same feeling of cold and icy panic. An inner critic yells that I am a fake, that I fraudulently got everyone to believe that I could do things. However, rather than letting such voice lead, I opted to take a walk, which I knew was one approach of countering a negative chain-of-thought. I said to myself: I had touched the wrong train in the wrong country; I could touch a missing shipment. I returned to the office, convened a group meeting and clearly presented the problem. I did not have the answer but was confident we as a team could get an answer. And we had. It is more of the self-esteem building than the success. It showed me the importance to shine in terms of resilience instead of perfect performance in a leadership role. By the time we had made our final presentation to the executive board, I was actually standing at the front of the room, not as the scared little girl in the basement of the community centre, but as a woman who had achieved her position there. I did not stammer in my voice. I did not just offer statistics, I described the history of our difficulties and our joint successes. It was a success but the real winning moment was the silent realization that I was not only able to take on the dragon but also able to figure out how to lead the team into slaying it.
It is natural that this transformation transcended into my personal life, redrafting the maps of my nearest relationships. There was a change in my friendships, in which I had been used to play the agreeable, passive listener. I began to propose ideas other than being carried along. Even more importantly I began to disagree. I recall once talking to a close friend, who was on a move that I felt was self defeating. Previously, I would have nodded in agreement as I was too scared of a confrontation to express the real opinion. This time round I protested, tactfully but decisively. That is because, I love you and I will continue to be with you under all circumstances, but I would not be real friend to you had I not told you that I am concerned about this. It was a hard talk and at one time there was a rift between us. Still it was a conflict of fidelity, and it served in the end to fructify our mutual confidence. I was not anymore a mere mirror that reflects back to my friends what they think about them; I was an individual with my particular point of view and our relationships became closer and stronger.
The final challenge hit my own family, and it was related to the person whose off-hand comments helped to build a structure of self-doubt. Another of these came out at a family gathering and it was directed to a career option that I had just adopted. It was the same old sting, though, it is possible, at a distance, in a storm upon a far horizon. I did not turn aggressive or insecure. I just looked her in the eye, smiled a little and stated, I am so glad and proud of work I am doing. It has been so rewarding to me.” Nothing was charged, nothing tumultuous. A declaration of it I could be defined, but it was a pure, simple boundary, a matter of fact, that her opinion belonged to herself, and this self-worth belonged to me. It was a talk that I had practiced over and over in my head throughout the years and to actually have it to hear the cool confidence in my voice was to seal a scar I had had most of my life.
I was even back into the dating world, no longer desperately trying to be loved, but out of a secret drive of curiosity. I no longer tried to audition to gain the approval of a different person. I was attempting to discover a true relationship. This also meant that I was more willing to be my real self when going on a first date, and I would discuss my succulents and how I love puzzles. It also implied that I was physically able to leave something when it did not seem right and it did not mean that someone was saying I was not good enough. The freedom of being absolutely happy with myself was the greatest present that my new confidence had offered me more than any relationship would have ushered. This made any possible union an addition to my life and not a completion of life.
This has not been a magic pill trip. Sometimes I still have days when the old fears creep to the periphery of my thinking. Sometimes the imposter syndrome comes and says to me that I do not belong. The variation is that now, I do not believe in it. The assertions of that inner critic have a library of counter-evidence that I can present to counter them. I can draw out the memory of the first success of a simple two-minute speech, the thrill of doing in the strange city, the pride of finishing a tough project. I use these memories as my pillars during the creativity of doubt about myself. I have discovered confidence really is not a place you go, but a place you make yourself and build it brick by brick. And when you live in it you learn how to keep it up.
It is possible to say that perhaps the most significant change is the fact that now I am no longer focused on myself but on other people. My team has a new colleague who is younger, and this is a few months back. I could recognize in her the same fear, which had become familiar to me in the past: the dejected look at meetings, the consolatory inflection of the voice, the timidity to present a good idea. I was able to look at my former self. I did not feel so separated with her but sensitive to her degree. I also took care that I have asked her to coffee, that I have consulted her about work issues, that I have told her she has made a brilliant point in one conversation. I told about my experience in the course on public speaking and the lopsided pots. By bringing out her voice, I empowered my voice. and thus the last, and lovely irony of my career: I had longed so desperately to be able to aim myself, the contented farceur was altogether strongest, when I was delivering his aim. It was now being made renewable. The more I was able to lift people the more I got to lift myself. The scope of my life ambition had changed no longer with it being in regard to finding out whether or not I was worth something, but rather to make sure that there were some spaces through which other people could find out what they were worth. The silent revolution, which had started in the basement of a community centre, had not only liberated one prisoner; it had also taught her how to unlock cages in order to make other persons feel that they belong as well, and the most real way of doing that is by making someone not to be certain, not at all, that they belong.
