“What’s wrong with me?!” How ‘medicalizing’ your public speaking anxiety fuels your fear before you speak
by Shifting our thinking, we can transform the ‘symptoms’ of public speaking anxiety into ‘performance energy’: and get more comfortable facing our fears
According to Dr. Lisa Feldman Barrett, reframing physical signals like a racing heart or butterflies in your stomach works because you’re not trying to dismiss how you feel. You’re just giving the uncomfortable sensations a new meaning.
Using terms like public speaking anxiety to describe the experience can create a negative relationship with speaking itself. When we talk about the ‘symptoms’ associated with our fear (like shaky hands or a racing heart) we end up associating the fear with something truly dangerous.
Predators, poisons and snakes pose a real threat to our survival, which is why it’s a good thing when our body reacts with wooziness, sweating, or shakes. These responses tell us when there’s something wrong, and warn us that we need to find a way out of the situation - fast!
Speaking in public (usually!) doesn’t have this threat. This is why it’s so important to learn to neutralize these feelings and reframe them in a healthier way.
What colour are your butterflies?
When I was in the store trying on my wedding dress, I spent some time talking to the sales rep about being nervous on my wedding day.
Instead of reinforcing my fears, she re-interpreted them.
"What color are your butterflies?" she asked. I think I said they were “purple with pink glitter”, at the time!
Even the most seasoned public speakers feel some level of nerves. A racing heart, shaky voice, or sweaty palms aren’t something you can totally overcome, and even ‘expert’ speakers get butterflies. In my previous post on fear-less energy, I wrote about how reframing your negative emotions around public speaking can be as simple as reinterpreting anxious butterflies as energy, adrenaline, or excitement. I sometimes refer to it with my clients as, ‘letting our butterflies give us wings’!
The physical symptoms of anxiety are a natural part of speaking up. When we’re able to accept these sensations, nerves can be a beautiful sign that we are showing up to do things that scare us. Just like a butterfly, we’ve transformed. We’re ready to accomplish our goals.
The symptoms of public speaking anxiety don’t have to go away for you to show up to a new experience. Shakiness, jitters, or a pounding heart are often part of the situation, and that’s okay. I remember when I was in the store trying on my wedding dress, I spent some time talking to the sales rep about being nervous on my wedding day. Instead of reinforcing my fears, she re-interpreted them. "What color are your butterflies?" she asked. I think I said they were “purple with pink glitter”, at the time!
“This is not anxiety — this is determination!”: Adam Grant’s podcast with Lisa Feldman Barrett
I recently listened to an episode of Adam Grant’s ReThinking podcast where he interviewed researcher Lisa Feldman Barrett. Dr. Barrett is a psychologist and neuroscientist at Harvard Medical School and Northeastern University, where she won the American Psychological Association Award for her scientific contributions to the study of emotion. In the podcast, she speaks about her own personal experiences with nerves: how uncomfortable physical sensations can go along with feeling uncertainty, and how we can reinterpret these signals.
According to Dr. Barrett, reframing these physical signals (like a racing heart) works because you’re not trying to dismiss how you feel. You’re just giving the sensations a new meaning that still feels authentic to you — just not one involving anxiety. She offers an example from her own experience giving a TED talk to thousands of people.
“I could feel my pulse in my fingertips,” she told Adam Grant, “My level of arousal was so high, and I was standing back there with my eyes closed thinking, “This is not anxiety. This is determination. This is not anxiety. This is determination. It's determination. Get your butterflies flying in formation.”
Performance energy. Our brain probes against high states of arousal like your tongue brushing against a new filling. Its automatic guess is often anxiety — if we’re curious, we can explore the exact same feelings in a different way.
Performance anxiety vs. performance energy
Many of my clients use the phrase ‘performance anxiety’ or ‘public speaking anxiety’. This is a common term, but when we interpret anxious feelings as ‘symptoms’ — like a sore throat or a runny nose — we end up feeling more fear: what is wrong with me! This shouldn’t be happening!
When we interpret anxious feelings as ‘symptoms’ we end up feeling more fear. When you get curious about these sensations, you can reinterpret them.
Because the experience feels so ‘medical,’ it elicits some very natural concern. If you’re sitting in a meeting at your desk and suddenly experience a racing heart or shaking palms (whether or not it’s because you’ve been called on to speak) you’re usually alarmed. But if you go for a long run on the treadmill, the opposite would be true – even at the same elevated heart rate. Feeling dizzy or starting to dry heave in a pitch meeting is concerning. Much less so after you run a hard sprint and beat your best time. Despite struggling to catch your breath (or even heaving!), you may associate the feeling with the high of your personal triumph: you had to push yourself to your physical limits, but you got it done!
Changing your relationship with public speaking begins when you change your interpretation of fear
We’ve all been in situations where we felt the unpleasant physical situations associated with nerves. Your hands sweat while riding a roller coaster, or you get butterflies before going on a date. The difference is that these feelings aren’t medicalized symptoms of a condition called public speaking anxiety. The same feelings are more like excitement or anticipation. So when you reinterpret the nervous sensations you get before public speaking, it feels less like anxiety and more like energy - performance energy.
Channeling your performance energy (and developing public speaking self confidence) isn’t about overcoming these feelings of fear. It’s just choosing how you interpret them. Once we learn to accept these sensations, we can make a shift that goes a long way towards becoming your fear-less self.
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