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What do Trauma, Yoga and Public Speaking
Have in Common?
Have in Common?
by
Carla Kimball
©2008, Carla Kimball
All rights reserved.
Recently I attended a conference on Yoga and Trauma. Why? Because I have recently worked with a group of inner city teenagers who wanted to speak out about reducing gang violence. I was interested in developing more adequate techniques for helping them speak with presence while living with the trauma of the threat of violence in their daily lives.
What I found most interesting at this conference was the unexpected similarities between trauma and the fear of public speaking. It seems that when traumatized, different parts of the brain don’t work together, so that the person:
- Feels scattered, confused and unable to focus attention
- Finds it difficult to take in new information
- Is unable to experience what’s happening the present moment
Does this sound familiar? To me this is what many people report when they are in the throes of the fear of public speaking!
I’ve also heard that neuroscientists often use an experience of public speaking as a baseline for determining levels of stress in a subject.
It seems that fear of any sort throws our brains into a state of chaos. What works best to quiet the fear is to calm the nervous system so that all its parts are working together in harmony. If trauma and public speaking fear essentially cause the same kind of neurological disorder, then perhaps we can look at what has worked in treating trauma to help reduce the anxiety and stress associated with speaking.
Current neurological research is showing that ongoing contemplative practices such as yoga, meditation, and tai chi help to bring people back to the present moment and by doing so help to quiet and stabilize the nervous system. It seems that these practices not only work to quiet the mind in the moment, but also have a long-term impact on our well-being when practiced regularly by strengthening those parts of the brain that inhibit fear and increase self-awareness and our ability to consciously chose how to respond in the moment.
Why is this relevant to people interested in reducing anxiety and enhancing their speaking presence? You might want to consider taking a yoga or tai chi class or begin a daily meditation practice as part of your efforts to become the speaker you’d like to be. In fact, much to their surprise, I often find myself recommending this to my clients.
You’ll also find that the foundation of all RiverWays' group programs is based on a set of experiences that allow you to practicing presence in front of a group with the gentle, soft attention that’s essential in these contemplative practices as well.
You might also subscribe to The
ABCs of Presence in Speaking, Leading, and Life! which offers
a series of tips to support you in developing a daily practice that could
help you achieve a more calm and centered presence. Many articles in this
series reflect a quality of awareness that are consistent with yoga and
meditation approaches and several articles refer directly to these practices.
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Carla Kimball, M.A., M.B.A. is a speaking presence coach, workshop facilitator and president of RiverWays Enterprises. Over the past 18 years she has presented and coached on a diverse set of business, stress management and communication topics to thousands of business and service professionals. Client companies include leading financial management, health care, and accounting firms.
Carla offers a selection of regular public speaking presence and presentation skills programs and coaching services for individuals as well as for corporate groups. Carla works from inside-out and helps people become more confident speakers while establishing a strong relationship with their audience.
Carla is a prolific writer on public speaking topics and currently offers a 26 week subscription to The ABCs of Presence in Speaking, Leading, and Life!, a newsletter which presents one article and exercise a week organized alphabetically with a unique perspective on public speaking issues. She has also distilled her approach to public speaking presence into a workbook/audio set entitled the SpeakingPresencesm Toolkit.
Carla is based in the Upper Valley region of Vermont and New Hampshire at the intersection of Interstates 91 and 89 and centrally located to all of New England, including Boston, Western Massachusetts, Connecticut and Maine.
(You may freely copy and distribute this article as long as you keep the content intact and unchanged including title, author, copyright notice, text, contact information (www.riverways.com), and this entire notice. )
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We are centrally located in the Upper Valley region of Vermont and New Hampshire close to the intersection of Interstates 89 and 91. As such we are in in the heart of New England and close to Boston and all of Massachusetts, Vermont, Connecticut, New York and Maine.
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