Conquer Your Fear of Private Speaking

In an age where public speaking has traded its milk crates and street pulpits for faceless, anonymous, internet comments, it can be easy to forget the importance of private speaking.

When I was six years old, my grandma took me to vacation bible school at her church. Our class of first graders chose a bubbly, eager girl with pigtails and me to share in front of the whole church what we’d learned.

I was given the mic first.

Pews, staring eyes, plus the feedback from the old church PA system jumbled my memory of the lesson.

Ms. Eager Pigtails jumped her own personal version of double dutch next to me, the answers bubbling out of her. But I held on to that microphone until my jumbled thoughts straightened themselves, stood in a line, and made a sentence. My grandmother said she knew I would be a speaker because of the way I refused to relinquish that microphone.

Since that day I have loved public speaking.

But if I’m honest, it’s many of the private speaking moments that have shaped who I am. There was a time when I was in a relationship that was ending, and I decided to write the guy a letter, telling him my feelings anyway. I walked away as single as ever, but that moment of speaking the truth in private helped teach me that I could love and be loved.

When I was leading an artistic event at my church in my early 20s, one of the artists on my team told me a serious struggle they were having.

I quoted scripture and clichés to them.

I did that because I had become so consumed with the event that I had disconnected from the part of leading that means being willing to step away from logistics and details and connect person-to-person, in private, even when it’s difficult or messy.

After realizing years later how I could have handled that moment differently, I faced my fear of private speaking and had a chance to tell them I was sorry. I also listened to how much my lack of compassion and not walking through the hard time with them made them feel.

They needed to say how much they were hurt.

And I needed to own up to how much I hurt them.

Public speaking is the thing most people fear, but it hasn’t been a fear of mine since I held that mic in vacation bible school. It’s easy to spew opinions or judgments when we have screen names to hide behind.

*Photo Credit: Pete, Creative Commons

But to speak in private—to look each other in the eyes and ask forgiveness, share our feelings, or be vulnerable—that takes courage.

I love connecting with an audience.

But my hope and prayer is that my ability to speak publicly is always balanced by how I handle the moments that require me to speak privately.

Sometimes we need to step away from our pulpit, turn off our microphone, put our screens away, step down from our soapbox and practice being good private speakers.

Conquer Your Fear of Private Speaking is a post from: Storyline Blog