Day 46: Dry Fast, Give a talk with no notes

Dry Fast

For Yom Kippur I did a 25 hour dry fast. It was actually really easy. Probably because I was distracted and busy.

Give A Talk With No Notes

I lead a workshop on discomfort for a Yom Kippur service. Ironically, I experienced a lot of discomfort.

First, I left my notes at home so I was unprepared. This got me off to a bad start because I was nervous. 

Then I lead the group in a discomfort challenge. The group decided to do a group silly walk. We had to walk far to get to an area with people and it took up a bit of time. Leaving only 4 minutes for discussion. 

I’m not sure if people really felt any growth from the activity. It was all so quick and rushed. What it valuable? Did my the audience learn anything? Im not sure.

Rant On Nerves

I know it’s never good to feel nervous when giving a talk. It makes your audience nervous. Nerves are such an ordeal. It’s so hard to control them. 

My first public speaking challenge, where I spoke to the dev class, went well. However, yesterday’s was more challenging. I was left feeling uneasy. It’s good to realize that I’m going to have micro failures and micro successes on and off. 

When I spoke to the dev class, I was so ecstatic about how well it went. I felt validated. But later that day, I reflected on my reaction: if i feel validated by this slight positive feedback, how will I feel when I get slight negative feed back? Just as expected, I’m in the later situation, and surely I’ve internally overreacted to the slight negative experience. 

If you use externalities to validate you, you’re in big trouble. I really internalized my nervousness. On some level, the micro failure had me thinking I’m a major failure: “I’m got so nervous over nothing and I couldn’t control it! I’m so pathetic! I’m pitiful!

Micro success and the micro failure affect me too much. I want to feel detached. I want to just observe.

For some reason, nervousness really psyches me out. Because it’s so hard to control.

It feels unpredictable, like the weather. And powerful too. My whole being can be overtaken by nerves.

Nerves turn a strong confident sweetie like myself into a miserable wreck.

What do the stoics day about nerves?

I feel controlled by them. I can’t think straight or relax. I’m just nervous! A quivering, shivering, awkward soldier that just pushes on, despite the nerves. 

My nerves developed at yesterday’s workshop because I didn’t know what others were thinking. And so I imagined they didn’t like the presentation. At my dev careers presentation that went well, Arnell constantly assured me by saying I was so interesting. Why do I need that assurance? I shouldn’t be nervous either way. I should just think about what to he group needs not about who I am.

This challenge like the scissors paper rock challenge humbled me. It taught me that I have a lot to learn. 

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