Steve asked me, "are you okay?"
I asked him, "why?"
He said, "I called. They told me where you rushed off to and when I came home, I saw the evidence all over the bathroom floor."
I have never been comfortable speaking in public.
My voice tends to quiver and my brain does unscheduled outages.
Unbeknownst to me, my new-ish job demands that I not only design a training program,
but beg people to come to the event that I have to facilitate.
(talk about bending over--)
Days leading up to the seminar I suffered insomnia,
acne and had itchy skin in my neck, arms and everywhere.
And as if that was not enough,
in what might have been the last act of a desperate woman--
I took a sharp pair of scissors and started cutting...
my own hair.
When Steve called, I was at an emergency run to a beauty salon getting my handy work fixed.
The training seminar turned out as best as it could considering these random facts:
- Even if I've taught children for over 20 years (At a pre-school, a refugee camp and an after-school program) I've never had to do public speaking in front of adults. Ever.
- This was my very first time to facilitate a training seminar.
- I can juggle. Luckily I did not have to resort to my juggling talent to keep the participants attention.
- I have an unusual gift of being able to write sentences backwards, in reverse-mirror image letters. I did not use said gift while capturing participants ideas on the flip chart.
- Although I can triple fold my tongue, I only tongue-twisted on one word: colleague. I actually had to give up and rely on audience participation to say the word properly.
- My eardrums malfunction immediately after intense emotions. I literally experience deafness after certain (*wink*)activities. Now I can include facilitation as a trigger as well--as I was rendered deaf for about 45 minutes after the seminar.
- My voice quivers when I am nervous. While this might be helpful when one wants to do vibrato while auditioning for a musical it is more of a nuisance when you are facilitating.
- Steve is still married to me despite the fact that I continually spoke to him and the children through clenched teeth while preparing for this event.
- This entire experience taught me one thing about effective facilitation. I learned that: "Its not about Me."
- I find that this idea works with life as well. The less we allow our 'bad hair days' to set the tone of our day, the more fulfilling life can be. After all, it's only hair.
