Public speaking has never been my thing. Like NEVER. It’s a good thing speech is a required class in High School because I’m fairly certain no one would take it if it wasn’t.
The shaking voice, sweaty palms, the nerves, the way the seconds seem to pass like hours and you’re 3-5 minute speech feels like it’s NEVER going to end. I passed, but never became fond of public speaking.
When a fellow Fierce Forward Ambassador asked me to do a guided meditation for the meet up she was hosting, I was surprised when my fingers typed “YES!” so quickly. It wasn’t until an hour had passed that I questioned my response.
* * *
Last weekend I had the privilege of being a part of the Fierce Forward Minneapolis Meet up. I have been a Fierce Forward Ambassador for a couple years now and I can not say enough good things about this movement. You can visit Fierce Forward by clicking here: Fierce Forward ROCKS!
The meet up was hosted by another Ambassador, Mel Stevens. She is an incredible powerhouse. A retired fitness competitor, single mother of two, business owner, Solid Core trainer and works in the healthcare field. Mel put together and incredible day. A group of us volunteered in the morning at Second Harvest Heartland, then we went to Sunu Fitness center where we sat in a rather large circle (there were over 30 of us) playing some ‘get-to-know-you-games’, then I lead my first ever guided meditation, Mel led us through some empowering exercises and we ended the night at the hotel having drinks and Pizza Luce.
The Second Harvest Hartland experience was AMAZING! I’ve done a lot of volunteer work before, but I liked the Second Harvest Hartland opportunity because you affect people locally. Most of the volunteering I’ve done has been for other countries, it was interesting to help people that could be in your neighborhood.
We ended up bagging potatoes with some U of MN College guys, some teenage hockey kids from Maple Grove and then our FF clan. More than once in our two hour stint people, especially the teenagers, commented on how fast and well we worked together. The kids were especially amazed at how many bags of potatoes we bagged. All three groups, working together packaged up 7932 pounds of food for locals!
* * *
I’ve been sick for right about 2 weeks now. It literally came out of no where and has been the weirdest cold I’ve ever been struck with. When a coughing fit woke me up the morning of the meet up I knew I needed a backup plan. I decided to take advantage of our in-home recording studio and record the guided meditation I had written. Meditation is hard enough, but probably impossible if someone is coughing their lungs up! After about 10 cups of hot tea with honey and lemon, a candle lit and a super long recording session my husband worked his magic adding the background music and removing my coughing fits.
We were in a time crunch and my carpool partner had shown up before the editing was completed. I was going to have to play it in front of all the ladies without hearing it! All of a sudden the panic and nerves I thought were being avoided were coming on strong.
I tried to send it to a fellow meditator to review it but lack of wi-fi and technology skills prevented that.
In the end I just had to trust my husband…I had to trust his recording skills, his editing skills and his ability to piece the sections together.
When the time came I ended up doing some minor public speaking. I went over a few things and put the recording in motion. There was a flub in the recording but I may have been the only one that noticed and all in all it was received well.
If I learned anything during this whole ordeal it is the truth in this statement:
Well that AND that I have trust issues…BUT we’ll save that work in progress for another day. 🙂
And, if I ever get this technology thing figured out, I’ll put my meditation on here. Or YouTube. Or wherever I can get it to work…
Much love,
Jes xoxo