PAS and Public Speaking: A Practical Guide to Overcoming the Fear of Public Speaking

Does the thought of public speaking make your head spin? If you’re a Highly Sensitive Person (HSP), you’re far from alone—but that doesn’t mean it always has to be that way.

I'll start with my lived story, who knows if you'll want to share yours? 2:00 pm, meeting on a random Tuesday of a spring day, a time already a bit infamous because digestion doesn't help, we're talking about the editorial project xy, I get an intuition.

PAS (Highly Sensitive Person) - Who I am

Highly Sensitive People often face unique challenges in public speaking. If you want to learn more about the characteristics of Highly Sensitive People, you can read this article . Here, you just need to know that they are not uncommon, making up an estimated 20-30% of the population.

Spoiler: The fear of public speaking is very surmountable

If you are a PAS, you know what I mean. It happens and not so rarely to have an intuition and you can't explain why it is right but you know it is right. Thanks to the studies done since the 90s onwards on high sensitivity it is also easy to find an explanation for this phenomenon. PAS have the characteristic of simultaneously processing at a neuronal level an exaggeratedly high quantity of input signals. This, in addition to causing overstimulation, can sometimes generate an intuition: at a deep level the brain has put all the dots together, it returns an output but at a conscious level the explanation is still missing. This is why the how from the input you get to a certain output could arrive clearly at a time after the output itself. Incredible and fascinating, but that's it.

My Personal Experience with Public Speaking

Anecdote from the work meeting

To return to our office and meeting story, at the time I did not know the studies on the subject nor did I have any idea of ​​what it meant to have the trait of High Sensitivity and obviously I did not know I had it. Coming to be aware of it was an Epiphany of those important ones, that leave their mark, and in a positive way.

In short, what could happen to me in a situation like that, having had the intuition and having within me the great impulse to want to talk about it, was at the very least a dizziness, a blush on the face, an inadvertent movement of the eye or, if I finally dared to open my mouth, even an involuntary movement of the face.

“I want to talk but if I do I have to say everything as quickly as possible because I hate being the center of attention, I'll be out of breath and bye, I'll drop the argument, which I'm not even sure I have, even though I know it's the right answer to the problem.”

What are the symptoms of PAS fear of public speaking? Here they are, along with the internal “saboteur”

The rapid breathing, the blush due to a kind of fire inside that was rising from the stomach, the shortness of breath and the desire to finish speaking as soon as possible. And the split thought: one was the thought that made me tell the topic of the moment, the other was what I call the "saboteur", which at the same time as the other more or less spoke to me in this way

“Now finish what you have to say as soon as possible because you will get out of breath and your mouth will dry up, so if you look at the people in front of you you will notice who doesn't understand, who is bored, who is too interested and will end up being disappointed and so you close as soon as possible”.

And yes, it happened. Every single time I had to speak in public. The crazy thing was that I even liked the idea of ​​speaking in public. I liked the idea of ​​a me that could convey something interesting to the person in front of me.

The importance of awareness and changing perspective

Repeatedly I found myself with headaches, migraines, and flickering eyesight. And how could I feel normal? And yet I was normal, only I didn't know it because I didn't know the implications of the Sensitive nervous system*. It must also be said that in the world of work and in the social sphere in general, no one (or almost no one) will ever tell you about experiences like this, because the fear of being treated like the strange one and being left aside is just around the corner. And yet, I always like to remember it, PAS, with more or less accentuated characteristics, are estimated to be between 20 and 30% of the population. Which makes me think about how much dissemination work is necessary to bring awareness.

Strategies to Overcome the Fear of Public Speaking for PAS

Accept and Persevere

Going back to the terrifying experience of public speaking, this was about 15 years ago, I cared more about who and how I wanted to be than where I was at that moment, and that was my drive.

I accepted and sought change when situations were too tight for me, when I didn't feel valued or appreciated enough. When I entered the tunnel of boredom with no way out. At work the path is never easy and it wasn't for me either, and not only because I'm a PAS, let's be clear. High sensitivity is in fact just a trait of an individual's personality.

Setting personal goals

I have always been rather restless, perhaps also due to another characteristic of PAS, that is, a very strong aversion to conflict, which has too often led me to not be assertive in forcefully pushing forward my needs.

Another characteristic of mine is the need not to prolong a hyper-verticalized job for too long but to continue adding new skills and creating connections between the different roles and competences.

This restlessness certainly heightened in me the feeling that something was wrong. After all, I was full of colleagues who were sufficiently serene in their roles that had been solid for years.

But I was wrong, and fortunately from time to time, even without knowing exactly where I wanted to land at the end of this troubled career path, I set myself goals, which for me were ambitious, which would demonstrate something to me once achieved. They were the goals I needed at that moment and each time I thought and hoped they were the definitive ones.

And instead the journey inevitably continues.

Why? Because we chase happiness and well-being, whatever that means for each of us, and this can change multiple times during our existence.

Now, for example, I have identified another big goal of mine for the next few years, and as always I hope it will be the final one.

Stepping out of your comfort zone

All this journey and personal evolution passes through perseverance and coherence in pursuing a goal. Planning, accepting to go beyond your comfort zone, because only in this way do you improve yourself, evolve as a person, and last but not least, further expand your usual comfort zone.

The Epiphany: Finding Your Own Dimension

Finding a supportive work environment

We all experience them from time to time in our lives, right?

I had mine in the workplace. In one of my job and role changes I found my dimension. I swear, it was a sort of “Paradise”, and I knew it was temporary but I enjoyed it as much as possible, taking all the fruits I could, which came because I was well, I was serene, I did what I liked.

Here are the key elements for me:

Expression without judgement:

This depends on the people around you, your direct manager and those above him, the entire ecosystem in short. As a good PAS I have this vice/virtue of reading people and I know how to do it very well, picking up on weak communication signals, glances, a different intonation, non-verbal language in all its forms, and I had rarely felt at ease in the previous 8 years. The reason is partly to be found in a certain corporate culture, which I do not want to investigate here.

Respecting your own times:

In those years I can say I worked well, made the right choices that brought excellent results for the business. The results arrived at the right time because I was able to work on them at the right time. Analysis and action at the right time. Today the culture of execution at all costs often eats up any type of analysis, strategy and common sense, which personally causes me a constant sense of frustration.

Balance between analysis and action:

here I mean balance between discovery, analysis, execution, routine activities. That right mix that keeps you in your Flow zone, that is, optimal experience, as well explained in the book of the same name. The state of Flow makes you perform at your best. And what is the key to staying in the Flow state? The growth of the self, in carrying out activities that give a sense of discovery. Too much stress, understood as excessive difficulty, brings us to an anxiety zone, while too much ease brings us to a boredom zone. The Flow zone is dynamic, it changes as our abilities increase (and therefore evolve)**. Our goal, especially as HSPs, should be to stay there as long as possible and return as quickly as possible if we leave it. Being sensitive to stimuli we enter the anxiety zone more easily, in the same way the need for deep information processing can easily bring us to the boredom zone if not adequately stimulated. Yes, we are a mess, we have a smaller Flow zone than less sensitive people.

Exploring your abilities:

This period of “grace” and pure Flow allowed me to become deeply aware of my skills and to know and recognize the value that I could bring. This was a fundamental and turning point: if you learn to recognize your value in relation to what you bring to the table and what others bring in a constructive comparison, finding your path and pursuing it with confidence and conviction without underestimating yourself is a natural consequence. And it is also a very powerful defense against your internal sabotaging voice and external judgments. Of course, you have to take the first fundamental step: get out! Don't stay too “inside” yourself, get out, talk, seek comparison. You will be happy.

The Path to Improvement

Overcoming Mental Challenges

• I wanted to go further and prove to myself that I was worth more than certain "characters" had wanted me to believe in the past. And be careful, PAS often naturally attract certain hostile and domineering attitudes towards themselves, which is why empowering oneself through deep self-knowledge becomes fundamental.
• I won my “mental” challenges: at work I needed to find recognition by managing to change position and company after 40 years and after 12 years in the same company. I can say that I did the triple somersault and that I measured myself on various fronts that I had on my personal checklist that in hindsight I call “pride”, and this has further elevated my sense of inner serenity and self-confidence.

Tackling public speaking in various contexts

Involuntarily in my job changes I had to "face it" a lot, especially in the form of video meetings with audiences of between 10 and 50 people and then also live with workshops or on a stage. Occasionally the "saboteur" came back to life and no, I didn't experience it well, but it was a necessary step, and in any case I can say all in all a short one, to improve definitively, among other things in a short time. "Fly or die" mode, therefore forced, but it worked.

I can say that I still really like the idea of ​​talking about something meaningful and interesting and that although I wasn't exactly born to do it, I've made great strides.

Preparation and serenity

Especially now, with the necessary preparation, I don't look for it but I do it very calmly, and for me calmly means arriving prepared and being able to speak without that double internal dialogue, without holding my breath and without rushing to finish as soon as possible.

Advice for Those Who Want to Improve

• Believe in yourself (ok, put this at the last point, it will be a consequence of your actions)
• Importance of perseverance: push yourself, force yourself, come out of your shell
• Planning: There is no such thing as an improvised plan. It requires backend work.
• Learn from mistakes without fear: everyone makes them, no one will focus on yours

You can, you have to want it

What I take home is that if it is true that in part we are as we are with our innate characteristics and we are not all made to do everything, the brain is a universe to explore and its neuroplasticity offers us infinite solutions, if we want to grasp them.

We must always be convinced that we can reach a goal that is close to our hearts and that we absolutely want to achieve.

Perseverance pays off in the long run.

If we add a plan and consistency to perseverance, we will achieve the best.

Once it goes badly it is just an experience that brings us closer to our goal and that for the next time will provide us with a little more anesthetic for the heavy judgment that we direct towards ourselves, freeing us little by little. A repeated action that becomes a sort of habit and then a habit changes us and transforms us.

For me, the distance between being terrified of public speaking and doing it with ease was 18 years. In between was not knowing exactly who I was, what I wanted, and understanding why I was so terrified of it.

18 years is a long time, you can certainly do much better!

But what do I bring home?

• That improving oneself is a beautiful journey, partly painful, but worth doing, considering that apparently we have one life.
• And that the next change won't take me 18 years because my level of awareness has grown tremendously, I have many more ammunition to face what I want to face as the next challenge.

I told a very short anecdote that I chose among dozens of similar ones because I was more interested in shedding light on the physical effects and the subsequent transformation. And the physical effects, could change the situation in which I had to expose myself in public, those were.

I'd be curious to hear about the experience of someone else who, perhaps after reading this article, now finally feels entitled to say to themselves "ah, so I'm normal" without waiting until they're 40 or so!

Sources:

*"The Hidden Power of the Hypersensitive" by Christel Petitcollin

** “Flow. Psychology of Optimal Experience” By Mihály Csíkszentmihályi