Everyone has some level of social anxiety, and most of us want to speak from a place within ourselves that is connected to our values. We want to take a stand for ourselves or for what we believe, and we want to articulate it in a way where others can feel us connecting with them. We want to extend with both power and with warmth.
So on a practical level, how can we practice doing this?
Being grounded
After a somatic bodywork session, I often ask my clients to stand and feel their feet on the ground. Being grounded - while it can sound like a buzz word - is the very practical practice of taking your attention down to your feet and the sensations that connect you with the ground. This could be feeling pressure at the soles of your feet, tingling in your legs, or even the feeling of relaxing your toes down. Feeling your muscles more rested on the skeleton is a common experience after bodywork. When we feel our sensory experience with the ground, it by definition brings us into the present and out of the chatter in our heads. This will translate to the quality of how you speak and others will be able to feel you as more settled and present.
Being centered
Many of us have conditioned ourselves to speak from up high in our bodies. This could be a learned habit connected to an old need to be deferential, in which we learned to subtly contract around the throat to make our voices higher pitched. We may have a history in which it was essential that we didn’t sound too authoritative and so we learned to sound appeasing.
Regardless of the reasons, we want to start a practice of speaking from our center. Center is that place a couple of inches below your belly button, between the front body and back body. It is not just a concept - it is the literal center of gravity when you are standing. As a practice, I will have clients experiment with speaking first from up high in the throat, then from down slightly lower around the chest, and last from down low at the center. People can feel the difference, and there is usually an intuitive draw to want to speak from the center. When we speak from up higher it is felt as a contraction in the body, and all of this will affect how our tone and affect register with our audience.
Mood, intention and extension
Research shows that, more than the content of what you are saying, people respond to the perceived mood and intention behind what you are saying. It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it.
What’s the mood you want to express in your speaking? What type of invitation do you want to be to others? Are you speaking in a way that is too flat without enough inflection to sound warm? Somatic coaching is a powerful way to get feedback around how the tone of your speaking is impacting others.
Remember too that we want to practice extending out with our words; not by pushing them out forcefully necessarily, but by imaging that we are energetically and with our attention connecting with the entire room. We don’t want to be pulled back and contracted in our extension such that others can’t feel us connecting with them. For many of my clients, both the practice of experimenting with the actual sound of their voice and how they stand and look while speaking, as well as using imagery to help them feel how they extend out can have a big impact on the quality of their speaking.
The anxiety or fear around the public speaking may be there, and sometimes we need a new story about the fear or we need to remind ourselves that the energy we feel can support us and that it is excitement rather than fear. If we can feel what’s happening in our body on a sensation level and practice feeling the ground, connecting with our center, and extending with the mood we want others to feel, we are setting ourselves up to manage our anxiety as best as possible. Both somatic coaching and somatic bodywork can help us feel how to do this on a deeper level. Reach out to schedule a free consultation!