Fears Worth Facing || Blogmas Day 5
Yes, you read that title correctly. Let me give you the backstory.
When I was in high school, something very traumatic happened to me and my family and that caused me a lot of anxiety, depression and many sleepless nights.
The final 2 1/2 - 3 years of high school rolled by before I knew it and I was getting into university and I was so anxious that I had a panic attack on my first day when I was meant to meet my fellow colleagues.
I will probably never forget this first week in university when all of our professors told us to introduce ourselves to the class and every time, without a fail, my knees would go weak when it was my turn to speak out.
When I signed up for my course I was given a list of elective courses for extra credit and that very first semester one particular course stood out to me - Professional Communication. I signed up and when classes started and ended before I knew it. We watched and discussed various TED talks, did a variety of communicative games, talked to each other, gave each other feedback and these 15 seminars flew by too quickly. I knew by the end of that course that I still had a lot of work to do on myself so I asked my teacher what other course is available for me to take and she suggested Public speaking.
It was terrifying going into that first class because I knew that the actual course would involve a lot of speaking. That first class the teacher asked all of us to stand in front of the class, introduce ourselves and share with everyone why are we taking the course. I was shaking by the time it was my turn and I stood in front of all my peers and said something along the lines of I don't want to be scared of speaking anymore.
The course was absolutely brilliant and we ended up talking about poetry and having very open discussions eye-to-eye and we played a game that left us all shaken up emotionally and I am thankful every day that I signed up for these courses.
Thanks to these two courses, and by the end of them, I was able to stand before about 40-50 people and speak without looking at my notes and without shaking like a leaf about how much I love makeup and what joy it brings me.
Two years on, I feel more and more confident to communicate with people, I am not afraid to speak my truth, I am not afraid to do class presentations and I am not afraid of meeting new people. I even worked in retail which helped a lot with the healing process.Yes, it did take a very long while for me to be able to do that, I have been healing for 5-6 years now, but these two courses made me face my fear head on and I have never felt lighter.
Moral of the story: Some fears are actually worth facing and facing them head-on might liberate you. To this day, going to these courses was the biggest I love you present that I have given myself.
