Using EFT to Get Over Pre-Presentation Jitters

Quite often before giving a speech or being on stage, I would get a case of the "jitters"-- but the amazing thing was that by the time I was up, engaging my peers, meeting their eyes, enjoying the opportunity to share, I would be relaxed and confident. I learned that it was really unnecessary to have those butterflies-- that it used up a lot of energy that I could employ in fine-tuning my presentation. EFT, or Emotional Freedom Technique, was a powerful tool that I used to overcome my pre-speech jitters. The following video shows how EFT can be applied to many emotional stresses besides the fear of public speaking:

Toastmasters in Kiev: Romantic Valentine's Table Topics

For anyone in Toastmasters, you know that Table Topics can sometimes be difficult to both lead out in, and to participate in. (For those who aren't in Toastmasters, there is a portion of a regular meeting wherein everyone at the table is given the choice of speaking on an assigned topic for 2 minutes and receiving feedback-- sometimes in larger clubs there is not much opportunity for feedback each meeting). The club in the following video, in Kiev, Ukraine, appear to get up and come to the dais area at the front of the room to present their table topic. It's fun to watch.

Toastmasters Club in an Antique Store

Boaz and Ruth

At the very back of an antique and used-furniture store in Richmond, Va., a Toastmasters meeting begins. Here, people get practice at becoming better public speakers.

Most of the twenty-five men and women in the store, seated around a heavy wooden table, have recently come out of prisons.

Off to the side, Martha Rollins sits and listens. She started this place, and now calls it her Robin Hood idea. She already had one antique store, then added this one with the purpose of selling to the rich and giving jobs to the poor.

Not many rich people show up at this store in the inner city. So to keep the place going, Rollins gets grants to hire ex-offenders and help them develop skills, such as speaking in public.

Rollins named this place Boaz and Ruth, after the Bible story of the wealthy landowner who married the homeless and hungry foreigner. Rollins remembers that both of the characters in the story ended up giving to one another.

"Release of gifts. That's what we're really about," Rollins says."It's looking at all the gifts, all the human gifts locked up in prison, waiting to be released. We're about releasing those gifts back to society."


Ruth Cosby, 48, is in the Toastmasters group. She is impeccably dressed in a blue print dress and pearl necklace. Her hair is tied back in a tight bun. She is one of the few at the table who has never been to prison. But she spent years in psychiatric institutions. She's the mother of a 7-year-old daughter. When she came to Boaz and Ruth nearly three years ago, she didn't think she had any talents.

But Martha Rollins helped her discover them.

Rollins put Cosby in charge of the Boaz and Ruth satellite store in downtown Richmond, and both soon saw Collins' talents as a saleswoman.

"Boaz and Ruth gave me a second chance. I would have been dead. I was suicidal, and just didn't want to live," Cosby says. "When I came to Boaz and Ruth, they got me a psychiatrist. They got me into group therapy. And that's why I'm standing here today, because they invested in my life."

Cosby had held more than twenty jobs, and never for a long time. If a boss or a co-worker made a remark she didn't like, or if she had a bad day at work, she'd just walk away and never return. When she tried to walk away from Boaz and Ruth, Martha Rollins showed up at her home.


"What she wanted me to know is, we can bend in life but we don't have to break," Cosby says. "And she taught me a valuable lesson: You don't have to run away all the time. There is help."

Rollins is 63. She doesn't have to be working 80 hours a week, but she started thinking about her life and what she wanted to accomplish.

"Time is drawing shorter. And I have all these things I haven't done and I see all these needs and things that I have some kind of gift or talent I can give to it," Rollins says. "So I just work real fast and I work real hard."
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This article was reprinted from the National Public Radio site.  You can read the original, listen to the audios and see the photos at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5751248
**Public domain image Julius Schnorr von Carolsfeld: Ruth in Boaz's Field, 1828

ToastMasters Might Have Helped?

I am somewhat sorry for using the young woman in the video as an example of 'public speaking' gone awry, but... well, she is easy to look at.  I do hope she has picked up and gone on to take some public speaking training of some sort-- I hope that watching this video over and over on Youtube has not become an obsession...

Demonstration of how EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) Helps To Overcome Performance Anxiety

I have a friend from my Church who thought it would be really helpful for new folks in the Church-- converts, if you will-- if they could see someone going through the process of praying, not just launching into a smooth and seamless prayer, as it often seems to the novice, but of talking about what they do to get there and then demonstrating their usual prayer routine. Similarly, it is interesting to see someone practice Emotional Freedom Technique who gives every appearance of being highly nervous in need of calming. You will find this in the following video:

Using EFT to Breathe Better and Eliminate Fear of Public Speaking

I read somewhere that when people were more physically active-- walking more, choosing more active lifestyles-- generally their breathing was better, and that since the advent of the Internet, many of us only use a small portion of our breathing apparatus... as a result, we "lose" capacity to breathe fully. Have you noticed that?

Take a look at this video that looks at breathing using Emotional Freedom Technique, a way of unblocking areas where energy is stuck. Full breathing is so wonderful in expelling stress.

Vocal Warm-ups that Actors Use-- Great for Public Speaking

When I was in school and college I did a fair amount of acting and am so very happy that I have a recollection of some of the vocal warm-ups when I need to do a bit of the old public speaking. Vocal warm-ups are so helpful in releasing tensions from your throat and face. If you have a tight throat or even a tense tongue(!) it can result in a very unattractive tone of voice-- something akin to strangulation. Watch this little clip to get a good idea of some things that can be done to warm up your vocal apparatus!