JOY FEELINGS MAGAZINE June 2016 | Page 26

instead of resisting it, I just accepted it with compassion. I had the sense of, ‘Oh, that’s just my body feeling nervous. That’s completely ok, and I see it as part of the growth process.’ After getting grounded and centered, I made my way down to the event. There were about 400 excited people in the room. I made my way backstage to get hooked up with a microphone and waited for my turn to go out on stage. As my name was called, I walked out there with a smile… When I looked out to the crowd, I remembered what I had practiced about feeling empowered and free when I saw everyone looking back at me. I will admit, I was still incredibly nervous and started trembling when the words came out of my mouth. Joy feelings magazine Instead of focusing on how I looked or what others thought, I chose to focus on what I could GIVE to my audience. The more I spoke, the less nervous I became and the words flowed out of me clearly. When I finished and walked backstage, I was greeted with big hugs from everyone helping out behind the curtain (Most everybody had heard about the ‘incident’ the year before!). I felt so relieved and really proud of myself that I did it! I overcame the biggest fear of my entire life! I sat back down in the audience and the speaker who went up after me decided to share the story of what happened to me the year before… The audience was so impressed and everyone was clapping proudly for me! An Inspiration For Others… For the rest of the weekend, I had TONS of people coming Page 26