Cass asks:
My question is more of a concern. I already have full time work in the theatre so celebrancy for me was more of a service I wanted to provide for friends and family. I think celebrating love is one of the most beautiful and important things we can do as a society and for me it has always been about the intimacy of the couple. I used to be quite a confident public speaker when I was in high school but now I’m almost 30 I feel absolute terror at the thought of performing such an important task in front of potentially hundreds of people. I know the day is obviously about the couple and not me but I don’t want my nerves to interfere with their special moment. Do you have advice (apart from practice) to combat serious stage fright?
I suspect Josh would write something a response to this question that would be far more poetic than the response I’m about to give, and would refer to something about forgetting about the guests, this isn’t a performance, you’re just having a conversation with two people about creating their marriage. But I’m not poetic and I can’t forget the guests, and I totally understand the fear of public speaking because I used to have it as well.
A little history from me. When I was at high school I was one of the drama kids. I was also a dancer and a music student. In short, I was a performer, and I was on the stage in one way or another every chance I got. I never suffered from stage fright; nerves were always with me, but I strongly believe nerves are good for you. I was pretty much completely confident to get up there and do whatever needed doing in whatever medium I was working at the time. Looking back, I can now see that the main thing was that I was always comfortable with the work; I always knew my lines, I always knew the choreography, I always knew the music. I’d practised and I was confident and comfortable that I would “get it right”.
Then I got older. And way more self-conscious about the way other people perceived me, whether I was going to embarrass myself, and whether I would “get it right”. After uni I spent years working in administrative, behind the scenes roles; I ran a lot of events, and was always happy running around in my blacks, but as soon as someone suggested that maybe I might want to present at one of the conferences or workshops I was running, I froze. Again looking back, I’ve now realised it was because I was never completely confident with the content I was working around; I worked mostly in medical research and often felt out of my depth when it came to understanding the content and answering questions about it. (I also had a boss who took great pleasure in destroying my self-confidence, but that’s a story for another day.)
And then I decided I was going to be a celebrant. For someone not particularly comfortable standing in front of people and presenting, nuts, right? But here was the difference: I knew that I would be telling stories I had written myself, that I would be talking about relationships I had grown to know as if they were my own, and that if all else failed, I would have a script to rely upon.
So now here I am, five and a half years in to being a celebrant, and I’m not only confident presenting in front of groups of people with a script in hand (at weddings and at funerals) but I’m also comfortable talking to groups of people for an entire day with no script when I’m training. I firmly believe this confidence and comfort comes from talking about a topic I am completely comfortable with, one that I know inside out and back to front: celebrancy and how it’s done. I’m saying my words, I’m presenting my ideas, and I’m teaching content about which I know all of the things. For me, losing the stage fright has been all about being comfortable with the content. I still get nervous about a particularly difficult funeral or when I’m teaching a new topic for the first time, but I’m no longer paralysed with fear the way I used to be.
So now to the practical suggestions I came up with for Cass. The only suggestions I have for combatting stage fright are:
- practise, practise, practise, in the backyard, in the kitchen, in the bathroom, in the car, and not just ceremonies but at something like Toastmasters, which is a community organisation for public speaking education. Go along to a few of their sessions, where it doesn’t matter if you stuff up, and see if that helps (this one is all about being comfortable with your content)
- meditation and mindfulness; see if you can find someone to teach you some relaxation techniques for using at ceremonies before you’re about to speak
- if all else fails, low dose beta blockers; your GP can prescribe them. Many professional musicians and speakers use them before performing, and my friends who have used them rave about them!
I hope this is helpful for some of you. Feel free to share your tips and tricks for stage fright in the comments!
This may sound really simple, but remember to just be yourself, that’s why they hired you, they like you!