Public Speaking!
Hiya Lovelies,
Around 3 weeks ago, I found out I had to write and present a speech as part of my English Language GCSE. Due to my social anxiety, I knew I would never be able to get through it. I spoke to a few teachers at my school and managed to get the ability to perform my speech at a lunch time with a few of my close friends. I am very thankful that the teachers I spoke to understood my situation and followed the grounds yet still made it slightly easier for me.
I'd like to mention now, it was not easy.
I practised a lot every single day and hardly slept the night before, yet I still managed to do it!
Here are a few things which seemed to work for me:-
Taking sips of water before speaking.
Deep breaths. ~ Breathing in for 4 seconds, holding for 4 seconds and exhaling for 4 seconds.
Making myself comfortable! ~ I took off my blazer, organised all of my notes and prepared as much as I could.
One thing I repeated to myself was: "You will be okay. Feelings cannot kill you. This is only 10 minutes of your life" Which reassured me a lot.
I also had cue cards to help me remember what I was going to say however, I didn't use them! At first, I was reading off of them, then realised that they were distracting me too much, making me even more worried. So I literally put them down and continued without them. It helped so much. I just looked straight ahead and said what came to mind. It was so much easier.
I also put things into perpective. ~ I thought to myself...
"Life isn't about succeeding, it's about progress. Don't compare yourself to others because they are on a different path to you. Simply standing up and saying the words is your goal, whereas others may strive for something else as they have already got enough confidence to do public speaking. Just try your best. Who cares if people say it wasn't good? As long as you try your best, people can't bring you down about it."
I hope this thread helped you out in some way! Wishing you a lovely day!
Blossom xx
Anxiety Taggies:- @AliceAllAlone @LucyLucyLucy @friendlyLake5949 @Keanan @RaCat @SandyCream @HarleyDavidsonMotorcycles @gentleLight37 @TheBreadBoy @windflowers @Wildatheart88 @TaylorTheLemonSlayer @sporkchop @jr50
@blossombreathe. AWW thank you for the great advice!
@jr50
No worries! I hope you find some of the tips useful sometime. *huggles* 
Here is the link to add/remove yourself from the tag list! 
https://tinyurl.com/hguu7w3
@blossombreathe yeah you told me about this :p *huggles* <3 it all worked out in the end though :D it's amazing that you were able to get a laod of things t help you feel better ^-^ it just goes to show reaching out for help can really help :o hopefully you can learn to continue growing stronger and cope with the anxiety really well ^-^ <3
@Keanan
*huggle* Hopefully me and many others will be able to learn how to manage anxiety and stop it from affecting us. Staying strong is very important.
@blossombreathe definitely :p and we could shamelessly plug our gif post and stuff like that hehe :p *huggles* <3
@blossombreathe
thank you for sharing! this is an awesome post -- it's really uplifting and hopeful and inspirational too, so thank you :) i'm glad you were able to (somewhat) overcome your fear, and that there were some things that were able to help you! congratulations -- it must've been tough, but you got through it :p
@windflowers
*huggle*
Aw thank you! ^-^
@blossombreathe Thank you for sharing your story and most of all your tips. I think it's very important for people, especially young people, to be able to speak in front of others. I use methods like this myself and I find it incredibly helpful, thank you again ❤️️ ~ Abby💖