Have you ever performed on stage or given a speech?

It was the year 2015, I was a Senior and had to prepare a speech for our English Class.

Several months before, I found myself in one ☝️ of our classes and my classmates and I all got the news that our intensely laborious 20- ish page Essay that we had been working on needed to get condensed. 😳

We were invited to first “take the juice from the fruit” (take the most important parts/concepts/ideas) from our work, then craft a 5-7 minute Powerpoint Presentation and present it in our University’s Auditorium in front of several of our faculty!

When I heard our professor tell us this, it made me instantly think 💭 about Gilligan’s reaction from Gilligan’s Island 🏝️ in the episode in which the professor told the stranded crew that the island is going under. I’ll never forget his expression: pure disbelief, shock and fear all at the same time. He replied :”Hellllllllllllllp!!!,” and started running away.🤣😂😅

That’s exactly how I felt at that time and it took a tremendous amount of self control to not react as he did once I escaped the building. 🏃‍♀️ 💨

My experience in front of people consisted of choir, plays and dance class in my younger years, then drama in High School and even Speech Class in our University. However, these types of presentations were all with my classmates who I knew very well. And growing up, I was a very shy girl.

These types of events were created for parents to have a chance to be a supportive part in their children’s school lives and helped their children push themselves to work together in a team and be challenged. This was very different. We had to present in front of many of our faculty members!

As I was telling my Mom about all of this, she just simply shrugged 🤷‍♀️ it off and said: “Just pretend they’re all a bunch of potatoes!, and you’ll be just fine.” And I did just that (except I had to contain myself not to laugh 😆🤣)

So, I presented my speech and it went very well, and I’m very happy that I did it because now I truly enjoy presenting in front of people!!!

Mom also said: “All you can do is do the best you can and just leave the rest to God.” And these two things she said gave me cheer, support and backup all at the same time!!!

Evana.

Keep shining Brightly

Be brave and –

VIBE WELL

P. S.: btw., it’s never as bad as you think it and always keep in mind “this too shall pass.”