I Spent Money to Share a Personal Story to an Audience of 80 Strangers
I spent the last Friday and Saturday attending a storytelling workshop. At the end of the two-day workshop, we were invited to perform our crafted story on stage in a room full of 80 or so audience members.
For those of you who are terrified of public speaking, you might be wondering, why the HELL I would intentionally put myself in this situation, let alone pay good money for this experience.
Well, that’s the question our facilitator, Dyane Neiman, founder of The Bear, posed to me and 11 other brave souls on the first day. My answer? To push me out of my comfort zone, build resilience, and give my craft of writing a new outlet…because nobody reads anymore, LOL (thanks for reading this BTW.)
The First Day
The first day was spent breaking the ice, getting to know each other, and getting the creative juices flowing. We then split up into groups and brainstormed on the storytelling event’s topic - Best, Worst, First, and Last.
And then Dyane shared a helpful trick to help us relax when we were on stage.
Breathe -DUH, but not always easy to remember when your heart is pounding and the stage lights are beaming down on you.
Expand - you are supposed to envision air being puffed into your left side, right side, back side, front side, top of the head, and bottom of the feet. The reason is that when we are nervous we tend to contract our bodies. This expansion exercise is supposed to trick the mind and infuse us with confidence instead.
Connect - in this step, we were encouraged to think about someone who loves us unconditionally and feel them in our hearts. I am guessing this also has a calming effect on our brains.
The Second Day
On the second day, our first task was to break off with a partner and tell them our stories. The second task was to break off into small groups and deliver your story once again and then listen to feedback from your group.
As a writer, this was EXTREMELY challenging. I typically need uninterrupted solo time to craft and recraft my message - time we simply didn’t have. But the atmosphere was warm and inviting and the facilitator, Dyane, was encouraging, so I told myself to just trust the process. And sure enough, as unready as I felt to perform my story to the small group, by the end of it I had some great feedback on how to make my story better. I have to admit though, I am usually not that great at hearing feedback. Especially when it has to do with writing. But storytelling, I was learning, was an entirely different animal. You had to convey what you meant in less time and words…and keep the audience engaged. Which made it invaluable to hear feedback from future audience members. They let me know where there were holes in my story and gave me tips on how to spice it up. Because I lived my story, it’s easy to forget certain things that maybe aren’t clear to an outsider.
The third step was to perform our stories to the entire group on the stage we’d be performing on the following night. By this time, I was exhausted, my head was pounding, and I wasn’t feeling well prepared. I felt like I needed an hour or so just to make sure all the words were in the right place, but again, there wasn’t time. I reminded myself why I was doing this, and tried to, again, just trust the process. This time the audience was only supposed to give positive feedback. It’s amazing how so many of our stories had transformed in just a few hours. The process really works!!
We only had a couple of hours in between to go home and change before the event began. It was going to take me 40 minutes to get home but I didn’t care - I needed to take a quick nap and freshen up. The long walk from the tram gave me time to get some fresh air and reset my mind. I told myself that I would lie down and if I didn’t feel like going back, it was OK, I had already accomplished a lot.
But after a quick nap and a few run-throughs, I felt more clearheaded. I had made it this far already, it was time for me to cross the finish line.
I treated myself to a taxi ride back which gave me an extra 20 minutes to eat something and practice my story a few times in the mirror.
It’s Showtime, Baby!
There were only enough spots for 8 people to perform. And because it was an open mic night, anyone could throw in their name. That meant there were way more performers than spots. I thought, well if I don’t get chosen it won’t be the end of the world. Now, it’s out of my hands.
Well, guess who was chosen first? Me, yep. I couldn’t believe it. I probably mumbled something as such, “Oh, my god.”
When I arrived on the stage, the host mic’ed me up and I closed my eyes briefly took a deep breath, expanded my body, and connected to my heart center like Dyane had instructed us. And then I began…..
I was off to a good start, I was smiling and felt confident. Luckily when the bright lights are glaring at you, you can’t actually see anyone’s face so it was easy to disassociate. But then, my worst nightmare, I blanked. I tried to ad lib but the more I ad-libbed, the more off-track I became. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe, expand, and connect again but all I could pay attention to was the shaking of my knees. I covered my eyes, and told the audience “I’m sorry, I lost my place.” That’s when I heard a faint voice from the back yell, “the park!”
A girl from my workshop, whom I had been working with earlier that day shouted out the clue which helped jog my memory and get me back on track. I was able to finish my story without further interruptions and even heard the audience laugh for a time or two.
Oh, how grateful I am for her helping me. I probably would have walked off that stage with my tail between my legs if she hadn’t spoken up.
To sum it up, I am SO proud of myself for getting up there and sharing a personal story with a room full of strangers. I felt like I challenged myself and grew so much as a writer, performer, and creator in just 48 hours. I also loved connecting with my fellow workshop attendees and seeing how their stories transformed in such a short time. I felt proud of them too when their names got called, knowing how nervous and unsure everyone had felt just a few hours before.
If this sort of thing has been on your mind, I would DEFINITELY recommend you pull the bungee cord and jump. Your future confident self is banking on it.