In this spoken testimonial, the speaker recounts chronic anxiety around speaking in group settings, especially when being the last to speak, which caused physical symptoms and a desire to flee. When prompted to lead a group, the speaker initially resisted, fearing the role. However, they chose to step up, found the experience uncomfortable at first, but gradually empowering. Repeatedly showing up at meetings with Phil Powis and guiding the group helped the speaker realize that the mental dread of discomfort far exceeds the actual experience. The act of showing up, even when outcomes differ from expectations, proved valuable and opened new opportunities, illustrating how confronting fear transforms personal confidence and perception of anxiety.
Chapters
whether it's, it was like events or whatever it might be, you know, there was so much anxiety that would surround going around the room and then me having to speak, you know, and it was like, my last name is W. So usually I was like the last to go. The anxiety had plenty of time to build up in my system to where I wanted to run out of the room. And it's like, I could feel it too, whenever it was my turn and just the shaking and, um, whether it came across outside of that. It was probably way worse in my head. But so, you know, being a part of that group, there was a moment when like he had asked, he's like, you should step up and be a leader for one of the groups and start a group. And so I remember like seeing that message and just being like, ugh, nope, that's not for me. I'm just going to stay quiet and back behind here. And, but no, there was a shift that was like, I was like, okay, nope, I'm going to do it. And I did it and it was amazing. And, um, yeah, it was very like uncomfortable at first, but it's like, you, the more you do it and, you know, it just, it was like very empowering, you know, to show up at these meetings with Phil Powis, you know, and just kind of help lead and, and, and guide that group. I, you know, it's through that, that practice that, um, Yeah, it's just like, it just opened up, you know, the opportunities to, you know, when you, when you face discomfort, you know, it's way more hard in, in your mind than is actually in reality. And so it, and it's like when you do it, it's, you, you feel it afterwards. Like even, even if it didn't go necessarily the way that you expected it to, it still was like, okay, I showed up. Um, yeah.
