Overcoming Performance Anxiety

Everybody suffers from anxiety at some point or anther. Anxiety is just a normal part of everyday life. It can actually be a useful emotion in helping us to cope with stressful situations. Other times, anxiety can be out of control and interfere with our ability to function normally in stressful situations even if the stress is just manufactured in our minds.

There will always be reasons to feel anxious. All ages experience anxiety. Children feel it in school before a test; even young babies feel it when separated from their mothers. Adults have plenty of opportunities to feel anxious whether it is from a job, finances, romance, or due to being self conscious.

Sometimes anxiety comes about because people have to do something they fear doing. One of the most common anxiety producing experiences is when it comes to public speaking. Many people fear being in front of the public, either as a speaker or just as someone being singled out or noticed in a crowd.

Do you have a fear of speaking in public or performing on a stage? If so, you could be suffering from a type of performance anxiety. Do you have any of the following apply to you? If so, you may have performance anxiety.

-Worry about looking foolish in front of other people and being laughed at?

-Worry that people can see how nervous you are?

-Suffer from stage fright if you have to speak in front of others or perform onstage.

-Experience anxiety in advance of the event simply from anticipating your fears.

-Feel immediate and intense fear upon learning you need to perform in public.

-Attempt to get out of public performances or not show up if you can’t get out of it.

-Missed out on opportunities because of your fear of being in the public spotlight.

Performance anxiety is actually all in the mind of the sufferer. After all, not everyone fears going on stage, there is no danger in doing so. The fear comes from imagined dangers such as feeling like you are not smart enough or good enough to avoid ridicule. So the way to overcome your performance anxiety is to change your way of thinking.

There are four steps involved in overcoming performance anxiety. Let’s take a look at them below.

Step one: Self Assessment

-Get to know yourself, both as a person and as a performer.

-Identify the problem thoughts that are holding you back and creating anxiety.

Step two: Exposure and Preparation

-Find opportunities for limited performance exposure but not to the point your anxiety kicks in.

-Practice your speech or performance. Tape it and watch yourself. Practice until you have it down pat. Always be totally prepared before giving your performance so you feel confident.

-Learn relaxation techniques and practice them right before your performance.

Step three: The Performance

-Visualize the audience as friends and family that wish you well.

-Don’t think of yourself. Think of the audience.

-Stay calm and enjoy yourself.

Step four: After the Performance

-Don’t criticize yourself no matter what happens.

-Congratulate yourself for doing your best.

-Reward yourself for making progress

Train yourself to change your thoughts and instead of worrying about what people will think, just go ahead and imagine they are thinking good things about you. Imagine yourself as self confident and thoroughly capable of completing the performance. As you change your thinking, you will see your performance anxiety start to slip away.

Numerology's Nurture number; what you can grow and prosper

Want to know how you start things, which of your projects will grow and prosper? Numerology can tell you what kinds of task you nurture well, what projects you are good at tending. We just need to find out your Nurture number.

===> Calculating your Nurture Number

Your Nurture number comes from a specific branch of Numerology called Yantra or Magic Square numerology. It consist of constructing a Magic square using your birth date numbers, and then interpreting the values in the specific boxes in the square.

Your Nurture number is found by taking your birth month, and then subtracting (3), note that negative values are possible.

For example, actor Johnny Depp was born on June 9th, 1963; so his Nurture number would be calculated as follows:

Nurture number = (Birth month - 3) = (6 - 3) = (3)

The Nurture number values and their meanings are listed below.

===> Nurture Number (-2)

You use your strong intuition to hinder and sidetrack others in their plans. You are selfish when it comes to helping others succeed. For you, it's every man for himself.

===> Nurture Number (-1)

You hate starting things and watching them grow. You would rather buy an existing business and try to improve it than start from scratch. You are good at improving projects already started; but terrible at getting them underway.

===> Nurture Number (0)

You don't really care about starting things and watching them grow one way or the other. You don't mind starting projects, but you don't take any special joy from it.

===> Nurture Number (1)

You love starting things and watching them grow. You are more likely to start a business from scratch than to buy an existing one to develop. You are a better starter than a finisher of projects; but you really lavish your attention on projects in their early stages.

===> Nurture Number (2)

You use your strong intuition to help and support others in their plans. You are a caring sympathetic person who finds great joy in watching others succeed with your help.

===> Nurture Number (3)

You have a gift for inspiring other people with words. You are quite creative in starting your plans, and when pushed can develop your own plans and talents quite a bit.

===> Nurture Number (4)

You are willing to put in hard work for anything you really believe in. You have infinite patience for your plans, and are willing to wait years, if need be, to see your projects bear fruit.

===> Nurture Number (5)

You are a natural consultant; able to give good sound advice to people in all sorts of endeavors. Sadly, your own projects and ideas never seem to get developed. You need encouragement to start and nurture your own plans, and follow through on them.

===> Nurture Number (6)

You love supporting and nurturing friends and loved ones. You make a wonderful parent saving only a tendency to be over protective of your children. You like working on your creative hobbies and take great pleasure in charting your own progress.

===> Nurture Number (7)

You love a mental challenge. You're fascinated by seeing how different things work; learning their hidden secrets. When something interest you, you're able to work on it in stages; starting small, and then developing it into a major project.

===> Nurture Number (8)

You are a natural when it comes to nurturing a small business and growing it into a financial success. You love taking on tasks or endeavors that you judge will be money-makers, and nurturing them through the rough spots. You stick with them as long as that money-making potential remains.

===> Nurture Number (9)

You love nurturing and supporting any group of people with a noble cause or goal. Weather a club, support group, or a philanthropic organization, you're able to help raise the spirits and self-esteem of everyone around you.

Keith Abbott is the developer and owner of 'Numerology 4 You' where you can order your own Numerology reading including your personal Lucky Numbers. Visit him on the web today at http://www.numerology4you.com/

Journey Of Self Discovery

The journey of self discovery begins with the immediacy of your freedom from what you are not and with the being of who you already are.

It does not begin from within the illusion of your imagination, from the place of you believing yourself to be who you think you are. It does not begin from the place of seeking or thinking, or what you customarily know as "spirituality." Your persistence in who you think you are has you not realising who you are.

This journey of self discovery begins with you consciously aligning your attention to that, to who you already are - essence - which is already flowing through your mindbody, flowing through your very eyes right now.

Self is not something that you can look at. You cannot perceive it like all other perceivables. You cannot look directly down its throat. This self is not something that stands apart from who you are. It is who you are.

You can only be the self that you are.

And when you do begin this journey of discovering your self, discovering just what your heart is, you begin acquiring the taste of - and for – home.

Self discovery is an "endless" journey of revelation of how rich the heart - who you are – is.

The alignment of your conscious attention to this "motion of seeing" that is flowing through your eyes right now and your coming to rest as this "aliveness" is your immediate freedom from what you are not and of your being this one that has always been true of you.

No amount of thinking, concepts, attempting to do it from the disposition of who you think you are, is going to be of any help to you. There is no getting around the fact that you have to surrender and let go of who you think you are.

The "central point" of self, as it is flowing through this mindbody that you drive around through, must be aligned to and come to rest as by you - and you can because it is who you are.

It is so damn simple that you "western male mind"ers will simply not grok this nor do it - even though it is not a "doing." You will not let go of who you think you are to be what has always been true of you. But even you will finally come home to the heart of your self, eventually. No one can not come home to who they already are - it is the destiny of all to be who you are. How long you may take is an entirely different story though.

Through being at rest as this one that is flowing through your very eyes right here right now, where you are immediately no longer entrapped and bound by who you think you are - this mindbody that you find yourself travelling around through, you find yourself with no where to go and no thing to do. Who you are is already here and all things are arising in this one that is who you are. There is nothing that is not already who you are. Whatever you attempt to "go for" is already in who you are.

You become established as this one that is already who you are.

Through being at rest as this one - self, the heart - and "going" no where to gain what is already arising in who you are, you begin to realize the enormity of this one that is who you are, energetically, intrinsically.

Who you are already is.

You can be who you are because you already are who you are - however, it is not who you think you are and this must be surrendered for you to come to rest as the one that is already true of you.

The surrendering is in you focusing your attention to something other than your accustomed place of residence. Coming to rest as the very "thing" that is who you are.

Being at rest as this one that is who you are, not doing anything else, simply free as the heart. Through abiding here, the mindbody that you are travelling around through begins to unravel its "bondage" of you. You find more free attention and energy to simply be this one that is who you are. As this occurs - not through you trying to do anything or manipulate anything - you realize more of what it is that is who you are.

This journey of self discovery is the most wondrous of journeys. Why? Because it is one in which you are being who you already are - at home in the heart - not you being who you think you are - lost in the illusion of who you are not.

Elysha is a profoundly clear self-realized teacher of the heart. Elysha brings understanding to who you are. http://www.elysha.org Everything is clearly given on what you need to do to free up from the bind of the mind and to stand free as the heart, your self. Elysha is available for satsang in Patea, New Zealand 7 days a week in order to bring you home to the heart that you already are, with gentleness and ease. http://www.elysha.org

"Life With Woody" 10 inspirational quotes than can improve yourself

It might take a little coffee or probably a few rounds of beer or any other booze you could get your hands on when it comes to relaxing after a hard day's work. Well, yeah I'm guilty about that one as well, unless I'm caught dead wearing a lampshade over my head after a few rounds of vodka… half-naked! Okay, bad example and I apologize to everyone reading this after getting nightmares about me in that state of drunken stupor.

Just don't ask how it happened, please.

But what's really interesting is that how do people go through the usual part of life when faced with vein-popping stress? I mean, the new age thing like Zen or yoga is one of the good things and it actually works. Is there room for the intellectual side of people who can actually smell the roses-in-a-can while on the move? It kind of had me thinking that there really must be something in this 'mind-over-matter' thing.

Humor is indeed the best medicine there is whenever you are. I mean anyone can pay good money to listen to a comedian just to make you wet your pants after laughing so hard. Despite of what's been happening, and to those who has gone though the ordeal, it's better to just laugh while facing the troubles with a clear mind than anger with a clouded vision. One of my favorite celebrities of all time may have to be Woody Allen. Now this is one guy who gives you the in-your-face bluntness that he pulls out with gusto, even without even trying. You can talk just about anything with a man, and he's bound to mock the subject and you'll end up laughing rather than being upset about it.

Woody Allen has this to say:

1. "Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons." It sounds good to me, I mean the practicality of all things does involve money but it doesn't have to take an arm and a leg to get it.

2. "I believe there is something out there watching us. Unfortunately, it's the government." 'Nuff said.

3. "There are worse things in life than death. Have you ever spent an evening with an insurance salesman?" This happens to be one of the classic ones. I mean the issue about life's little problems isn't all that bad, until 'he' shows up.

Sure, relationships can get complicated, or does have its complications that probably any author about relationships is bound to discover it soon. We follow what our heart desires, unless you're talking about the heart as in the heart that pump blood throughout your body.

4. "Love is the answer, but while you're waiting for the answer, sex raises some pretty interesting questions." And if you want more, just keep on asking!

5. "A fast word about oral contraception. I asked a girl to go to bed with me, she said 'no'." It sounds, 'practical', I think.

And when it comes to everyday life, he really knows how to make the best out of every possible scenario, and it doesn't involve a lawsuit if he strikes a nerve.

6. "Basically my wife was immature. I'd be at home in the bath and she'd come in and sink my boats." I never had a boat in my bathtub before. Just staring at it while soaking in hot water makes me seasick already.

7. "I am not afraid of death, I just don't want to be there when it happens." If it rains, it pours.

8. "I am thankful for laughter, except when milk comes out of my nose." It could get worse when you're guzzling on beer… or mouthwash, and it happened to me once!

9. "If you want to make God laugh, tell him about your plans." At least he doesn't smite us with lightning, and I'm thankful for that.

And despite of what may happen to all of us in the next ten, twenty, or even thirty years, I guess we all have to see things in a different kind of light and not just perspective. I can't seem to imagine life without any piece of wisdom that could guide us. Whether we're religious or not, it takes more courage to accept your fears and learn how to deal with them is all that matters when it comes to even just getting along.

And to sum things up, here is the last nugget of wisdom to go by… however, whenever, and wherever we may be.

10. "The talent for being happy is appreciating and liking what you have, instead of what you don't have."

Until next time, keep reaching for your fullest potential!

Spiritual Growth: the Spiritual Challenge of Modern Times

To grow spiritually in a world defined by power, money, and influence is a Herculean task. Modern conveniences such as electronic equipments, gadgets, and tools as well as entertainment through television, magazines, and the web have predisposed us to confine our attention mostly to physical needs and wants. As a result, our concepts of self-worth and self-meaning are muddled. How can we strike a balance between the material and spiritual aspects of our lives?

To grow spiritually is to look inward.

Introspection goes beyond recalling the things that happened in a day, week, or month. You need to look closely and reflect on your thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and motivations. Periodically examining your experiences, the decisions you make, the relationships you have, and the things you engage in provide useful insights on your life goals, on the good traits you must sustain and the bad traits you have to discard. Moreover, it gives you clues on how to act, react, and conduct yourself in the midst of any situation. Like any skill, introspection can be learned; all it takes is the courage and willingness to seek the truths that lie within you. Here are some pointers when you introspect: be objective, be forgiving of yourself, and focus on your areas for improvement.

To grow spiritually is to develop your potentials.

Religion and science have differing views on matters of the human spirit. Religion views people as spiritual beings temporarily living on Earth, while science views the spirit as just one dimension of an individual. Mastery of the self is a recurring theme in both Christian (Western) and Islamic (Eastern) teachings. The needs of the body are recognized but placed under the needs of the spirit. Beliefs, values, morality, rules, experiences, and good works provide the blueprint to ensure the growth of the spiritual being. In Psychology, realizing one’s full potential is to self-actualize. Maslow identified several human needs: physiological, security, belongingness, esteem, cognitive, aesthetic, self-actualization, and self-transcendence. James earlier categorized these needs into three: material, emotional, and spiritual. When you have satisfied the basic physiological and emotional needs, spiritual or existential needs come next. Achieving each need leads to the total development of the individual. Perhaps the difference between these two religions and psychology is the end of self-development: Christianity and Islam see that self-development is a means toward serving God, while psychology view that self-development is an end by itself.

To grow spiritually is to search for meaning.

Religions that believe in the existence of God such as Christianism, Judaism, and Islam suppose that the purpose of the human life is to serve the Creator of all things. Several theories in psychology propose that we ultimately give meaning to our lives. Whether we believe that life’s meaning is pre-determined or self-directed, to grow in spirit is to realize that we do not merely exist. We do not know the meaning of our lives at birth; but we gain knowledge and wisdom from our interactions with people and from our actions and reactions to the situations we are in. As we discover this meaning, there are certain beliefs and values that we reject and affirm. Our lives have purpose. This purpose puts all our physical, emotional, and intellectual potentials into use; sustains us during trying times; and gives us something to look forward to---a goal to achieve, a destination to reach. A person without purpose or meaning is like a drifting ship at sea.

To grow spiritually is to recognize interconnections.

Religions stress the concept of our relatedness to all creation, live and inanimate. Thus we call other people “brothers and sisters” even if there are no direct blood relations. Moreover, deity-centered religions such as Christianity and Islam speak of the relationship between humans and a higher being. On the other hand, science expounds on our link to other living things through the evolution theory. This relatedness is clearly seen in the concept of ecology, the interaction between living and non-living things. In psychology, connectedness is a characteristic of self-transcendence, the highest human need according to Maslow. Recognizing your connection to all things makes you more humble and respectful of people, animals, plants, and things in nature. It makes you appreciate everything around you. It moves you to go beyond your comfort zone and reach out to other people, and become stewards of all other things around you.

Growth is a process thus to grow in spirit is a day-to-day encounter. We win some, we lose some, but the important thing is that we learn, and from this knowledge, further spiritual growth is made possible.


Until next time, keep reaching for your fullest potential!