# My embarrassing but fulfilling evening at a toastmasters club.



## Sandile84 (May 4, 2011)

One of the biggest reasons why we are suffering from Social Anxiety Disorder is because we put a lot of emphasis on what people think/say about us or what we think they think/say about us. We are very self-conscious of everything about ourselves. We put people's opinions of us above our own opinions of ourselves. The best way to cure ourselves of SAD is to accept ourselves with all our flaws. We need to fully accept ourselves with our limitations because no one is perfect.

Let me share my story of what happened last night at a toastmasters meeting, and hopefully help or inspire you guys. 

Last night I went to a toastmasters meeting. Like all meetings we all had to introduce ourselves. The theme of last night's meeting was "women in limericks", so we had to introduce ourselves and then say a 5 line poem regarding woman. I wasn't prepared before the meeting so I decided to log on to the internet with my mobile phone to find a limerick and then tell everyone. I didn't find one concerning women but I found what I thought was an interesting one, and tricky. It was my turn to introduce myself. So I stood up, and read the poem. Because of nervousness and the poem was tricky, I read out the poem but didn't make sense to me and to everyone. I basically messed up and embarrassed myself. After I sat down I decided to adopt an attitude of "everyone makes mistakes", so after a few minutes I regained my composure and dignity. I decided not to care what they thought of me, despite my very embarrassing episode.

After about half an hour or so, it was my turn to read out objections to someone's speech which I was evaluating. When I read out the objectives to everyone, I made sure that I only concentrated on what I was saying and not what they were thinking. After I spoke for a few seconds, I felt great because I regained my dignity after the embarrassing episode earlier.

After about another half an hour or so, I was chosen to do a table topics speech. A table topic is an unprepared speech which members of a toastmasters club have to perform. I was chosen and had to talk for atleast a minute about a subject in front of everyone. I didn't do too badly, but even if I did do badly, I wouldn't have let it depress me.

5 minutes later it was my turn to do a report back to everyone about my evaluation of someone's speech. I went to the front and talked for about two and a half minutes. I spoke well. I didn't stutter or make mistakes with my delivery and I didn't let the embarrassing episode earlier distract me or put me down. I didn't let my thinking be clouded with what other members of the club thought of me after the embarrassing episode at the beginning of the meeting. So I completed my evaluation and I was proud of myself.

Before the meeting closed, all members of the club were asked to comment about anything. When it was my turn to comment, instead of saying I didn't have anything to say, I decided to talk about something that I felt people should know about. I told them that they should not only use the "competent communicator" manual only but also the "competent leadership" manual. I spoke for about a minute and I only concentrated on what I was saying and not what I thought they were thinking. My message was heard and I was proud of myself for taking a leap to express what I felt every member of the meeting should know.

The meeting ended and although I embarrassed myself at the beginning, I decided not to let that bring me down or depress me.

So what I have learned last night is that the best way to cure SAD is to not care at all what people think. It doesn't matter what you do, people will always say something either to you or behind your back. People will always have opinions about you, it doesn't matter what you do or say. So the best way to cure SAD is to practice not caring what people say or think and also to accept yourself fully with all your flaws. I am experimenting with being regarded as being "crazy". By "crazy" I mean doing or saying things that "normal" people wouldn't normally say. I accept myself as being "abnormal" and "crazy". I am discovering that if you are "crazy" or do things that are "abnormal" then people will tend to respect you and/or leave you alone.

On Friday I am attending a wedding with my older brother and sister. I intend to talk to as many people as possible. I intend to embarrass myself but at the same time not care what they think because my attitude will be it is non of my business what people think, it's their business.

I hope to receive a few comments, and also to inspire you guys.


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## Lincolnradiocat (Dec 10, 2005)

Great job! Your post was inspiring.


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## SuperSky (Feb 16, 2011)

Awesome


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## hellinnorway (Aug 6, 2011)

Thanks for your post, it was definitely inspiring.


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## el kanguro (Jul 5, 2013)

Thanks for posting. I got nervous just reading about what you had to do.
I've tried ignoring what people might thing or actually say but its really difficult for me to keep it out of my utmost attention


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## Phalene (Feb 15, 2013)

Awesome post  

Toastmasters seems really to be an interesting workshop...

When I had to organize my first meeting with my team -more than 20 people- I was red as ever and felt dizzy and spoke way, wayyyy too fast. It got better after the 5th or 6th meeting though, and when I screw up like if I miss a slide or if my accent gets out of control (I speak English well except when I am super stressed then you have the feeling you hear le worst frog eveur and it izzz orrendouss) I stop, have a sip of water and apologize and go on.


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## Sandile84 (May 4, 2011)

Thanks guys! I'm glad that my post and story inspired you. I sure hope that you will go out there and, like me, embarrass yourselves 

So I eventually did attend the wedding. I drove with my older sister and older brother, and I was the one driving. The wedding venue was about about 300km long. We traveled for about 4 hours. I decided to use that trip to talk as much as possible. It was easy because they are my siblings.

We arrived at the funeral, and my cousin was with about 5 other men talking about life in general. I decided to jump in and talk as well. I discovered that when I talk to people I don't know in a very informal setting I tend not to finish my sentences because I feel all eyes are on me, and I start thinking that they think that I should stop, which I what I did a few times.

But all in all, the wedding event was a good exercise for me to talk as much as possible to as many people as possible. I just wish I could talk everyday like I did at work. The problem is my job allows me to talk to people maybe 30 minutes a day. I spend the other eight and a half hours starring at the computer and working. So my communication skills are not that great.

Thanks once again guys. I hope you'll beat SAD


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## peach123 (Dec 13, 2010)

So what I have learned last night is that the best way to cure SAD is to not care at all what people think. It doesn't matter what you do, people will always say something either to you or behind your back. People will always have opinions about you, it doesn't matter what you do or say. So the best way to cure SAD is to practice not caring what people say or think and also to accept yourself fully with all your flaws. I am experimenting with being regarded as being "crazy". By "crazy" I mean doing or saying things that "normal" people wouldn't normally say. I accept myself as being "abnormal" and "crazy". I am discovering that if you are "crazy" or do things that are "abnormal" then people will tend to respect you and/or leave you alone.


I like how you summed this up, this applied to me today. I agree that is the most crippling thing about SA, we care too much about what others think and that is what stops us from socializing and reaching out to others. Thank you for posting your experiences at Toastmasters, I am planning to attend a meeting because I want to improve my SA and this is a good way to do this. I have attended Toastmasters in the past many times and stopped but now I need to go back and work on my SA more.


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## Sandile84 (May 4, 2011)

peach123 said:


> I like how you summed this up, this applied to me today. I agree that is the most crippling thing about SA, we care too much about what others think and that is what stops us from socializing and reaching out to others. Thank you for posting your experiences at Toastmasters, I am planning to attend a meeting because I want to improve my SA and this is a good way to do this. I have attended Toastmasters in the past many times and stopped but now I need to go back and work on my SA more.


We definitely do care too much about what others think. The sooner we stop caring the better we will be, despite having SAD.

I wish you well with toastmasters. Continue attending and being a member of toastmasters forever if possible. Post your experiences so that we can also be inspired.


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## slimjim26 (Feb 23, 2011)

Sandile84 said:


> We definitely do care too much about what others think. The sooner we stop caring the better we will be, despite having SAD.
> 
> I wish you well with toastmasters. Continue attending and being a member of toastmasters forever if possible. Post your experiences so that we can also be inspired.


Caring about what other people think of you isn't a bad thing, in fact it's one of the main reasons you shower and brush your teeth in the morning. It's an over exaggeration of that caring that places you in a position to be nervous. That over emphasis can be debilitating, hence the SAD.

It's crazy, I've chased that mind set for the past half decade, struggling and pushing myself to try and not care what any thought of me, but I could never do it. I could never let it go, and still haven't. That I'm thankful for. It's what makes you better, it's what makes you join Toastmasters, speak to strangers, and ask people out on dates. I guarantee that at some point in your life you'll look back and think I'm glad I cared too much about what people thought. Otherwise, you'd never better yourself; why would you, you don't care about your image. This is truly a blessing in disguise (at first, a very well camouflaged, hidden in plane sight kind of disguise) but will benefit you extraordinarily on your journey to over coming fears. Best of travels my friend!


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## dezza (Dec 30, 2012)

Phalene said:


> Awesome post
> 
> Toastmasters seems really to be an interesting workshop...
> 
> When I had to organize my first meeting with my team -more than 20 people- I was red as ever and felt dizzy and spoke way, wayyyy too fast. It got better after the 5th or 6th meeting though, and when I screw up like if I miss a slide or if my accent gets out of control (I speak English well except when I am super stressed then you have the feeling you hear le worst frog eveur and it izzz orrendouss) I stop, have a sip of water and apologize and go on.


Haha even though I have a strong british manchester accent, when I'm really nervous I end up talking with an american accent. Fun times.


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## harrison (Apr 14, 2012)

What a great post and great thread - very inspiring. Good for you! You have a wonderful attitude.


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## peachkaleporkchop (Sep 24, 2013)

> So what I have learned last night is that the best way to cure SAD is to not care at all what people think.


Thank you for posting your experience with toastmasters. It is very inspiring how you embarrassed yourself but then picked yourself back up by the end of the meeting! I went to a couple meetings a while ago but I quit going because it was just too intense and not for me. Maybe I was just with a bad mix of people. But I really felt like they were trying to change me too much, and they were obsessed with being these bubbly extroverted people and trying to turn me into one too. I'm just not extroverted and I don't want to be extroverted.. I just want to be a bit less nervous! But you worded it perfectly with "not caring so much what people think about you." Of course it is impossible to completely not care about what other people think, but I have found that people respect and listen to that kind of brutally honest attitude.


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## Str8shot (Sep 19, 2013)

Sandile84 said:


> So what I have learned last night is that the best way to cure SAD is to not care at all what people think. It doesn't matter what you do, people will always say something either to you or behind your back. People will always have opinions about you, it doesn't matter what you do or say. So the best way to cure SAD is to practice not caring what people say or think and also to accept yourself fully with all your flaws. I am experimenting with being regarded as being "crazy". By "crazy" I mean doing or saying things that "normal" people wouldn't normally say. I accept myself as being "abnormal" and "crazy". I am discovering that if you are "crazy" or do things that are "abnormal" then people will tend to respect you and/or leave you alone.


Great post! I think what you said here is really significant and something I should try and always keep in mind.


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