Is This Why You Fear the News Media?
By Kalpana Murthy, Genuine Connection
Often it’s your past that’s responsible for your present fears of talking to the media. While The Media Trainers™ can get you focused on your essential audiences, guide you as you develop your messaging, and even help you rehearse, tackling the root cause of your fears sometimes requires more than coaching, relaxation techniques and positive thinking.
Even the savviest executives can feel so anxious it detracts from their ultimate performance in front of an audience. Many times, a confident executive with a track record of professional success can stand in front of a microphone and suddenly think “I’m not good enough” or “I’m not the right person for this job” or other statements related to feeling like an imposter or somehow inadequate in that moment. Worse, the executive can be sucked into a reporter’s negative agenda, feeling subordinated—even subservient—to the reporter. On one level, you know that this is an irrational belief, however in the moment, at an emotional and physical level, it feels true and can be very debilitating. So, why does that happen and what can you do about it?
In high-performance situations, your past becomes the present. A memory of an upsetting past experience is getting unconsciously activated. It doesn’t even have to be a memory of speaking in front of others. It could be a memory of any situation where someone said something to you that made you feel inferior, not good enough, powerless or some other negative belief about yourself.
None of us go through life without traumatic experiences of feeling criticized, rejected, embarrassed, insignificant, or in danger. Trauma is any experience, big or small, that has a lasting negative effect on how you think and feel about yourself and how those thoughts and feelings influence how you perceive situations and relate to others. We know that the brain processes and stores traumatic memories in a different way than memories of non-anxiety provoking events. Upsetting experiences in your past can get stuck in your brain. When these memories are activated in the present, all the thoughts, emotions, physical sensations and meaning associated with that memory resurface. It seems to be related to the present situation. Often, it’s not.
According to Dr. David Grand, a psychotherapist who uses EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) to help actors, musicians, executives and athletes with performance anxiety, “Our performance is often impeded by distorted beliefs we hold about ourselves, often unconsciously. When we project these distorted beliefs onto our audience, we become convinced that they see us in the same critical way. This then activates our anxiety, shame and inhibition, undermining our performance.”
Traditional approaches to dealing with fear of public speaking or performance anxiety include relaxation breathing, visualization and positive thinking. These are effective short-term strategies. However, they don’t eliminate the problem from recurring, because they don’t address the root cause: an unprocessed memory of an upsetting experience that is stuck in your brain.
EMDR is a brain-based approach to performance enhancement and psychotherapy that quickly resolves upsetting memories that are stuck in the brain, so they don’t continue to get triggered in the present. EMDR has been is use for almost 20 years and empirical studies support its effectiveness for the rapid treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder and other situations involving anxiety or self-doubt. EMDR utilizes the brain’s natural information processing model to process all aspects of an upsetting memory: images, thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, and the negative self-assessment associated with that memory. EMDR works faster than traditional talk therapy or executive coaching because the speed of the mind is faster than the speed of the mouth. EMDR just might be the antidote for the irrational beliefs and destabilizing fear you have of talking publicly, including to the media. To learn more about EMDR, go to www.genuineconnection.com.
Kalpana Murthy is an experienced marketing communications professional turned therapist and EMDR clinician. She specializes in helping business professionals increase their sense of well-being and performance, so they can have more genuine connections with themselves and with others in their business and personal lives. She can be reached at 770-310-9305 or kalpana@genuineconnection.com.
