When I went to see Sam I was pretty desperate about how to cope with public speaking, not just speaking in front of huge audiences but even speaking, or voicing my opinion in front of 3 or more people. I always thought they would judge or laugh at me or in one way or another I would fall flat on my face. I thought back to past experiences where I had made some presentations i had made which in my mind didn’t go well, or some comments people made, and it grew and grew in my head so that I basically developed a phobia of speaking public speaking. Whenever I thought about speaking in public my mind reverted quickly and thought about those episodes. Going to see Sam changed my mind set about speaking in front of people. I still don’t love it but she coached me for a presentation I gave at a large conference in the Scottish Exhibition and Conference Centre (SECC) in Glasgow for work. I was dreading it and thought about all the things that were going to go wrong. After a couple of sessions with Sam my anxiety about it reduced significantly and she even made me look forward to it! The work that we did together programmed me some how to see the crowd as nice people, not some big scary bunch that i thought before. I did the presentation in the end and i did it well. Lots of people came up to me to tell me that they enjoyed it which made me feel really proud. After this, although I still don’t enjoy presentations or public speaking i can manage it. Sessions with Sam have given me the capacity to get over the crippling phobia i had before and has meant that i now have a lot more control over my life. Going to see Sam the first day was one of the best things i ever did.
Aberdeen