I especially wanted to respond to David’s comments about the fear arising not at the very beginning, but 3 or 4 minutes into a presentation.

Sometimes, when we’re speaking, we just have to get out of our own way. That self-consciousness that arises can trip us up and trigger fear.

I recently was invited into a ping pong game that was already in progress. I haven’t played in years but when I entered this recent game, it was going at such a fast pace that I found myself at first hitting the ball well without thinking about it.

Then about the third stroke into the game, I became very aware of myself,not wanting to let the other players down, and immediately missed the ball. Pretty soon I was missing every ball that came my way (much like your toddler, David, who falls when he becomes aware that he’s standing)!

I think when we become self-conscious we lose focus on what’s important and suddenly we trip ourselves up. I write about this in the first article of a 26 week email series that I’ve written. Rather than re-writing the article here in this comment section. I’ll create a new post and share the article there.