The Nervous Presenter!

When I did my presentation today, I was much more nervous than I had expected, but in another way, it was okay for me to be nervous. Perhaps there are many reasons to feel that way: not knowing if I will fill the time or if there will be not enough time, the sense of uncertainty, the fear that others won’t like the presentation, and so on. I went through the gamut of all those emotions, and somehow I knew that it should be that way. I think that staying with my nervous condition and seeing that it won’t ‘kill me’ is a much greater value than trying to make the nervousness go away.

A lot of what I experienced today ties in naturally with the sense that loving kindness is not about replacing bad feelings with good ones, but it more about having the spaciousness to abide on one’s present momentary reality. Knowing that there is nothing wrong with being nervous or scared is one paradoxical way in which the fear is somehow reduced. I am confident that the feeling has its own legitimacy, and there is no need for me to force that feeling to go away; it in fact has its own place and time.

I had a very good time revisiting my thesis on Loving Kindness meditation practice, and this presentation did give me a good opportunity to read the thesis in a book form. I have to say that this experience was satisfying in the sense that it validated the efforts and care I put in the wording of the thesis. Reading it again allowed me to re-experience the magic of being able to work on the project, pushing through in spite of the difficulties. As one of the participants suggested to me afterward, “just keep going” with what I am doing. I hope to do so in whatever form it will take, preferably writing.