Tackled my fear of public speaking today…. at a gardening show :) I won a competition too ;-)

October 9, 2015 by Healing From Complex Trauma & PTSD/CPTSD 3 Comments

I attended an international gardening show today, with a friend. There were talks by well known people within the gardening and landscaping field.

We attended what I thought was a talk about floral displays. It turned out to be a competition, and a world renowned landscaper and winner of many awards, a reality show celebrity from a popular home show, and a floral designer, were 3 of the competitors.

They wanted a volunteer from the audience and my ‘friend’ volunteered me. So, very reluctantly, with anxiety rising fast, I got up and went up to the stage. With the 3 experts…

I’ve never done a floral display in my life, I have no idea what to do with the floral wiring etc. I had no idea what to do, except that the flowers and leaves, had to go in the foamy stuff… Apparently that stuff is called Oasis…. I know that now 😉

This was being recorded and photos were being taken, for media for the show :-O And I kept having a microphone put in front of me and asked to speak… :-O

I let the people on the stage know, I had never done this before, it was my first attempt at floral design… and just had a go.

And mine won!!! 😀 The audience had to cheer, and mine got the loudest and longest clapping. Bizarre!

We also had to name our displays, and when it got to me, I named mine ‘My First Time’ – which had the audience laughing, the experts laughing and one of them went really red. It was cheeky of me, and I was under pressure and anxiety and I panicked and resorted to some cheeky rude humour, but hey it worked! 😉

My anxiety was sky high, I was sweating heaps at the beginning, and it was clear I was nervous, but I got into the swing of it and enjoyed it. The reality show celebrity was really funny and crowned me with his floral display.

As I walked back over to my friend, I said ‘you are so dead!!’. She knows I have PTSD and anxiety….

It was a really amazingly funny, bizarre part of the day, and it made the day so much better.

Now, my pic is on their facebook and twitter page, as the winner.

Yay me! I survived public speaking and doing something I knew nothing about and in front of whole heap of people and it being recorded.

And I won! Freaking fab! 😀