The experience of being nervous!

We have all experienced nervousness at one time or another when facing a new or challenging endeavor.  There are any number of situations that can bring nervousness to the fore including public speaking, performing in front of a live audience, competition, meeting new people, resolving a conflict with friends or coworkers, talking to the boss, or for many simply trying something new. When approaching these situations there is some part of us that really does want to perform well and speak perfectly to accomplish our task, but nervousness quite often gets in the way freezing our thinking, muddling our clarity and making us clumsy, awkward and ineffective.

Sri Chinmoy approaches the solution to  nervousness in the most clear and simple way:

The Only Solution

The only solution to your nervousness
Is found in your heart’s oneness-song,
And this oneness-song
Is immediately followed
By your life’s fulness-dance.*

The Strength Of Fulness

Nervousness is quite often
The fear of newness.
Newness is quite often
The multiplying strength of fulness.*

The key to transcending nervous and experiencing “life’s fullness dance” lies in our heart’s oneness and realisation that newness is something that is healthy, bringing forth our “strength of fullness”. Not only do we want to act powerfully and confidently, but so do the hearts and minds of our audience want to experience this with us as well. If what we have to offer comes from the deeper more illumined part of our being, people around us will naturally respond offering their inner encouragement and oneness.

Clear and focus the mind

Thinking more about the upcoming challenge has not, cannot and will not conquer your nervousness. To quickly and powerfully bring clarity and focus to our nervous thoughts and vital energy, just for a few moments, concentrate one pointedly on your breath.

Typically when nervous our breath is fast, erratic and shallow, but when confident and relaxed it is deep, long and rhythmic. Simply by taking longer, deeper and rhythmic breaths our consciousness will follow suit. When thoughts arise exhale them, releasing them from your awareness and then focus more deeply on your breathing.

Once you have calmed your breath, with each inhalation use your imagination to draw into your heart peace, tranquility, harmony and a deep feeling of oneness with the divine in everything around you. Establish your “heart’s oneness song” with the higher more receptive part of your surroundings. With your exhalation relax and release your nervousness, tension and anxiety freeing yourself of any obstruction to the flow of peace entering into you.

Sometimes it can help to imagine something tangible to breathe in like the fragrance of a flower, the smell of a pinewood forest or the mist of gentle breaking waves. Identify with the qualities of these objects or surroundings such as the purity, simplicity, quietude, or vastness, and let them enter into your heart.

Confidence in the fullness of newness

Finally, indentify with the fullness and strength of creating and offering something new. Once you have achieved a sense of calm and clarity through concentrating on your breath intuitively feel the deeper essence of the truth you want to offer. This is your positive manifestation and offering to the world. Anything from the most mundane of subjects or achievements to the most sublime offers something for everyone to grow and learn from. Use this new found feeling of poise and tranquility to guide your actions, bring forth your intuition and allow you to navigate a new or important challenge.

Let each and every new or demanding situation be an opportunity to expand our heart’s oneness and life’s fullness.

Your Powerful Nervousness

Your brave determination
May or may not enable you to conquer
Your powerful nervousness,
But your soulful oneness
With God the creation
Will definitely enable you to conquer
Your unthinkably torturing nervousness.*

*Sri Chinmoy, Ten Thousand Flower-Flames #4146, 3979 & 5340