Develop: Understanding Fear on the Platform Stage

Greetings, lovely listeners. Let's talk about the stage, the platform, that space

where all eyes are on you. When you are maybe speaking at service for a

spiritualist church, speaking for a student demonstration, maybe you're the

medium working, maybe you're the chairperson of a demonstration. Let's just talk

about when you are in that public eye with your mediumship. Well, let's just talk

about the stage in general. A little bit of an out first of all, you're gonna feel

a little more comfortable on it if you have past performance experience.

Right? You're gonna know it. You're gonna know how it feels to be in that little

space where all eyes are on you. You're gonna be more comfortable with it. But for

some of us who may have never been in plays or musicals or choir band, orchestra,

drama, theater, I don't know, what else goes on stage? Any of it, right? In elementary

middle or high school. If you were never in any of those, you don't know what

it's like to have to. And I talk about the performing arts because you all

essentially, when we demonstrate as mediums or give the inspiring speech or

chair, we're on a stage. This is a performance. Some would say, well, it's an

actual service or whatever. It's a play. It is a organized, written out play set

for the contacts from spirit, of course. The script is written and we all have

our part to play in this. And if you are demonstrating alone, well, you're the

star of the show. And let's talk about this because there is such a fear, stage

fright, those words exist for a reason, right? There's such a fear with this.

And it's like, do we ever master that stage? And I think we do. But I think the

way to mastering the comfort and actually enjoying stepping up on that stage,

right? It's a really, it's a few things to have confidence in what you're

presenting. And if you're the speaker or the chair or the mediator, whatever

moderator, you got it easy because you can preplan and you learn your script. But

if you're the demonstrating medium, there is an unknown. And you have to trust

in what I call the improv spirit. You don't know what they're going to give.

They're going to give you a topic, which is a person, male or female. And off you

go with something you've never done before, a person you probably have never

spoken with before. And you're having to do kind of like this improvisation of

conversations. Speaking with someone for the first time that you've never met, improv

is terrifying. It's the unknown. Mediumship is the unknown. We work so hard in these

underground Hogwarts classrooms to make our mediumships strong, perfect it, understand

it, grow in it. We work so hard to make it go make the play go smoothly, make the

performance, the improv somewhat comfortable. But yet I have seen the best of the

best mediums who are so comfortable in that training classroom environment. Take

that platform and totally crash and burn. Because there's something that we need to

talk about here when it comes to presenting our mediumship to the public, that

improvisation specifically, not the speaker, not the moderator, not, you know, the chair

person of a professional dem, right? We're talking about the mediumship and there's

something we need to acknowledge. And that is confidence and trust. You can word it

in a lot of different ways, I guess. Confidence. And the thing about it is, you listeners

are probably thinking confidence and spirit. I have confidence in spirit. Now I'm talking

about spirit. Of course you do. What has changed from doing great in the classroom,

doing great improv with spirit, great contact, speaking, moderating to what has changed

from that to when you go to that platform in the public eye, your mediumship hasn't changed,

your method, your comfort level with spirit, that has not changed at all. But it's the

audience. The audience is everything. I'm not talking about a good or bad or open-minded

or closed-minded audience, right? Before you can even get to learning how that affects

you on the stage, you have to understand how the stage affects you personally as the

non-medium. That is why mediums crash and burn. And I'm never, you know, I never really

quite understood it until I saw some of the most amazing students that I probably will

ever train, get up there and crash and burn, had nothing to do with their mediumship. It

had everything to do with being put in front of people. And the one word that I, if I were

to only give one word like what is it about the audience that freaks out these mediums,

it would be judgment. Not low self-confidence, they've had great self-confidence in life

with other people. Not the inability to speak with people. They spoke with classmates

fine, right? They spoke with me just fine. Not self-love, they demonstrated it. But it's

the fear of judgment. And so you have to ask yourself, where did that come from? Depending

on your natal chart, you may be lucky, even though life may have dealt you some pretty crazy

situations and relationships with people that would make you afraid of being judged or that

you're not, you're not going to be good enough or what if they don't like you. But depending

on your natal chart, you can get over that pretty quickly, right? You can be pretty tough

with your wiring. The mediums who don't have that, that really, really struggle when they take

the stage, because they have the biggest fear of being judged, people thinking negatively of them.

I tell my students, y'all, to conquer the platform, you have to not care what people think.

Which is really like a contradiction because we go in thinking we want to help these people in

the audience. But essentially, you can't care what any of them think because you're working for

spirit. You only care about spirit and what they're bringing you. And then checking in and hoping

the people in the audience join that flow or in that energy, understand the message. Sometimes

they do. Sometimes they don't. You'll still go home. You have to be able to get in bed at night by

feet. You do that and you sleep, you know, when you're ready to sleep after a dim, after that

energetic high and that power, when you essentially feel good about your mediumship, right?

And that's what it should always be about. But yet, my meat, some mediums I've met, classmates,

students, they can't step on the stage because they are afraid of being judged.

It's not that they're afraid of letting people down. They know they can work with spirit.

They've worked with spirit. They brought contacts from spirit over and over and over again.

That were great. It's not about that. It's about you being afraid of being judged.

You know, I heard some people say, well, if you're nervous, then you don't trust spirit.

Of course they trust spirit. They've been in class for years. They trust spirit. This is about

them having something that needs to be worked through that has shaped them into having a total

debilitating, paralyzing fear of being judged by the audience. I don't even think it relates

to the mediumship. If my mediumship is going to be good enough, it's if I am good enough

to even stand on that stage essentially, who am I to sell tickets and charge?

So mediums listening, when you get on that stage, and you know what, depending on what life is

dealt you, you may have had this fear when you're a performer in high school. Maybe it's something

that's developed later in life. I don't know. But it came from somewhere. Ask yourself mediums

listening. If you are terrified of the crowd, you don't doubt your mediumship. You're ready to share

it. Um, you're terrified of the crowd. Why? Because of what they think they can't hurt you.

They can't do anything to you. It's all you having a fear that you won't be good enough,

that they're going to judge you on that, that you think that you personally

aren't worthy. And so ask yourself, if you experience this, what relationship in your life

shaped you to be that way? We're all born, these perfect, beautiful, ready to live this life with

the clean slate, souls, conscious minds. The relationships that start, I mean from infancy,

unfortunately, they shape us too. For those of you that have read and dove into this, you know,

you know, we're shaped, even in those first few years, it's so powerful. And we remember,

um, behaviors of others shape us. They shape us in how we view ourselves, which in return

causes us to act certain ways with others. The cause controls our emotions and situations. And

we don't even realize it. Now, of course, I am not a qualified psychologist here. I am not.

But I'm talking from the self-help books I've read where I know that the every relationship we

experience affects us. It affects us. And it causes us to have to form values and systems and norms

and expectations and what's right and what's wrong, what's normal, what's not, what's acceptable,

it's not. And then we move forward in life and we're changed. And depending on those relationships

we've experienced, you know, when I talk about childhood trauma, that stuff is so real. And

you don't even know how it's affected you later in life. But it does. And when you can finally

clean off that mirror and see it clearly, your mind is blown. And you're like, wow, that's why I

have this way or that way. Wow, my natal chart says this and it's connected and all, you know.

But back to the stage, it's terrifying because you may possibly have a fear of being judged

and that you, not your mediumship, it's there, it's good, but you as the person

are not going to be good enough in their eyes. Maybe there's a fear of you not being good enough

for yourself. It was instilled in you somewhere. So think about it. And then I wish you the best

of luck to work through that. It will come up. Oh my gosh, I've seen it just kind of knock some

mediums over like, what's wrong? My mediumship was great. Why am I freaking out on stage? It has

induced anxiety. It's not because they weren't ready to take the stage. It is because the crowd

and people looking at them and how they respond to that. They already talked about what that could

possibly be. I'm not saying that this is an absolute at all. But since we are in this public eye

platform phase, I'm just telling you that what I have seen with students, even what I've experienced

as a performer and all my colleagues who performed, y'all, oh my gosh. The self, the fear,

letting go of what people think, being afraid of their judgments is very freeing and empowering

to you on the stage. Whether you're the demonstrating medium, the pianists, the choir, the soloist,

the musical theater star, the poetic speaker, I mean, whatever, it's there. And if you don't

think it is, when you step on that platform and everything goes haywire and you're like, what the heck

just happened? I really got freaked out by that. That really threw me off. That's a sign that maybe,

maybe there are some things to look at first and work through to help you strengthen that experience

of the stage with others viewing you. It's really all I've seen it. And I've experienced it.

So just food for thought for the mediums out there who may really have some sweats and heart

racing and all of that when you've taken the platform and it's you're kind of struggling, okay?

If you have any questions for the podcast, email me at jenniferfesio at gmail.com. Sign up for

my programs. They start in July, email me with any questions and I would love to hear from you

until next time. Bye bye.