HOW I TACKLED ENOCHLOPHOBIA

What is fear

Fear is a basic emotion that reacts to uncertainty or challenge by causing a bodily and mental reaction. Fear can be so challenging because fear comes with different types of trauma, fear makes you lose confidence in yourself and low self-esteem begins to set in, fear destroys confidence and courage.

My fear

What I was facing was called ENOCHLOPHOBIA, I have an irrational fear of crowds, and this has taken so many opportunities away from me, not that I am not outspoken but I tend to feel anxiety whenever I am in the midst of strange people.

Source

When it comes to talking among my friends I am the cheerleader, I can talk for hours but when it comes to addressing people or facing the crowd I begin to shimmer and my body will be cold, my voice will start to shake and that moment will be as if the ground should open so that I could escape.

This has been happening for years but I thought it was a normal thing that most people are like that not until I wanted to have the internal defense of my final year project, I had a little courage at first but the moment I stepped on the podium to present my project I was dumbfounded, my presentation was wack because the way I prepared for it wasn't the way I delivered it, I prepared for this presentation with the last breath in me just to overcome the fear of facing crowd, I went to my friend's apartment to rehearse the way I was going to present on the day, I did perfectly well at her place but I flopped on the day of my presentation.

Source

The guy that was before me had his presentation and I was the next but they were bombarding the guy with lots of questions, I quickly rushed out to breathe in and out hoping it would work for me before they called me. I noticed I was shaking and my voice started to skip when presenting, I faced the crowd and it was as if I was making a manifesto because all the levels in my department were inside the hall, and all my lecturers even lecturers from other departments were available, then I remembered when Jesus said if the cup can pass over him, that was when I know the meaning of that statement.

I had the presentation but I wasn't satisfied due to my phobia, while I watched other people presenting and their mouths were moving like a typewriter, I envy them but I wasn't given the grace to be like them, I listened to one of my course mate presentations, and tears rolled from my eyes because she did well and she faced the crowd without mixing words.

I felt ashamed of myself then I thought of how to overcome this fear because I still had the final presentation which was the external defense, this is where professors from another university would come to assess us and we still had a semester to do that, I planned to join the ushering department in my fellowship because I believe that it will help

How I buried my fear

I started going to the student fellowship and contributing in the fellowship by standing up to read bible and also going around to collect offerings, this helped me a lot and gradually I started to face crowd without much fear, I explained what I was going through to my fellowship president and he decided to help me out, before the fellowship he will inform me that I will be the one to make the final announcement and the closing prayer, I did this for weeks and it helped, so I began to overcome this Challenges gradually.

Source

I had my final presentation and it was superb, I saw the crowd as if I was talking to my friends and I came out victorious, that was how I buried my fear, since that day I have been practicing more on how to face the crowd and now I can stand among the multitude to make a speech without any fear or fidgeting.

This is my entry for this week's episode of hivelearners community prompt of #hl-w110e1 which the topic is "FACING MY FEAR"