I won a spoken word poetry contest at work!🥺🦋

Butterflies in my stomach.

Not the excited fluttery kind. The anxious cannot-stop-thinking-about-failing kind.

My hands were literally trembling. I was holding my breath. An hour before the event I told my workmate, "I might have to cancel. I can't. I cannot do it. I'll just tell the organiser I have stomach flu. Nobody would know." "But I would," was my friend's remark. She told me that I have to stop spiraling into this non-sensical what-if negativity as it won't do me any good.

She helped me be calm by slowly inhaling deep breaths.
One..
Two..
Three..
Exhale.
Then inhale.

My friend told me that it helps if I can practice my piece with her as the audience. Just so I can get "a feel" at how it would be when I am up on-stage.

At first I hesitated. Because truly I wanted out. I do not know why the crazy-confident foolish me signed us up on this in the first place. When I haven't tried reading my poetry outside the safe four corners of the room! What was I thinking?!

After quite some time of me being in the middle of wanting to perform and wanting to back out, there was a 'still mall voice' who told me I could do it.

"Okay. I can practice in front of you then," I finally told my friend. We went to one of the meeting rooms in our office and after making sure I was calm enough I started to perform the poem I wrote.

Man it sure did help.🥺 The reassuring look on my friend's face have me an idea that my piece was good. So I asked her, "what do you think? Will I embarrass myself out there? Is the poem alright?" I was in a panic mode, clearly wanting to have "people's approval".

"Wow Jong that was... Amazing. I loved your piece. Can I get a copy of your poem, please?" I hugged her. "Thank you. That means a lot to me," I told my workmate bestie. 🫂

🦋

Fast forward and there - in front of this large crowd of my workmates, of which I only know a few familiar faces, I performed spoken word poetry.

"Do something that scares you" they say. I took up the challenge. I did it with fear until fear turned to courage at the other side of the road.

It was nerve-wracking and immensely bewitching at the same time - performing my piece.

I sure did perform my heart out. I remembered how much I love theatre arts. 😅

It was a bonus when I bagged the first prize. The real win for me was getting over myself and show up and perform. Thank you Smartsourcing for this definitely one for the books life experience!!!!

🥺🥹✨🤍🦋

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