Everyone has turned to look at you. The room is terrifyingly quiet.

You are the speaker.

Your sense of space and time has warped so badly that a chasm is opening up between you and the people in the room. Your body is rushing backward and your gut is clenched.

All the words you know have left the building.

People tell me that I have great speaking style. Confident, warm, engaging, related. I have spoken at many gatherings, occasionally as big as a 1000 people, mostly to a few hundred at professional academic or industry conferences, many times to groups of 30-50.

I have come to enjoy it.

But it sure did not start out that way.

My most terrifying speaking experience was to a national conference of housing policy makers. The organization I worked for had organized this important event for 300 high level decision makers. We hired a national radio personality as the event host, and my boss, a brilliant speaker and facilitator, was involved throughout the day, guiding the group toward the outcomes we were seeking.

I was giving one of the keynote opening speeches to set the stage for the day’s discussion. I was thrilled to be chosen for this role, but utterly terrified and flooded with imposter syndrome.

The presentation was a synthesis of research findings, well documented. Basically the consensus as our research organization was seeking to represent it. I didn’t have to take any questions or defend our position.

At first glance, my job looked pretty low risk in the scheme of things.

But my body knew there was a lot at stake.

My body was convinced I was going to my death.

Roles and Ghost roles

What makes public speaking so hard?

One reason rarely talked about comes from what can be called ghost roles in a group.

I learnt the concept of ghost roles from the innovative psychologist Arnold Mindell. To explore more, check out his book on large group facilitation, Sitting in the Fire: Large Group Transformation Using Conflict and Diversity.

Roles within a group are voices, viewpoints, experiences which can be represented by group members. Roles are owned as experiences belonging to the members and the group.

Ghost roles are voices, viewpoints, or experiences which are talked about or felt, but are not directly owned or claimed by the group members. They are ghosted by the group norms.

Ghost roles may be described as people who are not present, or have left the group. The most obvious ghost role is usually the figure known to be the group’s enemy.

For example, a group of business owners might talk about the role of a
lazy employee. The business owners identify as hard working, productive, goal focused people. To own up to their own experiences of laziness would be deeply frowned upon.

Or a group that identifies with being kind, loving and supportive to each other might ghost the experiences of competition or ambition. These then become toxic in the form of jealous gossip, talking behind people’s backs, and a stiffness or tension in the atmosphere.

Often ghost roles are not even talked about, but the signs may be observed in nonverbal signals like tone of voice, speed, body postures, seating arrangements. And their impact can be felt by the participants as inner criticisms, difficult moods or a tense and scary group atmosphere.

Every group creates ghost roles through its claimed identity and cultural norms.

Our group is like this, says the group’s identity. Therefore viewpoints, actions and experiences which are not like that get rejected. Those other experiences are sent to the back of the room. We ghost them.

We are not like that. They are like that, not us.

The problem with ghost roles

The problem with ghost roles is that they do not go away.

They just become harder to deal with.

Experiences or viewpoints that are forbidden in a group become ghost-like: only partially there and slippery, difficult to interact with.

So business groups get plagued by corruption, taking short cuts, accusations of exploitation and profit gouging. Loving kindness groups get disturbed by gossip, competition and buried conflicts.

What does this have to do with fear of public speaking?

Ghost roles float around in the group’s atmosphere and can make us nervous.

Not all ghost roles are negative or harmful. But the harmful ones can make public speaking very stressful.

For example, a very common ghost role in many groups is the role of desiring revenge against authority figures, which includes undermining behaviors like criticism and judgements.

The typical audience identifies with the role that says, we want to listen respectfully to the speaker.

While the ghost role says: Who do you think you are? Do you think you are better than us?

Public speaking makes us a target for ghost roles

When you stand up in front of a group, you give up your anonymity. You no longer have the choice to blend in and stay in the background. You become visible and you become a target.

When we are just part of a homogenous crowd, we don’t have to pay attention to our specific position or viewpoint. We can just relax and feel connected to the whole.

There is a sense of ‘we’ that can make us feel safe.

We are in the group, part of the herd, not singled out. We don’t have to face the possibility of differences between us. We are not threatened by potential conflicts over ideas or actions.

This is just one of many reasons why racism and other forms of social discrimination are so damaging. When skin color, for example, breaks the ‘we’ into ‘us’ and ‘them,’ our sense of safety is reduced.

But when you stand up to speak, you become an ‘I.’

Like a lightening rod, you attract the energy of ghosted experiences.

This is not only bad. In fact it is the reason that public speaking is so exhilarating.

As a leader, you might benefit from the ghosted energy of confidence, of certainty, of knowing which direction to go.

But some ghost roles are attack dogs.

Criticism, judgements, jealousy, competition. These ghost roles make us nervous.

And every group has a ‘don’t go there’ ghost role.

Don’t say that or you’ll be rejected from the group forever.

This ghost role can make you fear for your life.

Back to my terrifying experience as the keynote speaker.

My job was to represent the position of our national, independent research organization and to provide the authority of a neutral, scientific evidence base.

The goal of the conference was rational, evidence-based policy making. The group was identified with seeking to create the best path forward for housing policy in Australia.

The best path should be the most reasonable conclusion based on the evidence. Right?

But the ghost roles are in the politics of who should pay.

My job was to establish the appearance of consensus in the evidence base for the direction we wanted the discussion to go.

For us, the evidence was clear: investment in social housing plus housing market regulation was necessary to increase housing affordability and reduce homelessness.

But there were powerful people in the room who would not agree to the direction regardless of how much evidence we presented.

As a group dedicated to public service, it was absolutely forbidden to voice out loud the perspective of political self-interest.

The ghost role lurked in the back of the room. Its arms crossed, scowling and grumbling: why should I pay?

Like all kinds of scientific consensus, it takes generosity and a commitment to shared values to reach conclusions about a complex body of evidence.

It takes politics to make resourcing decisions and commit to concrete actions.

Climate science denial, anyone?

Political self-interest is a killer ghost role.

And it had my body convinced I was going to my death.

How to feel better when public speaking

So, can you work with ghost roles to feel better about public speaking?

Here are four practices to play with.

There is no right way to do them. Use your imagination and your feelings to guide you.

Your goal is to shift your mindset to a more expanded, detached and playful state. By expanding your awareness to include and interact with the ghost role, you can reduce the tension and fear created by an unknown, ghostly opponent.

Try these exercises so you can have more fun public speaking.

1. First, realise that a big part of your fear is not personal. Ghost roles are not directed at any particular individual. They belong to the group process and are not specifically about you. They hang around and create tension because the group identity does not allow them to be claimed or owned explicitly. Take three long, slow deep breaths and remember that you belong. Imagine your audience as the wild exuberance of a circus, with all kinds of things going on, including scary ghost roles creeping around alongside the main act. It is all good. Let your breath expand and relax you. Bring a sense of detachment and lightness to the scene.
2. Brainstorm and explore what the ghost role would like to say out aloud if it could. What are the forbidden things? Write down the words and phrases that you can imagine it saying and try to help it go further in dialogue… It might start with yelling: ‘who do you think you are?’ But if you gently and lovingly interact with it, the ghost role might end up saying, ‘Actually, I also wish I had a chance to speak my thoughts in public but I get too scared.’
3. Give the ghost role a shape and form: whatever comes to mind no matter how irrational. The minute you represent the ghost in a concrete way it becomes easier to tolerate and defend against. Imagine that it is cartoon figure, or a comic book villain. If it were an animal, what animal would it be?
4. Use your imagination to role play the ghost in order to steal its power. Imagine yourself identifying with and becoming the ghost role with your imagination and then with your body. Notice how you would stand as the ghost. Try walking around the room and see how that feels and what you see from that perspective. Experience and then take over the power of the ghost role by playing it out. Allow yourself to feel its energy by letting it express itself in words or sounds, in your movement, or in your visual imagination. You might find yourself surprised by enjoying what it feels like to play the ghost.