Have you ever walked into a networking event or party and thought “OMG there are so many people here?” I’ve been attending these events for more years than I want to admit to, and I still feel that way every time.
Recently, Mariette Rups-Donnelly from Powerhouse Presentation did a presentation at a She Business meeting with that title and so I knew I had to have a session with her. Interestingly, I’ve known Mariette for many years and have been saying to her that I wanted to work with her on exactly this issue. For some reason I didn’t make it clear what I was after, as she kept telling me that’s not what she did.
So, after hearing about her She Business presentation from Danita, I called Mariette and said “you know what you talked about today – well I want some of that”. Finally, we managed to get together and it was fantastic.
Presence, as I understand it, is what people see when you walk into the room and what they hear when you speak.
I’ve felt that when I walk into a room and get that “OMG…” reaction I withdraw into myself. Also, when speaking to someone in a large group I tend to raise my voice to be heard over the babble from everyone else raising their voices to be heard over everyone else in the room. The result of this is I usually lose my voice and come away from these events with a sore throat and a feeling that I didn’t come across as confidently as I ought to and can.
Hence the session with Mariette.
The things we covered in the session were how you walk, how you sit, how you breathe, how you speak and how you energetically impact the space. By the end of a couple of fun hours I was walking, sitting, breathing and speaking differently. I found I have a much deeper voice than I thought (and I already knew it was deeper than I’d been using) and getting my body around feels quite different.
I won’t go into more details here – you need to talk to Mariette about that. Contact her through powerhousepresentation.com.au
This session built on material I’ve recently been learning in Feldenkrais classes I’ve been attending. In these classes we spend a lot of time relaxing. If a movement starts to become painful the instruction is to stop – none of this exerting yourself or pushing through the pain stuff. This is my type of exercise!
As a Taurean, I was tending to relate to my body as a heavy weight I had to drag around. The combination of Feldenkrais & Mariette’s session now has me much more comfortable.
I’m looking forward to the next networking event so I can try out my new skills 🙂