Day 331: Preparation

Yesterday, I bravely (if I do say so myself) volunteered to give another presentation about my therapy groups.

Unexpectedly, the presentation will be a week from today.

I’m glad it’s only a week away.  Less time to prepare, less pressure for me.

Now, I have to prepare for the presentation.  

Except I really don’t have to prepare.  It’s a topic I know enough about, for sure.

I know more than my audience knows.*

As a matter of fact, I know a lot more than that.   How could I not?  I do the groups four times, every week.  Also, they are my passion.

I’m sure I will have enough to say about them.

So really, what do I need to prepare?

Nothing. I just need to show up, with a prop or two.

In the past, there’s another way I have prepared for presentations. I’ve worried about them. I’ve imagined a negative outcome. In other words,  I’ve had cognitive distortions about:

• What could go wrong.
• People thinking I suck.

Hmmm. That about covers it.

I think I can forego that aspect of the preparation, this time.

What data do I have to support letting go of worry — doing it differently — this time?

I have good data for that. That is, every other time I’ve done a presentation this year about the same topic, it has gone very well.

Actually, I’ve rocked.**

So there’s no reason to expect that I will do anything except rock, this time.

I mean, I’m sure that my critical voice could come up with lots of arguments for why THIS TIME will be different. For example ….

This is a different audience. You haven’t done a presentation for several months.  The past is not necessarily a predictor of the future. Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

This is what I would like to say to my critical voice this morning:

Just to make sure my critical voice hears that, here’s a hundred more (viewer discretion advised):

I think that should hold my critical voice, for the week until my presentation.

So here’s a prescription —  an antidote — for myself, this morning:

Rx:  For one week, administer “Shut Ups”, PRN***.

Before I end this post, I want to write about preparing for one more thing:

Thanksgivukkah.

I just looked for a definition of “Thanksgivukkah” on-line, and this is what I found, from livescience.com.

It’s a once in more than 70,000-year event: The first day of Hanukkah this year coincides with Thanksgiving.

As I wrote in an e-mail to my cousin Lani, a while ago:

I’m not sure what we are doing for Thanksgivukkuh.  Trying not to feel the pressure of 70,000 years.

That concludes today’s blog post, my dear readers.

Thanks to my family,  The Moderate Voice and mewlists.com (for the “Shut Ups!”), to preparers and thanks-givers everywhere, and to you — of course! — for reading today.

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* Years ago, my sister told me that helpful definition of a good-enough teacher.

** I’ve already linked to this same post about bragging, but what the hell.

** Pro Re Nata (Latin), meaning “take whenever needed.”