training

My female owner has been fighting fire these few weeks. She finds that she is desperately trying to complete preparing for her clients’ (e.g. reading up on their conditions, scoring test results, writing up case notes) on the eve of their appointments. No thanks to her distractibility and inability to prioritise and maybe some other unknown reason(s). Despite having a public holiday yesterday, she left for school today, totally ill-prepared for i) the class presentation ii) the parenting training she had to do today.

My female owner used to do a lot of training/presentations in Singapore. She has done training in all sorts of settings from small groups to over 200 people, from training people clueless about psychology to experts in the field. Even with such varied experiences, she finds it a big challenge to deliver good class presentations and group trainings in Brisbane. For some reason (maybe it’s a “slang” reason), she is unable to feel at ease or confident and even wonders if she is developing a phobic reaction to public speaking.

Last week, she conducted her first parenting training session and felt so lousy about it. In fact, it became quite anxiety-provoking for her, as she thinks about the future sessions she would be doing. So today, she did the next best thing (besides her usual last minute preparation in-between breaks). She prayed, committing her concerns to God.

My female owner still felt nervous and anxious while waiting for the parents to arrive. The first parent arrived, looking happy and friendly – a far cry from the grumpy man he was last week. That set her at ease somewhat and she was able to strike up a decent conversation with him.

The second parent arrived. Out of the blue, she asked my female owner “how long have you been staying in Singapore?” Now, my female owner never told her that she is a Singaporean, so that was a good conversation starter.

With such a good beginning (the clients were so much friendlier this week), my female owner started to feel more comfortable with herself and managed to pull off the second session in a more satisfying manner than the first. The joy of training is slowly returning to her. It’s amazing how a prayer can change things.