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I've been doing a lot of thinking about public speaking lately. My work is mostly with clients in a private setting, but more and more I feel drawn to work with people in groups.

Interestingly, this has brought up some old resistances that have lain dormant in me for decades. I believe these to be based in an early childhood fear of rejection. I was a rather spirited little boy, and between my twin brother and I, I'm certain we were way too much for my single mom to handle. Her only hope of containing us was to fight dirty - to emotionally and physically abuse us.

My only interest in sharing this unhappy history with you is to shed light on what I believe to be a universal problem. The dread of public speaking, said to be feared by more people than death, is essentially a fear of judgment, rejection and the pain of exclusion.

During our early years, many of us were mishandled. When a parent gets so angry that they strike us or appear to no longer love us - even temporarily - they have delivered the equivalent of an emotional/spiritual coup de gras.

The pain of a parent's withdrawal of love and/or the violation of our physical space is so intense that a child will do almost anything to avoid it, including putting a lid on his personality and natural exuberance. This typically takes place so early in life that the event is "forgotten," buried in the subconscious. But the pain is far from forgotten. Consequently, we are deathly afraid of "showing up" in life, especially when we don't know who might be out there. Our flow has been impeded, our sovereignty severely compromised.

In “When You Reach the End of Your Rope, Let Go!” I write, "Take the ‘m’ out of ‘mother’ and it's ‘other’." When childhood issues are unresolved they become globalized. With regard to public speaking, I believe a group of people is simply too hard to vet. We just don't know for certain that somebody out there might not "withdraw their love" if they disapprove of us. This triggers early painful memories of rejection. Rather than risk feeling this way again, we simply choose to avoid the tremulous circumstance.

But here's the rub: many, if not all, of us yearn to shine - to freely express our complete selves - privately and publicly. Our only hope of this is to take the "curse" off - to renegotiate the painful waters of our abusive past. Once we no longer take our punishing childhood personally, and see it for what it actually was – a casualty of an ill-equipped parent, we can be free to shine out and share our natural exuberance with the world.

Look, we're all in this together. I'm pretty sure you don't want to hurt me, and I can guarantee I will do my best not to hurt you. Ready or not, here I come...