Does your face turn red? Does your neck get all splotchy with two-tone running down your chest so you look like you’re splattered with embarrassment? Does your voice go up several octaves and do you sound like you’re on speed or swallowed helium?

Anxiety Alert —

It happens to me at the most INCONVENIENT TIMES — like during a CALLBACK for Producers that I’ve coached on and know backwards-and-forwards till I walk into the room and totally BLOW IT!  Or when I hear Dr. Crush’s voice when I’m volunteering in the ER, and in that moment my entire body is taken over by “NERVOSA” and I act like an insecure idiot standing across the middle-school gym trying to not look nerdy while I wait for the cute shy boy to ask me to dance.

We’re not threatened when there aren’t any stakes —

Why is it that we’re our best with the people we’re not trying to impress – like Fahad at the Whole Foods magazine stand, who teases me about my expensive British Vogue addiction —  or Cody who gets my Starbucks Latte (with non-fat steamed milk and one pump of mocha) ready before I get to the front of the line, or Jorge, the 50-something Don Juan at the carwash who greets me with —

I-think-about-you-day-and-night-do-you-want-to-have-your-car-hand-waxed-and-tires-Armor-Alled?

I flirt, tease and laugh with them consistently, naturally and hilariously. Why can’t I create that dynamic with others — when it really matters?

Maybe we’re comfortable when we know people already like us? Or when we’ve got nothing to lose? Or when we make the other person feel comfortable, so there’s a natural exchange?

I’ve tried that suggestion where you imagine the other person naked, but that gets me into all kinds of other crazy.

I guess for me, the best thing that (sometimes) works is trying to ask the other people questions about themselves. At least that way the other person gets to talk, and I just try to hear him/her over the battle going on in my brain.

If only I could quiet the NOISE IN MY NOGGIN, and —
If only I had a cure for the SPLOTCH! Ahaha!

(How do YOU deal with Nerves? Please share, thanks!)

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