Victoria Spence

Victoria Spence Instagram – I was often told this by more well-spoken people, mainly guest dance teachers from the South.
It’s not like I thought I was the most well-spoken kid. I grew up in Salford, and I spoke like I did.
If it were a random person, I’d have told them to F off, but I carried those comments because they were people I looked up to in an industry I wanted to excel in at the time.
They only started to impact me noticeably when I started this platform, and I began to spend more time in London. I’d be on panels and start to stutter or go completely blank. When we had the podcast, I’d never want to lead or say too much because I didn’t think what I had to say was important, even though I knew my mind was full of ideas people needed to hear. I have conversations and suddenly become aware of myself and how I might sound, stutter, and then feel embarrassed. Or talk quite fast to take up less of people’s time having to listen to me & usually saying things like ‘im stupid’ or ‘im just not very clever’.
Honestly, my biggest mask in all of those situations was my appearance. I’d always try to wear great outfits or do my hair and makeup glam so that even if I blanked out or held terrible conversations, I could still be pretty. Sad, but it’s true.
I don’t know if it’s with age or what, but it’s definitely something I’m getting better at, especially because I’ve faced my fears so often through holding my workshops and retreats. However, it can still eat me up in an environment I don’t feel entirely comfortable in.
My goal is to use my voice more on here (which I’ve already started doing… a bit). I’ve had a project I’ve wanted to get going with for SO long, which would put my fear of using my voice on FULL display, but I know I need to do it.
But yeah, we all have our insecurities, most of which nobody knows anything about. We can let them paralyse us and let the people who instilled them win, or we can feel those insecurities and do what we were going to do anyway. For the sake of our one, too short, precious life, please choose the latter.🫶🏻#insecurities | Posted on 25/Jul/2024 22:28:50