Brain Freeze Busters: Stop the Freeze Before it Starts (mini-sode)

Brain freeze doesn’t happen in the moment—it starts long before we step up to the mic. In this mini-sode, Lauri explores how to prevent that icy mental shutdown before it ever takes hold. She dives into the hidden ways we set ourselves up to freeze and how to shift from freeze to flow by setting clear intentions, organizing thoughts effectively, and practicing in a way that builds trust instead of tension. If you’ve ever worried about going blank, this one’s for you.

TAKEAWAYS: 

1. Your focus shapes your reality – If you fixate on forgetting, you’re more likely to freeze. Shift your attention to presence and connection instead for a more flow-filled experience.
2. Intention is everything – Setting a clear intention for the energy you want to create will help guide your words and ease your nerves.
3. Structure and practice build trust – Organizing content in 3s and practicing in a way that builds presence (not rote memorization) helps prevent those “going blank” moments.

Story Magic
A Soulful Speaking Playshop for loving rebels on a soul-driven mission.

Join me for Story Magic — a live, interactive Soulful Speaking Playshop where you’ll learn powerful secrets from the ancient art of theatre for telling engaging, dynamic stories.

Chapters

• 1:52 How & Why Brain Freeze Starts Before You Speak
• 3:27 The Power of Intention
• 4:14 Practical Strategies: The Rule of Threes & Practicing for Trust

Transcript

Lauri: 1:08

A while back I shared a simple way to cure brain freeze when we're speaking. Now I want to go back and add on to that by talking about how we can prevent that cold brain freeze speaking thing from happening in the first place. So we're going to continue to get to the root and back it up to before the talking even begins, because brain freeze starts way before the moment in the speech or the event that it happens, like the choice to go to the 7-Eleven in the 1970s in the first place when I was a kid, and get the popsicle, and then the choice to eat the popsicle so fast that I gave myself brain freeze Choices. Preparation If you've got soul suckers and inner critics and protector parts focused on what might go wrong, I'm afraid I'll forget. I'm afraid I'll forget. I'm afraid I'll forget. You're setting yourself out on that course while you're still preparing, before you even get in the room. That's that river rafting and trying not to hit the rocks thing again, which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. Your mind is on the possibility of forgetting rather than on where you are in the present moment. That's that law of attraction thing. By focusing on the possibility of forgetting or freezing, we do it even more. Notice how it feels in your body when you're thinking I hope I don't forget, I hope I don't forget, I hope I don't freeze, just like an um episode a while back. Some people say um to cover up the freeze. They don't realize it and then they start thinking I hope I don't say as many ums and then they say more. When your attention is on the freezing and the forgetting, it creates a tightness that creates a vortex that we can't get out of. More tightness equals more freezing, and we definitely can't get out of it and speak soulfully because at least half our brain is on the possibility of screwing it up instead of on connecting to and serving the people in the room, instead of on the transformation that we want.

Lauri: 3:34

When, on the other hand, you set an intention for the vibe you want to create in your audience and then even start to use silences to lead them on that experience, that is a whole different ballgame. Set an intention, feel, watch, listen for that intention happening. As we're in conversation with them, your inner critic may be saying I'm worried, I don't know my topic. You actually do. Your true self knows in each moment what you want to say and how you want to say it. So it's about building muscles, of trusting yourself.

Lauri: 4:14

To help with that, you can organize your content by threes. Good friend and colleague, meryl Shaw, used to speak all the time about the power of threes. The gist is that we are neurologically wired to remember things in threes. Threes are sticky beginning, middle and end red, white and blue. That is going to help both you remember and your audience remember, and then practice. Practicing does not mean that you don't know your stuff. Speaking is very similar to taking a book which is in the written form and translating into a movie, which is a verbal form. You're taking some notes and some lived experience, gathering it and translating it into a format which is a talk. If you practice in this way not by reading, not by burying your face in your slides so to prevent brain freeze from even happening in the first place, set an intention, organize your content in threes and practice. Practicing in this new way creates trust, habits of trust, big guns, muscles of trust. Eventually, try it out and let me know how it goes.