When you stand up to speak in front of an audience, what, besides the inevitable stage fright, do you experience?  One important part of your stage presence is how you feel about your body.  I was a chubby boy and have never quite managed to shake the sense that I should weigh about 10 pounds – OK maybe 15 – less than I do.  That’s just over a stone, to the English.  As dieters on either side of the Atlantic can attest, losing that much weight is a challenging prospect.

So that’s the baggage I carry with me on stage.  I’m guessing that you may be carrying similar baggage – whether it’s weight or a lack of fondness for a particular body part, or a sense that you should be taller, or cuter, or younger – the list of ways in which we find ourselves lacking is endless.

Carrying baggage is just the beginning.  How you feel about yourself and your body also affects the way you stand, the way you project, and the way you take the stage.  I’ve seen so many variations on the way people walk up to the podium over the years that the variety is bewildering, yet they fall into two main categories:  people who love their bodies and people who seek to hide some aspect of their presence.

So that’s what it comes down to:  how do you walk on stage?  Are you trying to hide something, or are you standing proud?

If you feel like you need to hide something, then a recent study may offer some help.  It turns out that if you practice breathing, mindfulness, and body awareness (paying attention to your heartbeat, for example), you can improve your sense of self.

I would recommend this practice highly for those with something to hide, because it’s one of the biggest detractors to you becoming your best, most charismatic self on stage.  Charisma, as I’ve said before, is emotional focus, and it’s very hard to focus on an emotion in order to make yourself compelling if what’s also on your mind is that your bum is too big.  That secondary nagging concern pulls you away from your primary focus and makes you appear self-conscious and weaker than you should.

This is not easy work.  Self-image and dislike of aspects of one’s body are deep-seated, difficult, and emotionally fraught parts of your psyche.  They typically go back a long way and involve shaming or pain in being told or discovering that some part of you is less than perfect.  So, a few weeks of mindfulness will not cure a real problem.  But if the study’s right, then you can help yourself and your stage presence by paying attention to your breathing and heart.

I lost 25 pounds in one week when I was 14 from a serious viral infection that the doctors couldn’t identify and that simply ran its course over the 6 or 7 days it had me in its grip.  When I first got up, I felt like I was floating for a few minutes, so much lighter did I seem.  I’ve never put all of that 25 pounds back on.  Over the years, I’ve put on about half.  And yet, even though I still weigh less than I did before my illness, I can’t shake the feeling that I should be more svelte.  Body image and baggage is a persistent issue and one that you’ll be dealing with most of your life.  If you do lose the weight, or work on whatever bothers you about yourself, be prepared for the change not to feel real.  If you speak regularly, then be aware that you’ve got further work to do to shed the emotional baggage as well as the physical stuff.