Do you hate speeches?

Have you ever been nervous before a speech? I am assuming you have, but can you pinpoint exactly why you felt that way? There are as many answers to this question as there are people who get nervous before a speech. Some people, like me, might be well prepared and are confident about not screwing up, but still manage to be nervous before a speech! I have realized that my irrational fear is on a completely different logical level than most reasons for being nervous. I am actually nervous about being nervous!

My level of anxiety is a subset of a certain level of nervousness, however, this subset is that same higher level of nervousness, thus going in an endless loop. To better understand the recursive nature of my anxiety, consider a movie within a movie. The original movie would be on a higher logical level as the movie within the movie. Basically, I could be nervous about being nervous about being nervous about being nervous about being nervous…

Maybe we have a whole set of other emotions that are on lower levels of the logical hierarchy. Realizing these undiscovered emotions might help you reason them out and eventually overcome them. I think that really irrational phobias like Pogonophobia (fear of beards) might stem lower level emotions. This is why it is harder for a person to think rationally to overcome their phobia.