Some people find speaking in public so frightening that they'll do almost anything to avoid it, even if that means limiting their progress. But really it's unnecessary to live with such a handicap. It can be readily healed. Overcoming stage fright is simply a matter of gaining self-knowledge and self-control.

To possess self-knowledge is to know who man really is, and what he really is. And true self-control lies in the conscious demonstration of the infinitude of man's capacities as the expression of God.

To really know man, we have to begin with God, for man is God's likeness. God revealed Himself to Moses as "I AM." ^{Ex. 3:14;} Accepting this divine revelation, Mrs. Eddy gives as part of the definition of God in the Glossary of Science and Health, "The great I am; the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal." ^{Science and Health, p. 587;} God is one and All. He is the one and only Ego. This means He is the source of all knowing, seeing, and acting.

Man's function in creation is to express God's allness completely. Man is the expression of God's knowing, seeing, and acting. Christ Jesus, the Exemplar, knew himself to be the exact expression of God, the great I am, the source of all thought and activity. That's why he could say, "I can of mine own self do nothing." ^{John 5:30;} The Christly understanding that he derived all from God was Jesus' self-knowledge.

The eternal Christ, the idea of Truth made plain to human consciousness, is present today to bring to all receptive hearts the correct understanding of God and of man as His expression. When the idea that God is the only Ego dawns on a person, he comes to know himself as the reflection of that one Ego, expressing its qualities individually and completely. He begins to lose the sense of himself as a limited, personal ego, one of many.

Self-knowledge may be thought of in terms of expressing God. Awaking to our true being as God's reflection, we embody, among other moral and spiritual qualities, those of willingness, humility, and trustfulness, together with poise, grace, dignity, alertness, insight, and reason. When these Godlike qualities are welcomed into our thought, they take the place of opposite mortal traits such as timidity, self-concern, and confusion.

True self-knowledge, revealed by the Christ, annuls the self-consciousness that inhibits expression of Godlike qualities. What we usually call self-consciousness isn't really consciousness at all, for it doesn't emanate from the one Mind. It is only the imaginary expression of a nonentity called mortal mind. Is there any need to point out that a nonentity has no self to be conscious of?

Are we worried about the impressions we make? Let the expression of God's qualities make the impressions! What we think of others, not what we think they think of us—this is the important thing. Whatever man, the sparkling evidence of Love, has to give out—this is what we should be conscious of when we stand before an audience.

The Christ, Truth, which Jesus demonstrated, enabled him to know who and what he was—the Son of God, reflecting God's qualities in unlimited measure. It also enabled Jesus to prove his spiritual self-knowledge in human experience. The Christ brought Jesus not only self-knowledge but self-control.

It is natural that when a person establishes his understanding of himself in Christian Science as the expression of God, he exhibits a fresh and joyous sense of dominion. Self-knowledge and self-control always go hand in hand. They are halves of one whole. Mrs. Eddy writes: "Man is God's image and likeness; whatever is possible to God, is possible to man as God's reflection. Through the transparency of Science we learn this, and receive it: learn that man can fulfil the Scriptures in every instance; that if he open his mouth itshall be filled—not by reason of the schools, or learning, but by the natural ability, that reflection already has bestowed on him, to give utterance to Truth." ^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 183.}

It is plain that self-control has an important part to play in overcoming the symptoms of stage fright. Through self-control we demonstrate that perfect poise does not tremble involuntarily, that good humor is not soberly self-concerned, that intelligence does not stammer forgetfully. Through self-control we bring out in experience what we are honoring in thought. We show we actually are what we know ourselves to be.

While self-control is the natural outcome of self-knowledge, it is seldom put into practice without effort. Just thinking about willingness, poise, and alertness is not enough; we should strive to live these moral qualities as far as we know them. The effort to abandon such traits as fear and self-depreciation needs to be as strong as the effort to act with courage and self-respect. The Christ-idea of man's true selfhood leads the way and rewards the effort with achievement.

One overcomes stage fright, with all its inhibitions and limitations, as he prayerfully opens his thought and life to the Christ, Truth, and to the self-knowledge and self-control it brings.

Who is man? The son of God. What constitutes his being? The present expression of "the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal." And what is the scope of his capabilities? Infinite.

There is nothing we cannot do through Christ.

Because he hath set his love upon me, therefore will I deliver him: I will set him on high, because he hath known my name.

Psalm 91:14