I did a scary thing.
I submitted my application to TedEx.
This has been a goal of mine for a number of years. I love listening to TedEx talks and I believe I have a noteworthy arsenal of topics I could submit.
But I have to admit, it scares me. It scares me even though I have taken courses including The Big Talk Academy with Tricia Brouk who specializes in getting people on big stages. She led us participants through a whole series of questions to help us decipher what it is we wanted to talk about.
I often knew what I wanted to talk about…but my biggest challenge was, and still is, what she called the ‘Through Line”. In a nutshell, “so what??”
I went through some challenging weeks last fall as I went through the program really becoming vulnerable about who I was, who I am and who I wanted to present myself to be. 
We had many a topics, one of which was about body pain being a betrayal to self. I wanted to talk about how my childhood criticisms had left emotional scars on me. My injury and hip pain was a result of this unresolved emotional experience I had. I wasn’t equipped with coping skills as a child, or rather I was taught the same coping skills my parents had as products of living through war. You don’t talk about emotions or you may get killed.
You just stayed strong on the outside and suffocate the emotions.
I even came up with the Contradictions of Self graphic as an aid to that discussion. But then this dwelled on the negative, and well, TedEx talks are supposed to be inspiring! Yes, healing the emotional trauma released the physical pain, yet that was not TedEx worthy yet.
So I created a different graphic, The Elements of Health. 
It seemed much more positive, yet I never quite figured out how that would work with the issues I wanted to share in a TedEx talk.
I wanted to talk about my adrenal exhaustion. I wanted to talk about childhood criticism. I wanted to talk about ACE’s, the Adverse Childhood Experiences and how childhood criticism should be one of those categories! I wanted to talk about body pain being messengers of unresolved emotions and misalignment to who we are.
But that through line….So what??
I did the next scary thing after presenting to the Big Talk Academy group. I applied for Speakers Who Dare! It was not me applying for a TedEx, but it was pretty darn close. I made the first cut. I was so excited!
Now I had to make a 2 minute video and submit that. OMG, that is hard! As I practiced, I realized how hard it is to be animated to your audience of just you on your phone. I made a video of that experience and what I learned. It is not the same as making a quick Facebook Live video!
And I waited.
I did not make the next cut which I was disappointed with, yet I still knew that somewhere I was ready to apply for a TedEx talk. But where? When?
I asked for feedback and was told you need to be more ‘bold’. Huh?
Then another said my ‘through line’ was lacking. 
And so I have been feeling a bit lost in this message for a few months. And an opportunity came to apply to TedEx Farmingdale. I know one of the producers from Facebook and a mutual group. I reached out to them with a question about my idea. And because he is the producer, he provide me with a vague answer yet a really helpful response.
It needs to be “more objective rather than subjective.” Which means it has to have science behind it rather than just my own experience.
I have spent the past week literally binge watching TedEx talks on criticism, ACE’s, PTSD, childhood trauma and so much more. I felt I needed to listen and learn more about that ‘so what’ through line.
As I pondered the application, I got a call from a friend who immediately said “You’re holding back! You are trying to make it sound nice rather than speaking what you really think. You know your message is bigger than that!”
And so was born the Ted Idea of Childhood Criticism Is A Health Hazard.
Here is my 1 minute video that I had to submit with a summary of my TedEx Talk application.
I know the harder work is ahead of me if I am selected for this TedEx talk. I am proud of myself for actually completing the steps and applying for a TedEx talk. If I don’t make this one, I know there will be another.
Yeah me, I applied to TedEx