Why Struggling to Speak Up May Be More Than A Confidence Issue—And What Your Inner Child Has to Do With It
Let me tell you a story about how I found my voice.
Have you ever found yourself in a meeting, about to speak up… and then suddenly, it’s like your throat tightens, your brain blanks out, and the moment just slips away? You know your stuff. You’ve worked hard to be where you are. You’re smart, capable—and in many ways, confident. But still, when it’s time to speak your mind, something inside you locks up. And you don’t understand why.
That used to be me.
I would go into meetings fully prepared—ready to contribute, ready to showcase what I worked on and add value to the discussion—but every time I tried to jump in with my comment, I felt a glitch. It was like the thought was clear, I knew what I wanted to say… and yet I just couldn’t say it. My mind was fixated on finding the exact right words to start, to sound confident, and somewhere in that process, my mind got stuck in a loop and the moment was gone.
Has this happened to you? You’re dying to make a smart comment in the group discussion, but you hesitate. As you get stuck in overthinking, someone else raises the same point and others are impressed. And you think to yourself: Why did I doubt myself so much?
That happened to me more times than I can count. Even when my managers encouraged me to speak up more—and sometimes I succeeded—I couldn’t seem to create consistent change. I was frustrated. Embarrassed, even. I knew I was usually confident and even assertive in other situations. I knew my comments were valuable.
But… why couldn’t I just speak? What’s wrong with me?
Is it just fear—or something deeper in my subconscious?
I blamed the male-dominated environment where I worked. I thought maybe I was just intimidated by loud, assertive men. And if I wanted to move up the ladder, I’d need to mirror the behavior of those men in senior management.
So I tried. I asked for tips from mentors. I tried power posing. I gave myself pep talks before meetings. I told myself to be bold, take up more space, “lean in.” But none of it stuck. And the more I tried, the more it felt like I was looking in the wrong place.
I kept telling myself it was a confidence issue. A surface-level thing. Something a bit of journaling and some mindset tweaks could fix. Let me ask you this: Have you ever tried to improve just one tiny thing about yourself… only to end up unraveling something much bigger?
I only wanted to be confident speaking up at work. But when I decided to try RTT, I was forced to dig deep and face an uncomfortable truth: It wasn’t about work. Or the men in the room. It had everything to do with a little girl who had learned that speaking up meant punishment.
What I discovered in RTT changed everything
I didn’t know what to expect when I first tried Rapid Transformational Therapy (RTT). I was curious. I had this sense that my struggle wasn’t just a mindset issue—it was something rooted deeper in my system. I thought it would be simple—maybe I’d reconnect with my confident self, anchor that into how I show up in meetings, and move on. Well, I did reconnect with my confident self… But first, I had to meet the part of me that had been holding her back.
The session brought me to tears.
Because I didn’t just find a limiting belief—I found a scared little girl trying to be understood. She stood boldly in front of her mother, trying to explain herself. To be seen. To be heard. But her mother didn’t want understanding. She wanted obedience. Her confidence was mistaken for defiance. Her voice was met with anger. Her explanations triggered punishment.
So she learned: Keep your thoughts to yourself. Stay quiet to stay safe.
And here’s what I realized in that moment was, my silence in meetings wasn’t a mystery—it was a survival strategy.
The hidden rules of the subconscious mind
The subconscious doesn’t speak in logic. It speaks in protection. It’s constantly scanning for danger—and when it finds a pattern, it writes rules to help you survive.
Even if those rules don’t make sense now, they made sense back then. And we carry them with us long after we’ve outgrown them.
My brain had internalized a rule that sounded like this:
Stop. Are you sure what you want to say is worth it? Think carefully.
If you say something wrong or can’t explain yourself perfectly, you’ll get punished.
If you can’t speak perfectly, don’t speak at all. Avoiding punishment is better than having a voice.
This wasn’t a confidence issue. It was a protection issue. My nervous system had been trying to keep me safe from a danger that no longer existed.
What is RTT, and how does it actually help?
That’s the power of Rapid Transformational Therapy (RTT)—instead of providing you with a generic solution, it taps into the power of your subconscious mind to understand the root cause of why you're stuck.
RTT helps you uncover the emotional memories and unspoken rules that were created—often in childhood—when your mind was doing its best to protect you. Rules that say things like “Don’t speak unless it’s perfect,” or “It’s safer to stay quiet.”
The thing is, these beliefs don’t just float around as thoughts. They become embedded in your behavior. They guide your decisions, your reactions, and your sense of what’s safe.
In a session, RTT gently brings those rules to light—so you can understand where they came from, and more importantly, rewrite them. You’re not just learning how to be more confident. You’re healing the part of you that learned it wasn’t safe to be seen or heard in the first place.
That’s what happened to me. RTT didn’t give me a new script to recite in meetings. It helped me reclaim my voice by showing me why I lost it to begin with.
How healing your inner child can improve your confidence
After that RTT session, I reconnected with my inner child. I remembered the version of myself who used to speak with ease—the one who was curious, expressive, and full of energy. The one who hadn’t yet learned that speaking could come with consequences.
Most importantly, I made a commitment: to reparent that scared little girl. To create a safe space inside myself where she could show up as she is. I stopped forcing myself to sound confident. I stopped rehearsing every sentence in my head. Instead, I began encouraging her to speak—gently reminding her that she’s safe now, that she holds the power, and that people actually want to hear what she has to say.
And while it didn’t magically erase all fear, something real shifted. I felt calmer in my body. Present. Safe. My words began to flow more naturally—not because I had mastered some script, but because I no longer felt like I had to earn the right to be heard. And when that old doubt still surfaces (because it does, sometimes), I know how to respond. Not with shame, but with presence, with compassion for the part of me that once needed silence to survive.
That’s the thing about confidence: it’s not something you perform. It’s something that emerges when your inner world feels safe enough to be seen.
Healing your inner child isn’t about putting on a brave face or faking it till you make it. It’s about recognizing the protective patterns you’ve inherited—and giving yourself the safety, compassion, and clarity that little version of you never had.
It’s about becoming the woman she needed back then—And finally letting her speak freely again.
What if you’re not broken—just following old survival patterns?
So if you’re stuck in the loop of overthinking…if you keep freezing up even though you know what you want to say…if you’ve tried everything and nothing sticks…
Maybe it’s not that you’re doing it wrong. Maybe you’re just following an outdated rule. You’re not broken. You’re not lacking confidence. You’re not too sensitive.
You’re doing exactly what your subconscious believes will keep you safe.
And now? You get to choose something different.
If you're curious how to start shifting those limiting beliefs and rewiring your subconscious for confidence, I share practical strategies in this post: How to Reprogram Your Mind for Confidence and Success. It’s a helpful next step if you’re ready to explore mindset work in your daily life.
P.S. If any of this resonated with you—if you’ve been wondering whether something deeper is getting in your way—I invite you to book a free RTT consultation. No pressure. Just a safe space to explore what healing might look like for you.
Because your voice was never the problem. It’s time to bring her back.
