Say goodbye to public speaking fears

Most advice about public speaking nerves treats the fear as if it’s being generated in the present moment.

As though your body is responding to this room, this audience, this presentation.

So you’re encouraged to practise more, visualise success, remind yourself that nothing bad is actually going to happen. That people aren’t sitting there waiting for you to fail. You're still going to get paid and be able to pay the mortgage. You’re safe.

On one level, this all makes sense. Which is why capable leaders often end up irritated with themselves when the nerves don’t shift.

They can see perfectly well that the situation isn’t dangerous. They know they’re competent. They know the story they’re telling themselves doesn’t quite add up. And yet their body still reacts.

One reason is that what’s showing up now often has very little to do with what’s in front of you.

For my clients, public speaking nerves are always a replay. The body is responding to something it learned earlier, in a different setting, with different people, under different conditions. The current situation is simply what’s bringing that memory back online.

That’s why the fear can feel out of proportion to what’s actually happening. You’re not misreading the room; you’re responding to something that predates it.

Which is also why reasoning with yourself rarely works.

What “safety” means here

If you asked most adults whether they felt “unsafe” when they were criticised, bullied, or humiliated in the past, many would say no. It can sound like an overstatement, particularly if there was no physical threat involved.

But humans aren’t just rational individuals. We’re social animals. We rely on belonging, acceptance, and our standing within the group — first in our families, then with peers, colleagues, and wider communities.

So when someone is shamed, mocked, dismissed, or undermined, something very old responds. Not with a conscious sense of danger, but with an instinctive awareness that being seen or speaking up carries risk. Risk to how you’re regarded. Risk to whether you’ll be taken seriously. Risk to whether you still belong.

Your nervous system doesn’t stop to assess whether that risk is reasonable, outdated, or unlikely to repeat. It recognises a familiar pattern and reacts.

That’s how something from the past ends up shaping how you feel in the present.

Why logic doesn’t settle fear

Think about how fear is often handled early on. A frightened child is told there’s nothing to worry about, that they’re overreacting, that they’re fine.

The fear doesn’t dissolve. What usually happens is that the child learns not to mention it. A different concern takes over — the worry of being dismissed or told off. The original fear drops out of sight of the adult, but it doesn’t disappear for the child. It keeps shaping their behaviour quietly. And now they feel alone and abandoned too.

Most adults do some version of this internally. They talk themselves out of fear, push it aside, or try to override it with logic. And then they’re surprised when their body continues to respond as if something is wrong.

Take the fear seriously

A more useful assumption is this: if fear is showing up, your body has learned that response somewhere.

Often it traces back to experiences where being visible, disagreeing, or making a mistake changed how others treated you. At the time, pushing back may not have been possible. You may have learned that staying quiet, fitting in, or keeping your head down was the safer move.

Your nervous system did exactly what it’s designed to do. It adapted.

Public speaking can bring all of this back online because it strips away easy exits. You’re visible. People are watching. Walking away doesn’t feel like an option. Even if you know you could leave the job or handle the consequences now, that sense of choice often isn’t available at the level where the fear lives.

Which is why restoring it matters.

Try this: two powerful meditation and reflection practices

The following two practices come from my own experience. I was bullied as a child and teenager, and for years the anxiety that emerged from that showed up in ways I didn’t fully understand.

When I started going on longer Buddhist and meditation retreats, I would frequently have nightmares from the second or third days. It seemed that once I had rested well enough from a busy job, deeper patterns would emerge from my subconscious. And because I wasn't rushing to get off to work every morning, I could track what was happening in my dream state.

In the morning meditation sessions, I began working directly with whatever had surfaced, using and adapting techniques from my practice and developing others myself.

Over time, something shifted — not through insight alone, but through repeated, embodied work that helped my nervous system recognise it was no longer stuck in the past when I was choosing to get out of my comfort zone in the present.

Meditation 1: Re-establishing boundaries and choice

This first practice shows your nervous system that you’re no longer trapped in the position you once were.

Only try this if it doesn’t feel overwhelming. If it gets a bit much, open your eyes, go do something nice and message me for some pointers. We don't want you digging up trauma that makes things worse.

Take 5-15 minutes to settle and come into your body. You could try Day 1 or Day 2 from my guided meditation and reflection series "Less Stress, More Impact."

Then bring to mind a situation where you were judged, criticised, or shut down, particularly around speaking, expressing an opinion, or being seen.

This time, imagine arriving as you are now. Calm, present, capable. You stand beside your younger self as the situation unfolds. Take their hand. Say what they needed to hear at the time.

Then, without aggression or explanation, say to the other person: “We wish you well, but we’re leaving now.” Walk away with your younger self to a place that feels safe for them. Let that place be whatever comes naturally.

Ask them what they need to hear from you, in order to feel safe, respected and loved. Thank them and tell them that exactly.

Find a way to say goodbye, and that you'll visit again soon. Let them dissolve into white light, which is then absorbed into your heart. Stay for a minute or two, noticing how your body feels, before opening your eyes.

Write down what you noticed.

You may need to return to this practice more than once. The point isn’t a dramatic shift, but a gradual easing of the charge held in the body. Over time, this shows your nervous system something tangible: you can leave, you can protect yourself, and you will.

Why compassion comes later

Only once this has landed does the second practice become helpful. Starting with compassion often skips over how hard the original experience was, and the body can tell.

This next meditation doesn’t excuse what happened. It simply widens your perspective. If you hear a "no" from your body at any point, that's ok. Just come back to the first meditation.

Meditation 2: Seeing the other person with wisdom and love

Again, take 5-15 minutes relaxing and coming into your body.

Return to the same situation in your imagination, up to the point where you are standing beside your younger self, holding their hand. The other person is doing or saying what was painful.

Pause the scene. With curiosity — the kind you might have for an animal caught in a trap — ask them what happened to them, and whether they want to show you.

A younger version of them appears. They show you something like a nightmare, with a scary monster. You don’t need to define it or make sense of it. You only need to recognise that they, too, were shaped by something.

As the scene fades, ask that younger version what they need in order to feel safe and cared for by you. Give it to them. They dissolve into light and are absorbed back into the version of them who hurt you.

Ask that version the same question. Give what’s needed.

They dissolve into light and are absorbed into your younger self.

Ask your younger self what they need now in order to feel safe and supported by you. Give it to them.

They dissolve into white light, which is absorbed into your body.

Sit quietly for a few minutes. If it feels right, dedicate the practice for the benefit of others in a way that works for you. Then open your eyes, and don’t rush on.

What next?

This work isn’t about eliminating fear or forcing confidence. It’s about rebuilding trust between you and your nervous system.

Public speaking nerves begin to loosen not because they’ve been argued away, but because the conditions that created them are no longer running the show.

Keep practising these two meditations and see what happens.