What happens in the body when you speak up

[00:00:01]:
There’s a moment right before you speak that’s got nothing to do with what you’re about to say now. For me, it feels like a forward momentum, something that’s building inside of me. It’s almost like there’s an urgency there, almost a let’s go underneath the moment. And that’s before I’ve consciously decided anything. Now you might feel it somewhere else, or maybe you don’t feel it at all. Either way, something in you registers that there’s something to say. And sometimes what happens next is a decision to speak. Sometimes it’s overridden before you’re even aware that there was a choice to make.

[00:00:42]:
So this episode explores that half second what’s happening in your body before the words arrive, and why the outcome isn’t always the same. Because I don’t think this is a confidence problem or a how to speak better in meetings problem. I think it’s a sequencing problem. And here’s where it tends to show up. Sometimes it’s in the wiggle. You’re in the meeting and something in the conversation catches. You know this part. You’ve read about it, you’ve worked on it, you’ve been in the room for something close to it before, and you have the thought, yeah, I’ve got something here I could add to this.

[00:01:20]:
And then you notice it. Your finger is just slightly off the table, wiggling in the air. It’s not a raised hand, not even close to it. It’s just a small involuntary flicker. The first attempt at a gesture that never got approval to become anything more. You didn’t decide to do that. You just catch yourself doing it. And somewhere between noticing it and deciding what to do next, it’s already gone.

[00:01:48]:
Your hand’s back on the table, maybe in your lap. The moment’s already someone else’s. Or for you, maybe it’s not the wiggle. Maybe you’re already forming that sentence, running it once in your head to make sure it’s right before it’s worth saying out loud, getting the wording clean. You’ve almost have it, and then someone else is already talking about something else now. And the sentence that you built so carefully, it doesn’t have anywhere to go, you’re still holding it, and the room’s three topics further on. Or you do say something. You open your mouth and you’re actually speaking.

[00:02:29]:
And somewhere in the middle of the sentence you feel yourself taking the edge off it, rounding it out, making it easier to hear than how it was in your head a second ago. You’re mid sentence and already editing, and by the end of it, what came out isn’t quite what you meant. It’s close, but it’s not it. Now, those three things might look like different things. A wiggle, a rehearsed sentence, a softened one, but there’s a good chance that they’re coming from the same place. For a lot of people, there’s something underneath checking what you’re about to say against a standard that has less to do with whether it’s true or worth saying and more to do with whether it feels complete, every angle covered, every objection pre empted before anyone’s even raised one closer to flawless than to thought through. And if you’re nodding along with me right now, hello you gorgeous perfectionist. It might not be the only thing running underneath, but it’s a common one.

[00:03:37]:
And here’s what it tends to be protecting. You’re the one whose ideas are already checked, already dependable. That’s the seat you hold. And somewhere along the way, holding it started requiring more than just being right. It started requiring being right in a way that nobody could push back on every time before you’d let anything leave you as a sentence. Which means that some genuinely good ideas never made it out at all. Not because they aren’t good, because they didn’t clear a bar that was never really about good. And the fear underneath the thing you didn’t say isn’t only I might be wrong.

[00:04:19]:
Even if it’s in there too, it’s closer to once it’s out, it can’t be unsaid. And if it isn’t exactly right, that reflects on the version of you that’s always thorough, always trusted, never the one who needs correcting. Which is why even when you do get a sentence out, something happens in the middle of it. You’re not just editing for accuracy anymore. There’s a second thing running underneath that at the same time, a read on the room. Are they still comfortable? Is this landing easy? Are you still someone people don’t feel like they need to prepare a response for? So the sentence gets rounded on the way out, not because you changed your mind, but because two things were auditing it at once, one for completeness and one for how it’s being received. And both of them outrank the thing you actually meant to say. You probably don’t catch any of this while it’s happening.

[00:05:16]:
You catch it after the meeting ends and your jaw’s been tight the whole time, like you’re biting down on something and you hadn’t noticed that you were clenching it. You might already be hearing from somewhere that you need to be more visible, speak up more, step up more in the room. And that’s confusing because from where you’re sitting, you feel like you are stepping up. You’re the one who’s thorough, who’s careful, who doesn’t say something until it’s right. What’s actually happening is that the mechanism that you built to protect how you’re seen is quietly working against the. The very reputation that it’s trying to protect. That’s not a separate problem, that’s the same one, but from the other side. And it doesn’t care where you are when it runs.

[00:06:03]:
Right boardroom, one on one. A room full of people who report to you. A room where you have no power at all. Same bar, same audit, every single time. So the problem was never the half second before you speak. That gap is universal. Everyone has it. What runs the room is the override inside it, the thing that decides whether the sentence gets to exist before you’re even aware that there was a decision to make on that.

[00:06:33]:
In that same standard, the one auditing every sentence before it leaves you. Well, it builds something. Real work. Nobody has to double cheque behind you. The reputation for being the one who’s checked it, who’s dependable, who’s right. That took building and it did what it was built to do. It also never stopped costing you. It’s just louder in some rooms than others.

[00:06:58]:
In the boardroom, the cost is quiet enough to miss. It sounds like being told to speak up more, be more visible when you already feel like you’re doing exactly that and there’s a second cost sitting right next to it. The next level up doesn’t run on being checked and dependable, it runs on something else. A leader who doesn’t override the half second, who trusts what her voice, her ideas, her own read on a room are already telling her. So rather than sending everything through an audit first, that’s what coherence looks like from the outside. And the bar makes it almost impossible to practise being incoherent. So you stay exactly as reliable and exactly where you are now. In another room, the cost could be higher.

[00:07:51]:
You get home and someone who loves you asks how your day was, and the same audit runs before you’ve opened your mouth. Is this worth unpacking? Do I have enough left tonight to sit inside? Whatever this opens up once I say it out loud most nights, the honest answer’s no. So you say, oh, Fine. Not to shut them out, just nothing left to hand over. But fine said enough times teaches someone to stop asking twice. There’s rarely a single night you could point to and say that’s when it changed. Because it’s slower than that. The people closest to you quietly stop expecting the real answer.

[00:08:35]:
Not because they stopped caring, but because you ran out of what it costs to give it to them. Same mechanism in both rooms. In one, it’s costing you visibility and it costs you that next level. And the other, it costs you closeness. So it was never free anywhere. Some rooms just let you hear the bill sooner. That gap probably never closes. I don’t think that was ever really the goal, even if it felt like it was.

[00:09:09]:
But what’s available instead isn’t a faster path to speaking or less of that gap to cross. It’s something that can exist inside it, that wasn’t there before. Noticing the impulse arrive and then choosing from inside that noticing, rather than the override deciding for you, before you’re even aware there was a decision to make. You don’t have to become someone different to change this. You don’t have to be louder, not more relaxed about it. It’s just something closer to trust and what your own voice, your own ideas, your own read on a room were already telling you before the audit got there. First, for me, that forward momentum still shows up the same way it always did, right here in my chest. Something that feels like my body, compelling me to speak before I’ve decided anything.

[00:10:06]:
What changed wasn’t the sensation, it’s what I get to do with it. I get to choose whether I honour it or override it. It doesn’t happen automatically anymore. And I’ve learned when my body says it’s time to speak, it’s time to speak. So next time you feel that forward momentum, however it shows up in you, that’s the question waiting inside it. Do you honour what your body’s asking or do you choose to override it? Same gap whether you’re in a boardroom or at your own table. If you want to know more about how we work with exactly this inside, revitalise DM me on Instagram tracyctty or send me a message on LinkedIn. The link’s in the show notes.