For anyone who has frozen during a difficult conversation or felt their body lock up when trying to speak.
The physical cost of running on empty
For a long time, my experience of energy was all or nothing. As a person with ADHD, I was full of drive and enthusiasm right up to the moment I crashed into exhaustion. I knew I needed to move my body a lot, but I had little awareness of what else it might be trying to tell me.
My relationship with communication was similarly tangled. I had quick thoughts with branching tangents, a tendency to use far more words than necessary, and a love of performance. Difficult circumstances in my early life had made it hard for me to express vulnerable emotions directly. Instead, I found solace, emotional release, and physical regulation through singing. It was my primary resource long before I had the language to describe it.
Yet running on adrenaline without knowing when to pause eventually took its toll. Along with burnout, pushing through physical limits resulted in a vocal fold injury that took a prolonged period of rehabilitation to heal. That injury forced a reckoning. It became the catalyst for learning how to listen to my body, unpick old survival habits, and communicate with greater presence.
Reading the warning at the base of the skull
Most of us develop protective habits against feeling unsafe long before we realise we are doing so.
In somatic practice, this is often described as body armour: holding chronic tension in the musculature as a physical shield against distress, long after the immediate threat has passed. When I began working with a practitioner to support my recovery, learning to track these sensations was eye-opening. By paying attention to what my body was doing when I felt exposed, I began to see the connection between physical sensation, emotion, and action.
I learned, for instance, that whenever I feel vulnerable or anticipate conflict, the muscles at the base of my skull tend to shudder or vibrate. It is not a subtle cue. It has shown up during tense meetings, difficult personal conversations, and job interviews.
It is my nervous system's initial expression of the freeze response – a survival reflex designed to immobilise us when fight or flight feels impossible. It is the physiological equivalent of a child covering their eyes, hoping that if they cannot see the threat, the threat cannot see them. In a job interview or a high-stakes conversation, that reflex can be debilitating, locking our vocal cords and clouding our thoughts.
So the vibrating sensation is something of a warning that lets me know it's time to take action that will re-regulate my autonomic nervous system – to do something that will bring a more calm, rational, present version of me back into the driving seat.
What threat does to our thinking
Taking action in those moments does not require a dramatic ritual. Often, it looks like pausing to take a couple of diaphragmatic breaths, feeling the solid floor beneath my feet, and consciously moving my neck to unfreeze.
All speech and performance are physical acts. In the middle of a presentation, an audition, or a demanding conversation at work, staying connected to the parts of our brain that can reason, listen, and articulate ideas clearly depends on our physical state. When the brain senses a threat, it can flood the body with stress hormones designed for emergency physical survival. In that state, the autonomic nervous system – the network regulating our involuntary survival and stress responses – takes over, and we frequently lose access to our most nuanced social and cognitive functions.
The intensity of that physical reaction varies widely between people. It can be shaped by past experiences of trauma, the cultural and familial messages we absorbed growing up, our neurotype, or simply whether we are tired, hungry, and under-resourced.
Cultivating clearer communication tends to require a willingness to stay in contact with our bodies under pressure, alongside the practical capacity to steady the nervous system. This does not mean pursuing an artificial state of permanent calm, nor does it require adopting a rigid display of stoicism. Suppressing our reactions usually works only until the physical strain catches up with us, emerging later as physical exhaustion, chronic illness, or unexpressed resentment. The intention is simply to expand our tolerance for the physiological sensations of vulnerability, so we have more choices about how we respond.
Learning to stay in the room
Slowing down enough to tune into physical sensations provides the foundation for navigating conversations that matter to us.
It is completely understandable to want to float through the working day avoiding conflict, awkwardness, or the risk of rejection. When conversations touch on sensitive topics – whether that involves setting a difficult boundary with a colleague, addressing an unequal dynamic, or raising an unexpressed grievance – the instinct to protect ourselves is strong. Many of us fall into familiar habits of either avoiding the interaction entirely, becoming defensively prickly, or people-pleasing to keep the peace.
Yet avoiding these conversations usually leaves underlying tensions to fester, creating cultures of silent frustration and eroding trust over time.
Creating the internal capacity for courageous communication means learning how to stay present in our bodies when the stakes feel high. That might mean taking five seconds of silence before answering an uncomfortable question, letting our breath settle into the lower abdomen rather than rushing to defend ourselves. It might mean noticing the physical impulse to over-explain or apologise, and choosing instead to let a clear sentence land and sit in the room.
When we give ourselves permission to feel our physical responses, work with our nervous systems, and speak from a steady base, our relationships shift. We become capable of listening without bracing for impact, stating our needs with clarity, and remaining connected to others even in the midst of disagreement.
Working together
If you experience performance anxiety, freeze responses, or find it difficult to speak up when the pressure rises, somatic coaching can help you stay grounded and articulate your thoughts with confidence.
Explore 1:1 support on my Coaching page, learn how breathwork regulates the nervous system on my Breathwork page, or book a free discovery call to discuss where we might start.