Do you turn to jelly at the thought of having to make a speech in public? How do you know this is scary? For that matter, how do we know anything is anything?

Our brain clocks up what things mean from learned experience, which gets tucked away in memories to help us in future. It also attaches a feeling to the memory, an ‘e-motion’ to get us to do things. Either to do more of it or to get away from it to safety.

Memories and emotions are very useful then. And they happen unconsciously, and fast. They have to, to keep us safe.

The trouble is that most of our formative experience about what happens when we do things in public happens before our mind is capable of better judgement. When we move from the bosom of our family to a very different public at school. Where we learn that other kids can laugh at us if we fluff reading a book out loud or we can feel humiliated if a teacher makes an example of us.

Early experience primes us unconsciously to avoid or not enjoy doing things in public. We’ll learn to stay safe or seek safety, which can become self-perpetuating.

Our unconscious learnings don’t need to stay fixed though. I use Cognitive Hypnotherapy to help people to uncouple from the meanings they’ve had up to now. The key is working with the unique way your mind works.

To help with public speaking, there are two main ways I help people. Firstly by reframing your past unconscious learning using visualisation techniques and hypnosis suggestions. We then work together to build tools you can use in the moment of presenting, to get any remaining nerves under control and make the most of the opportunity.

One of the first things I will teach all my clients with any sort of confidence issue is simply how to breathe stress away. There are free instructions and an audio download here

Lynne Wilkins is a Cognitive Hypnotherapist and Career Coach who sees clients in London, Cambridge & Bedford.
You can contact her on 020 3740 6640 or 07887 992979 or email lynne@ ienableyou.com or via her website