"I know I should feel confident, but I just don't."
If you've ever said this - or heard a client say it - you're experiencing the gap between what your thinking mind knows and what your body feels. It's one of the most frustrating paradoxes in personal transformation work.
But what most people don't realize is the confidence you're looking for isn't something you need to build from scratch. It's something your body already remembers.
The Confidence That Never Left
Recently, a client came to me wanting to feel more confident in social situations. She could point to progress, like when she'd felt more relaxed in a recent meeting, and noticed herself getting more comfortable in groups. But the moment she went to speak up, her chest would tighten, her breath would catch, and all that cognitive knowing would disappear.
"It's exhausting," she told me. "My mind knows I'm capable, but my body hasn't gotten the message."
This is where most confidence-building approaches fall short. Positive affirmations, evidence of past success, cognitive reframing - these all work at the level of your thinking mind. But that's not where confidence lives. It lives in your nervous system, in your somatic memory, in the felt sense your body holds.
Where Protective Patterns Come From
Here's what typically happens: at some point, usually early in life, you had experiences that taught your body to be cautious. Maybe speaking up led to criticism or rejection, or just being visible felt unsafe. Your body learned to protect you by creating tension, nervousness, and hesitation.
And the crucial part is that pattern was appropriate then. Your body was doing exactly what it was designed to do - keeping you safe.
But now, as an adult in different circumstances, that old protective pattern gets in the way of what you actually want.
The Body Remembers What Came Before
During our hypnosis session, I guided my client to notice what was actually present in her body - with no intent to change it or force it away, but simply to acknowledge it.
"There's tightness in my chest," she said quietly.
"Yes. And it's been working so hard to protect you. Just acknowledge it. Thank it for trying to keep you safe all these years."
This is the key: we don't fight the body's protective patterns. We honor them first. Otherwise, we just create more resistance.
Once she could be present with the tightness without trying to make it wrong, we did something powerful: we moved back in time to access a somatic memory from before the protection was needed.
"I'd like you to remember a time when speaking up felt natural. Easy. Maybe when you were quite young, before the nervousness started."
Her face softened immediately. "I'm about five. I'm in the backyard, singing at the top of my lungs. Making up words. Not caring if they make sense."
"And notice what that feels like in your body. Where do you feel that freedom?"
Her hand moved to her chest. "Right here. It's warm. Open. There's space."
This is the magic: her body hadn't forgotten confidence. It was stored right there, underneath the tightness. Rather than building something new, we were uncovering something that had always been there.
The Metaphor That Changed Everything
As we continued working, moving between past moments of ease and envisioning her confident future self, something spontaneous emerged from her subconscious.
"It's like a river," she said suddenly. "When I was young, I was just flowing. But then someone put rocks in the river. The water is still there, trying to flow, but it has to work so hard to get around the obstacles."
I leaned in, recognizing the breakthrough moment. "And what if the water could remember that it's powerful enough to flow around the rocks?"
Her breathing shifted - deeper, more rhythmic. "The water never stopped," she said, tears in her voice. "It's always been flowing. I just forgot."
Her entire body released. Her shoulders dropped, her face smoothed, and the tightness dissolved.
There was no new confidence to create. She was just actually remembering what her body had always known.
Why This Approach Works
When we only work at the cognitive level - trying to think our way to confidence - we're asking the conscious mind to override the body's protective patterns. The body will always win that battle.
But when we access somatic memory - when we help the body remember what confidence actually feels like physically - we're not fighting anything. We're revealing what was always there.
That warmth my client felt in her chest was a real somatic memory her body accessed when given permission. The river metaphor came directly from her own subconscious, offering her a way to understand this truth: confidence flows naturally when we remember we can flow around obstacles.
What This Means for You
Whether you're a practitioner working with clients or someone seeking your own confidence breakthrough, this is the key insight:
Confidence isn't built - it's remembered.
Your body already knows what ease feels like, what freedom feels like. Your body knows what it's like to express yourself without second-guessing. Those neural pathways still exist, and that somatic memory is still accessible.
You just need to help your body remember.
Key Takeaways for Practitioners
- Start with the body, not the mind. Ground clients in somatic awareness before trying to create change.
- Honor protective patterns first. Thank the nervousness, the tension, the hesitation for trying to keep them safe. This reduces resistance.
- Use temporal work to access "before" states. Guide clients back to a time before the protection was needed. Help them locate the somatic sensation of ease.
- Listen for spontaneous metaphors. When clients offer their own images (like the river), that's their subconscious speaking. Build on their metaphor, don't override it.
- Create somatic anchors. Help clients identify where they feel confidence in their body so they can access it outside the session.
Ready to Learn Hypnosis?
If you're a practitioner (or aspiring hypnotist) who wants to facilitate deep, body-centered transformation work like this, explore our professional hypnosis certification training.
We teach the systematic 5-PATH® methodology that creates the conditions for these kinds of spontaneous breakthroughs - combining direct suggestion, age regression, somatic awareness, and metaphor work into a complete approach.
Learn more about hypnosis training at Cascade Hypnosis Center: CascadeHypnosisTraining.com/masterclass
The next time someone says "I know I should feel confident but I don't," remember they're telling you something important: there's a split between their thinking mind and their body's wisdom. You don't need to try to convince their mind of anything.
Your job is to help their body remember what it already knows.
How to Become a Professional Hypnotist
If this article inspired you to explore hypnosis as a career, we invite you to:
Download my FREE book: “Can You Be a Hypnotist?”
Join our professional hypnosis training masterclass: CascadeHypnosisTraining.com/masterclass
Learn about our next Hypnosis Certification Course
