Step into Your Power As A Public Speaker
Written by Melissa Andrada, MSc (mel - they/them)
Edited by Dr. Bree McDaniel, Psy.D. (she/her)
An Embodied Trauma-Informed
Approach to Voice and Leadership
foundational introduction
Public speaking is a core workplace practice, yet 77% of the general population fears it. For many, it exceeds our fear of death. Yet, regardless of our discomfort with sharing our voices in large group settings, public speaking is a critical leadership skill — whether sharing a memorable introduction, influencing senior stakeholders, pitching for funding or inspiring people to take action on a social cause.
I was painfully shy as a child, seldom sharing words in group settings. Through years of intentional inner work, therapy and caring allyship, I became COO of a VC-backed startup in London and eventually, a professional public speaker sharing stories of confidence and transformation with tens of thousands people and organizations throughout the past decade.
In 2020, amidst the height of the pandemic, I was in a devastating car accident that led to the painful passing of my beloved father Tito Pamplona Andrada. The loss of one of my greatest loves in life impacted my ability to fully use my gifts on stage and my capacity to speak when I so longed to hear him speak.
“Extraordinary grief is an
expression of extraordinary love.”
This Theory of Change on Stepping Into Your Power As A Public Speaker is in honor of my father. It has become my life’s work to use my voice to help others heal and reclaim their voices. Our approach to voice at Fairground goes beyond AI and traditional public speaking training, bringing a trauma-informed lens rooted in the latest research in somatics, neuroscience and clinical psychology.
Our living Theory of Change is based on:
Lived Experience & Case Studies
1,000+ keynotes, workshops & learning experiences
100,000+ people
Field & Desk Research
100+ community surveys
50+ peer reviewed sources
10+ expert interviews
What does it mean to step into your
power as a public speaker?
For my colleague Dr. Bree McDaniel and me, this means Coming Home To Ourselves. You have everything you need within you and within us. You are enough, we are enough. We are all worthy of seeing and being seen. We are all worthy of speaking on stage. You are supported by community.
Public speaking can uncover self limiting stories and beliefs
Public speaking can activate overwhelming anxiety and emotions
Public speaking can bring up feeling alone and not enough
There is a different way forward, we can rewrite and embody a new reality…
Public speaking can connect us with our most powerful authentic expressions of selves
Public speaking can teach us how to connect to unshakable resilience and compassion
Public speaking can teach us how to cultivate deeper belonging where no one gets left behind
So how do we connect with our inherent
personal and collective power as
speakers and leaders?
CONTENT
1 - MIND: Reframe
2 - BODY: Breathe
3 - CULTURE: Listen
Principle for Coming Home To Ourselves
Mind: Reframe
Develop a healthy relationships
with your thoughts
“I’m not good enough to speak on stage.”
Sound familiar? You’re not alone in these fears and anxieties. We want to listen and hold space for our inner critic, as it’s a primal survival strategy, courtesy of our automatic nervous system, intended to keep us safe and protected. Whilst it’s important to hold space for our inner critic, we want it to take the back seat, instead of the front, inviting a new narrative journey into being.
We can reframe our inner narrative on public speaking by taking a moment to pause to notice our automatic thoughts and offer alternative thoughts that bring more confidence and compassion. As you’re preparing for your presentation, you can spend time freewriting in a journal or processing with a therapist or coach to get to get to know your inner critic (s) and offering more self-empowering affirmations.
Reframe Framework: Automatic to Alternative Thoughts
Alternative Thoughts
How can you reframe your thinking?
“I’ve already earned my team’s respect. Making mistakes is human.”
With dedicated practice over time, our alternative thoughts will become our automatic thoughts. According to research, cognitive restructuring – the capacity to reframe our thoughts – can reduce anxiety by as much as 60%. You can re-enforce these alternative thoughts by making them tangible and visible to the eye -- place them on your phone, your computer, your bathroom, your fridge. Make it a consistent – ideally daily — ritual, recite it aloud to yourself before and after a presentation.
I literally serenade my inner critics by singing and playing ukulele at the beginning and end of the day with “Somewhere over the Rainbow.” This strategic practice, rooted in music therapy, instantly connects me to timeless belief and unshakable joy, particularly before important client presentations and keynotes.
By developing a practice of self awareness and reframing, a new inner narrative of public speaking is possible. According to research, 87% participants with high self-efficacy were better able to manage public speaking anxiety. When we believe in ourselves, we are more likely to feel more calm and confident on stage – and speak our truths with authenticity and boldness.
Principle for Coming Home To Ourselves
Body: Breathe
Develop a practice of healthy relationships with our nervous systems and emotions
The act of speaking publicly is an act of vulnerability. We are letting ourselves see and be seen. When we speak at scale, it puts pressure on our automatic nervous system, potentially evoking the sympathetic nervous system, responsible for the ‘flight-or-flight’ response, or the dorsal nervous system, responsible for ‘freeze’ response.
Note. This image was created by Aldebaran Healing in 2023 to demonstrate how Polyvagal Theory works.
Before speaking, you might feel your shoulders tighten, your heart beat faster, your breath shorten, your palms get sweaty. You might feel the rise of big, overwhelming emotions: anxiety, fear, shame, grief, anger.
Welcome to being human. Welcome to being in a body.
The good news is similar to our automatic thoughts, we can take a mindful pause to offer alternative embodied responses through bottom-up nervous system regulation techniques that include deep diaphragmatic breathing, humming and singing.
Breathing will Make you a More Powerful Speaker
Your breath is one of your most important leadership and public speaking assets. It is the cornerstone for presence, energy and voice. Research shows mindfulness practices, which includes intentional breathing, reduces stress, improves focus and increases emotional resilience. While you’re reading this, an invitation to take a few minutes to sit in silence and simply just breathe, making your exhalation longer than your inhalation.
PRACTICE / STRATEGIC PAUSE
-
We invite you to take a strategic pause, and center into a comfortable seat or stance, as if you’re about to present over Zoom or on stage.
An invitation to do a body scan, noticing what sensations and emotions are emerging in your nervous system from your feet to the crown of the head, coming with compassionate non-judgement. You can stretch out your arms over head or shake out at the arms and shoulders to release tension and stress before speaking.
We invite you to breathe in deeply through the nose filling up the belly, the lungs, the throat, making an audible exhalation, perhaps making sighs and sounds to release more tension.
Notice: How do you feel?
When your exhalations are longer than your inhalation, it activates the parasympathetic nervous system, the system responsible for sleep and rest. When you also make sounds and sighs with your exhalation, it can also support in releasing stuck energy and difficult emotions. I like to imagine inhaling in care and support, while exhaling anything that no longer serves me.
PRACTICE / BREATHING
-
Inhale deeply for count of 4
Hold the breath for count of 6
Exhale deeply for count of 8
Repeat 3-4x
Notice: How do you feel?
If you’re experiencing ‘nervousness’ whilst in the very moment of speaking in public, pause and breathe. An invitation to speak as slowly as you can. It can also be helpful to place your hand on your heart, pause after each sentence and make eye contact with a warm face over video or in person. You can also drink a sip of water to recenter. You’ve got this and it’s okay to be human.
Note. This image was created by Accident Chiropractic Care in 2023 to demonstrate how the vagus nerve works
For me, singing is my favorite form of breathwork and aftercare. It is a powerful tool for harmonizing the nervous system before and after a presentation. Singing activates the vagus nerve, the main nerves of the parasympathetic nervous system that help regulate a stress response that can occur on stage. Singing can help speakers anchor into the present moment before going on and off stage, lowering cortisol levels, releasing endorphins and dopamine. Music has the uncanny ability to bypass the natural defense mechanisms of the brain, with the potential to heal unconscious negative patterns around public speaking and leadership. Singing will make you a more powerful public speaker even if you think you can’t sing.
You can deepen the breath as a leadership asset by developing an intentional daily breathwork practice -- whether singing and humming, pranayama, box breathing or holotropic breathwork -- to support in releasing stuck emotions and harmonizing your nervous system to get holistically present on stage. I take inspiration from facilitators and collaborators in my community who include breathwork guides Libby Craig and Holly MacWilliams, yoga teacher Ramon Kinkel and leadership coach Heather Murphy. Find a practice and teacher that resonates with your specific needs and voice.
Principle for Coming Home To Ourselves YOUR BODY MATTERS TOO
Culture: Listen
Develop a community practice of
listening and psychological safety
According to the heavily cited Google’s Re:Work Study based on 180 teams and 200+ interviews, Psychological Safety is the most important attribute of a high performing team. This study defines Psychological Safety as, “Teams feel safe to take risks and be vulnerable with each other.” Psychological Safety begets powerful speakers.
When we don’t feel safe, it can discourage people from using their voice for fear of making a mistake, rambling, saying the wrong thing, using the word ‘um’, being judged, feeling rejected.
Safety largely begins with listening. The practice of embodied listening rewires the nervous system. Our brains literally change when we feel safe, seen and supported. Feeling connected to others is a key for a joyful and calm nervous system.
I take inspiration from the concept of mutual aid in group therapy to co-create a psychologically safe container where the group of speakers and listeners support each other. A single individual can have an impact, yet our impact becomes multiplied the more we hear and allow others to speak, expanding our listening and vocal range for what we may be used to.
“Multipliers invoke each person’s unique intelligence and create an atmosphere of genius—innovation, productive effort, and collective intelligence.
”
We can create safety for speakers of all abilities and experiences.
1. Create organizational values and team meeting guides that encourage a culture of psychological safety around public speaking:
Embodied listening. Come with embodied presence and listening, open to different perspectives and stories.
Take space, make space. If you tend to speak less, take space. If you tend to be the first to speak, make space. Be mindful who's speaking, not speaking. What might be the words left unsaid?
Mistakes may happen. An invitation to have grace and compassion for mistakes and anxieties, knowing none of us are perfect. We are simply just human.
2. Create a public speaking practice group of 6-15 people at work rooted in the principles described above.
Focus on play, over perfectionism and performance. Root into joy and strengths – what are people excited to speak about?
Come with a trauma-informed lens. Make speaking invitational, rather than forcing people to speak. Empower people to participate in diverse ways that feel safe with their nervous systems – whether simply listening, writing over chat or talking in small groups. Go at the speed of trust, practice consistently.
“Co-regulation creates a physiological platform of safety that supports a psychological story of security that then leads to social engagement.”
3. Bring more intention and psychological safety to the events, workshops or training you’re hosting.
Ask your speaker — both internally and externally: What do you need to feel safe and supported? Is there anything you need to name to honor your own humanity? It’s okay to feel nervous, we’ve got you.
Create a spatial circular set up of chairs in the room that honors the voices of all people in the room, rather than reifying the keynote speaker.
Design psychology matters. Bring a caring open energy to the space through windows, plants, flowers, lighting and artwork that grounds the nervous system. It will not only support the speaker but also the listeners.
Co-design a panel of keynote speakers that resonate with the varied needs of your organization and your people. This distributes the emotional labor and power across people, making the art and science of public speaking more sustainable.
It is our collective responsibility as managers, investors, leaders and citizens to nourish a public speaking culture where people feel safe, seen and supported, regardless of how well they present and perform. The burden of building capability as a public speaker often falls on the individual, yet we have the collective potential as a society to help every person feel safer in their voice. Enduring creativity and change are born not from a sole speaker, but from a choir of speakers calling in a new harmonic reality of communication and leadership.
In conclusion
Our hope one day is that public speaking is no longer a collective phobia, but rather a shared collective labor of courage and compassion. Like playing a team sport, tending to a garden or launching a new project out into the world, it takes consistent and dedicated progress.
Our hope one day is that we nourish so much holistic safety in our bodies, organizations and communities…
We can listen with full presence and care
We see a wider range of voices, bodies, abilities on stage
We can authentically show up as ourselves and speak our truths on stage
No matter where you are on journey, I’ll leave with you the words of my beloved late father who once shared with me:
“You were born to
be loved and accepted.”
And I would like to add,
“And nothing has changed.
You were born to speak on stage.”
References
Aldebaran Healing. (2023, June 11). Polyvagal theory and the autonomic nervous system https://www.aldebaranhealing.co.nz/articles/polyvagal-theory-and-the-autonomic-nervous-system
Ahmed, W. M. M., Abdalmotalib, M. M., Mohammed, G. T. F., Siddig, M. M. Y., Salih, H. S., Ahmed, A. A. A., & Abdullateef, S. S. (2025). Public speaking anxiety and self-efficacy among Sudanese medical students: A cross-sectional study. BMC Psychology, 13, 600. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40359-025-02958-9
American Psychological Association. (2012, July 8). What are the benefits of mindfulness? Monitor on Psychology. https://www.apa.org/monitor/2012/07-08/ce-corner
Bresman, H., & Edmondson, A. (2022, March 17). Research: To excel, diverse teams need psychological safety. Harvard Business Review https://hbr.org/2022/03/research-to-excel-diverse-teams-need-psychological-safety
Cacciatore, J. (2017). Bearing the unbearable: Love, loss, and the heartbreaking path of grief. Wisdom Publications.
Edmondson, A. (2022, November 22). Leading in tough times: HBS faculty member Amy C. Edmondson on psychological safety. Harvard Business School. https://www.hbs.edu/recruiting/insights-and-advice/blog/post/leading-in-tough-times#:~:text=People%20who%20feel%20psychologically%20safe,environment%20of%20low%20interpersonal%20fear.
Fleming, R. (n.d.). Music and the mind. Renée Fleming. Retrieved September 22, 2025, from https://reneefleming.com/advocacy/music-and-the-mind/
Furmark, T., Tillfors, M., Everz, P., Marteinsdottir, I., Gefvert, O., & Fredrikson, M. (1999). Social phobia in the general population: Prevalence and sociodemographic profile. Social Psychiatry and Psychiatric Epidemiology, 34(8), 416-424. https://doi.org/10.1007/s001270050163
Google. (n.d.) Understanding team effectiveness. Re:Work. https://rework.withgoogle.com/en/guides/understanding-team-effectiveness#introduction
Neumann, E. (2023, January 26). Chiropractic care for vagus nerve health. Accident Care Chiropractic. https://accidentcarechiropractic.com/chiropractic-care-for-vagus-nerve-damage/
Traeger, L. (2020). Cognitive restructuring. In M. D. Gellman (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Behavioral Medicine (pp. 498). Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-39903-0_166
van der Kolk, B. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. New York, NY: Penguin Books.