Have you ever had something you desperately wanted to say... but stopped yourself?

Maybe someone hurt your feelings and you immediately thought:

“I'm probably overreacting.”

Maybe you wanted to say no, but heard yourself say yes.

Maybe you knew something didn't feel right, but talked yourself out of it.

Or maybe you've spent so much of your life worrying about what everyone else thinks, feels, wants, and needs that you're no longer sure what you want.

For many adult children of dysfunctional families, nobody has to silence us anymore.

We learned how to do it ourselves.

In this week's Tammy's Takes, I'm building on one powerful statement Denis Dubois made at the end of our conversation:

“Never let someone silence your voice.”

But what happens when the person silencing your voice... is you?

Growing up in dysfunction can teach us to read the room, avoid conflict, keep other people happy, minimize our needs, question our feelings, and change who we are depending on who's around.

Eventually, we can become so accustomed to overriding ourselves that we lose touch with one of the most important relationships we'll ever have:

The relationship with ourselves.

In this episode, we're talking about why people pleasing and self-silencing can become survival patterns, why trusting yourself can feel so difficult after childhood dysfunction, and how to begin reconnecting with your authentic voice.

I'll also walk you through a simple practice I call noticing your “first answer.”

Before you explain.

Before you justify.

Before you worry about disappointing someone.

Before you tell yourself you're being too sensitive.

What did you originally think, feel, need, or want?

Your first reaction isn't always the answer you should act on. But instead of automatically dismissing it, you can become curious about it.

Because rebuilding self-trust doesn't happen overnight.

It happens in tiny moments when you begin to notice yourself, listen to yourself, validate yourself, and eventually act in alignment with yourself.

And here's the question I want you to take with you:

Are you adjusting your behavior depending on who's in the room... or are you abandoning yourself?

Maybe someone taught you long ago that your feelings were too much.

Maybe speaking up caused conflict.

Maybe your emotions were dismissed.

Maybe you learned that keeping everyone else happy was safer than expressing what you really thought.

That may explain why you learned to silence yourself.

But it doesn't have to decide how you live now.

Your voice is still there.

And you deserve to hear it again.

💜 READY TO START FINDING YOUR VOICE AGAIN?

If you're thinking, “Tammy, I don't even know what my authentic voice sounds like anymore,” I'd love to talk with you.

Maybe you're constantly people pleasing, second-guessing yourself, struggling with boundaries, or realizing you don't even know what you want because you've spent so much of your life taking care of everyone else.

Book a FREE Clarity & Calm Call with me.

We'll talk about what's showing up in your life, where these patterns may have started, and what it could look like to begin rebuilding your self-trust, boundaries, confidence, and authentic voice.

💜 BOOK YOUR FREE CLARITY & CALM CALL WITH TAMMY

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As an international inspirational speaker, NLP Practitioner, Trauma-Informed Coach, Neurofit Trainer, and Best-Selling Author, I bring both deep personal experience and professional training to the work I do. I believe in prevention, not just intervention — and use a body, mind, and spirit approach to guide others toward becoming the happiest, healthiest versions of themselves.

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Well, hello everybody, and welcome back

to another episode of Tammy's Takes.

2

So if you listened to yesterday's episode

with Denis Dubois, there was something

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he said at the top of the very end that I

haven't been able to stop thinking about.

4

I asked him what one piece of advice

he would leave everybody with.

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He said, "Never let someone

silence your voice."

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And I absolutely love that.

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But the more I thought about it,

the more I realized something.

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For so many people that grew up in

chaotic households, dysfunction, and

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utter turmoil, nobody has to silence us.

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We learned how to do it ourselves.

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Think about that for a second.

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How many times have you had something

you wanted to say and you didn't?

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How many times have you known that

something didn't quite feel right,

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but you talked yourself out of it?

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How many times have you wanted to say

no, but you heard yourself say yes?

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Or somebody hurt your feelings and

instead of saying, "Hey, that hurt

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me," you told yourself, "It's fine.

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I'm probably overreacting.

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They didn't mean it that

way, or maybe I deserved it.

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It's not worth starting something."

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And then you swallowed it, and

that's what I wanna talk about today.

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Because I think sometimes we believe

losing our voice means somebody

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literally told us to shut up, but

that's not how it usually happens.

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Sometimes losing your voice

happens little by little.

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You learn that certain emotions

make people uncomfortable.

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You learn that asking for

something might create conflict.

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You learn that disagreeing with

somebody might make them angry.

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You learn that being

easygoing keeps the peace.

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And most importantly, you learn

that other people's feelings

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are more important than yours.

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And eventually, you don't need anybody

else to tell you to be quiet because

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your nervous system does it for you.

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Before you can even consciously think,

"Maybe I shouldn't say that," your

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body has already scanned the room.

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Is this safe?

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Will they be mad?

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Will they leave?

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Will they judge me?

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Will I look selfish?

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Will I hurt their feelings?

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And suddenly you're not asking

yourself, "What do I actually think?"

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You're asking yourself, "What do I need to

say to make sure that everything is okay?"

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Those are two totally different questions.

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And when you spend years doing that,

something happens inside of you.

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You start losing touch with

what you actually think.

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You stop thinking about what you want,

what you need, what you believe, what

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feels right to you in the moment.

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And I see this all the time with

the people that I work with.

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Someone will say to me, "Tammy,

I don't know what I want."

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And I don't necessarily

believe that they don't know.

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I just believe that we've spent so

many years overriding what they want

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that they can't hear it anymore.

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Their voices didn't disappear.

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They just stopped trusting their

voices, and that's a huge distinction.

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Because if you spent your whole life

believing that your feelings are too

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much, your needs are inconvenient,

your perception is wrong, or

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keeping everyone else happy is your

responsibility, of course you're

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going to start questioning yourself.

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Denis talked about this in our

conversation when he described struggling

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not only to trust other people, but

even to trust your own judgment.

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And I said that sometimes it can

feel like your brain has been

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gaslighting itself for years.

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That's what happens when you've been

trained to override your own experiences.

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. Finding your voice does not mean I'm

going to say whatever the hell I want,

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and everybody else can deal with it.

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That's not what I'm talking about.

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Your authentic voice isn't always

the loudest voice in the room.

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It doesn't need to attack people.

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It doesn't need to prove anything.

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Sometimes your authentic voice

is actually really quiet.

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It says, "No, that doesn't work for me.

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I think I need some

time to think about it.

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That hurt my feelings.

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I don't agree with you.

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I need help," or maybe,

"This is what I want."

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And for somebody who grew up in

dysfunction, those little sentences

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can feel absolutely enormous because

you're doing something your nervous

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system has spent years and maybe

even decades trying to prevent.

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You're choosing self-connection

over self-protection.

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And I wanna give you a

really simple exercise today.

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You know how I like these simple

exercises, things that you can take,

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you can do, you can implement, and

you can change something today.

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First thing I want you to do is

something I call the first answer.

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Not the answer you give everybody

else, the answer that happens

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inside of you before you edit it.

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Someone asks, "Do you wanna go?"

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Your first internal response is, "No."

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Then two seconds later,

"Well, I probably should.

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If I don't, they'll be disappointed.

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I haven't seen them.

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maybe they'll think…"

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And you start filling in the story.

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I want you to stop right there.

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What was the first answer?

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Someone asks you for a favor.

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Your body immediately tightens,

then your brain starts, "It's

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really not that big of a deal.

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I can squeeze it in."

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Stop.

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Again, stop.

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What was your first response?

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That is your gut response.

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What did your body say before your

people-pleasing brain got involved?

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Or maybe somebody else says something

to you and you immediately feel hurt,

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then it comes the thinking, "Oh my

gosh, they probably didn't mean it.

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I'm just being too sensitive."

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Again, stop.

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What happened before you

invalidated yourself?

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That's the practice I want

you to get used to doing.

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I'm not saying your first reaction

is always right, and it isn't.

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Sometimes our first reaction

comes from fear or old survival

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wiring, and we absolutely wanna

learn how to recognize that too.

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But instead of immediately dismissing your

first gut reaction, get curious about it.

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So what did I tell myself immediately?

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Why did I tell myself I wanted to say no?

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Why did my stomach tighten

when they said that?

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These are the questions you

wanna start asking yourself.

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Why am I afraid to tell this

person what I really think?

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What am I actually afraid is going to

happen if I say what I actually need?

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Now we're getting somewhere,

'cause those are the questions

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we wanna be asking ourselves.

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Because you're starting to, at

this point, have a relationship

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with yourself again, and rebuilding

self-trust doesn't happen overnight.

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Because one day you don't suddenly

wake up and go, "Wow, I'm incredibly

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confident where I hadn't been

for years and years and years."

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It happens through these tiny, tiny

moments when you notice yourself,

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when you listen to yourself,

when you validate yourself.

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And then when it's appropriate,

you act in alignment with yourself.

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Every time you do that, honestly, you're

teaching your nervous system something

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really tiny, but it gets bigger,

and it grows, and grows, and grows.

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You're teaching yourself that your voice

matters, that your feelings matter,

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that your needs are allowed to exist,

and that you don't have to disappear

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to stay connected to other people.

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So I want you to think

about something else, too.

135

How many versions of yourself exist

depending on who's in the room?

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There's a version around your parents.

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There's a version around your partner.

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There's a version of you at work.

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There's a version around certain friends.

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There's all of these different

versions of yourself, and you behave

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differently in every single one of

those environments, and that's normal.

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But here's the question.

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Are you adjusting your behavior

or are you abandoning yourself?

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Because those aren't the

same things, my friend.

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If I walk into a professional

setting, if I'm at work, obviously

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I'm going to behave differently than

I'm going to if I'm sitting on the

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couch with my girlfriends, right?

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That's just social awareness.

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But if I'm afraid to have an opinion

because someone might reject me, if I

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can't set a boundary because somebody

might be disappointed in me, or if

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I have to pretend I'm okay when I'm

not, that's something worth exploring.

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And this is where Denise's

statement becomes so powerful.

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When he said, "Never let someone silence

your voice," I would add, don't keep

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silencing it for them after they're gone.

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Maybe somebody taught you a long time

ago that your voice was dangerous,

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that using it was dangerous.

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Maybe somebody dismissed your

emotions on a regular basis.

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Maybe somebody laughed at your dreams.

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Maybe somebody told that you were too

sensitive, or you were too much, or

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too dramatic, or too needy, or too

loud, or just whatever they told you.

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Maybe that speaking up and using

your voice caused conflict.

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Maybe nobody ever asked you what

you thought in the first place.

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That might explain why you

became quiet, but it doesn't

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have to decide how you live now.

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And I wanna leave you with a

little challenge this week.

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Once a day, I want you to ask

yourself, "What do I actually think,

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need, feel, or want right now?"

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Don't immediately do

anything with the answer.

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Don't judge it.

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Don't explain it.

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Don't decide whether it's reasonable.

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Just listen.

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Because before you can speak your truth to

anybody else, you have to become somebody

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who is willing to hear it yourself.

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And maybe that's where finding your

authentic voice actually begins.

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Not by becoming louder, not by becoming

more assertive overnight, but by

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rebuilding enough self-trust that when

that little voice inside of you says,

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"This matters to me," you stop immediately

telling yourself why it shouldn't.

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You were born with a voice.

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Life might have taught

you something different.

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Life might have taught you to question it.

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Dysfunction may have

taught you to hide it.

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survival may have taught you to change

it depending on who was in the room.

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But that little voice, that

little voice is still there, and

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you deserve to hear it again.

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You do.

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And if you're sitting here thinking,

God, Tammy, I don't even know what my

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authentic voice sounds like anymore,"

that's exactly the kind of thing

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we can start unpacking together.

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Maybe you know you're people-pleasing.

191

Maybe you're constantly

second-guessing yourself.

192

Maybe you struggle with boundaries

or don't even know what you want

193

anymore because you've spent so much

of your time and so much of your

194

life taking care of everybody else.

195

Book a free call with me.

196

Let's talk about what's showing up in

your life, where these patterns may have

197

started, and what it could look like to

begin finally rebuilding your self-trust

198

and reconnecting with the person

underneath all of those survival patterns.

199

So I really, really hope this resonated.

200

I hope some of you are tuning in,

and you're going, "Oh my gosh, I

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don't want to be like this anymore.

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I know.

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I've read the books.

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I've listened to the podcasts.

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I've done all the things."

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Maybe you're missing just one thing.

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Reach out, and let's talk about it.

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Love you guys.

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See you next week.