Trusting Yourself Again
Even After a Lifetime of Doubt
Imagine lying in bed the night before your wedding - your body screaming at you that you’re about to make a massive mistake. This wasn’t your typical case of nerves. It was primal. Full-body. Everything in me was saying: No. My chest was tight. My stomach churned. I couldn’t sleep. I could see it in my sister’s eyes too - she didn’t think this was a good idea. But I ignored it.
Why? Because I didn’t want to let anyone down. Guests had travelled. Things were booked. What would people think? So I suppressed it. Smiled. People-pleased my way through it. I married someone I knew in my bones I wasn’t meant to be with. If I could go back in time, I would have told myself to listen. To trust the knowing, even if it disappointed others.
That wasn’t the only time I ignored my intuition.
Years later, I was in a boardroom full of senior leaders, months into a corporate job that I had thought was the perfect fit. I’d positioned myself as calm, confident, and articulate. I had researched my material; I’d polished my PowerPoint. I expected the meeting to be a success.
It wasn’t.
I felt it before I said it. My throat tightened. My chest clenched. I wanted to speak up. But I didn’t. I followed the deck. Played it safe. And afterwards, I was congratulated: “Well done.” But inside, I was furious. Furious with myself. Furious with the game. Because I had known, truly known, there was a better, fairer, bolder solution. One that reflected the true mission of the project. But I hadn’t said it.
That evening, I found myself questioning everything again. Why did I stay quiet? I knew it in my body. Why did I play small?
It’s one of those moments that doesn’t look like much on the outside - a polite thank-you at the end of a presentation - but it sticks with you.
Because really, it’s about a deeper failure: failing to trust yourself when it matters most.
That wasn’t even the first time I’d betrayed my knowing. I have too many examples - I could fill a book with them. (In fact, I did.)
Years later, in another season of overwork and striving, I finally confessed to my boss that I was struggling - overwhelmed, burnt out, barely keeping my head above water. For a moment, I thought I might be met with understanding. Instead, she agreed with me. Then lifted my workload - all of it. She sacked me. Just like that.
I was numb.
I’d spent so much effort and energy being the exceptional employee. Always smiling. Never saying no. I thought asking for help was me being brave. Instead, it cost me my job. And yet, deep down, I’d known for months that the pace was unsustainable. My body had been screaming. But I kept overriding it, afraid to rock the boat.
Why Our Truth Gets Buried
We live in a world wired to train us to defer. From childhood, we’re reinforced to please authority figures. As women, in particular, we learn that being helpful and “nice” is not just welcomed - it’s expected. We’re told to be tidy, compliant, and uncontroversial. We’re rewarded for accuracy and penalised for disruption.
But. Those conditioning systems don’t make us better. They make us safer. Safer to survive. Safer not to rock the boat. And yet, the greater cost - to ourselves, to our relationships, to our impact - is more dangerous.
When we ignore the voice inside us, we lose clarity. We lose energy. We lose momentum. We rehearse obedience at the cost of our purpose.
And the saddest part? We carry the sense not of being wrong for staying silent but necessary. We internalise the belief that our own truth is too inconvenient, too disruptive, too wrong. I had told myself I was just being a ‘Drama Queen’.
What Trusting Yourself Looks Like
Trusting yourself isn’t a magical zone you arrive in one day. It’s a muscle you build. And it starts small.
It looks like:
Naming a feeling out loud: “I’m just… not sure about this.”
Owning your uncertainty: “I’ve got an idea - but I’m scared of sharing. So here it is anyway.”
Stopping a project that doesn’t feel aligned, even if it frustrates someone else.
Letting your voice shake when you’re nervous, because you also feel a gift burning inside you.
It looks like giving yourself permission, authenticity, respect, and the tools to follow your own compass, even when it lands you somewhere uncomfortable.
Enter Rooted Truth - and the Summer of Sovereignty
Those moments of betrayal - on the night before my wedding, in the boardroom, in burnout - weren’t isolated. They were part of a pattern. I’d had whispers of intuitive knowing many times before… moments when I felt the truth but said nothing. Every boardroom. Every family dinner. Every relationship negotiation.
The breakthrough came when I started honouring those quiet signals. Not always making them louder, but giving them permission. Saying them to my coach. Saying them to my partner. Writing them down. Testing them in conversation.
That’s where the Rooted Truth immersion begins. It’s a lived practice, not a pep talk. It’s about women coming together online. It’s about rooting back into your body, your inner authority, your clarity.
It’s the first key in the Summer of Sovereignty series:
Rooted Truth – Trusting Yourself Again - 11th July
Sacred Boundaries – The Art of the Gentle ‘No’ - 18th July
Emotional Alchemy – Feel It to Lead It - 25th July
Desire Over Duty – Vision-Led Action - 1st August
Shadow Integration – Reclaiming the Parts You Hide - 15th August
Magnetic Visibility – Being Seen on Your Terms - 22nd August
Devotional Discernment – Becoming Your Own Authority - 29th August
Each key is designed to build the internal architecture of leadership that doesn’t just speak - but speaks from home.
What We Do in Rooted Truth
Rooted Truth isn’t about big ideas. It’s about small acts. Done repeatedly. Together.
Here’s what happens:
We begin with presence. A short centring ritual to shift from doing to truth-telling.
We surface conditioned patterns. We recognise when we lost ourselves - and why.
We re-attune to internal signals. Curve your attention inward: body, breath, imagination.
We practise speaking from clarity. In private prompts and small breakout rooms.
We anchor into ritual. A practice that you can incorporate into every morning, meeting, or moment of hesitation.
We land in the Integration Lounge. Time and space to digest, ask questions, claim accountability.
By the end: self-trust isn’t an aspirational concept - it’s familiar territory.
A Systemic Step: Sow It Widely
Yes, we start to reclaim personal trust. But this work is empty if it doesn’t reach beyond the individual.
Here’s how we build change at scale:
Self-trust in leadership means permission within teams. When you hold your truth, it invites others to hold theirs.
We activate a ripple effect. One woman trusting herself gives space to the next who’s forgotten how to speak.
Anchors become culture. Shared language, rituals, presence, ripple into more psychologically safe environments.
Collective shifts happen. When personal reclamation feeds systemic transformation.
If we want healthier workplaces, more generative relationships, and embodied leadership, the root must be trusted individuals.
You Don’t Have to Be Perfect to Start
If you care - deeply - about making the world a better place… but you’re still waiting for permission to say the thing you know is right…
You’ve already done the hardest part: you listen. That means you’re halfway home.
Now, the invite is to root into your listening, trust it, and speak it.
Here’s what to do next:
Join us for Key 1: Rooted Truth – Trusting Yourself Again (Friday 11 July, 12:00–1:30 PM (UK) + Integration Lounge).
Or join the full Summer of Sovereignty journey. Each immersion builds on the last.
Bring your real-life boardroom moment - or your wedding night truth. Your voice is sore because it’s real, raw, and aching to embody integrity.
This won’t be easy. It won’t always feel comfortable. But comfortable never builds empires of embodied leadership.
Rooted Truth is where sovereignty begins.
Rise Above is where you live it.
Sovereign Self-Leadership is where the world follows.
🔗 Join Us for Key 1: Rooted Truth
🌞 Join the full Summer Series
A Note on Commitment and Reward
If you decide to join Rise Above after attending one or more of the Summer of Sovereignty immersions, I’ll refund the full cost of any summer sessions you’ve taken. It’s my way of honouring your deeper commitment — and rooting into the truth that your voice, growth, and leadership are worth investing in.
Your voice is truth.
Your truth is power.
It’s time to root yourself - and rise.
The world would be a changed place if we listened to and acted on our intuition more. 💡 🌍 thanks for sharing. 🙏
Ahhh, I could see myself in much of this. Actually, I remember playing with my intuition a lot in my 20s and 30s, even younger as a child, small things like when I just knew there was going to be an accident, mishap, or I was going to lose something, but I ignored it, and then it happened. I slowly began to listen in, but not until I'd already made major life decisions along the way.