Reflection: Becoming More Aware of How I Show Up

I come by “drama” honestly.

I’m a trained speech-language pathologist and coach. I grew up with a mother who was a teacher and who also loved acting, she was the star of many local community productions. And once, during a reading, I was told that in another lifetime I performed for the troops as a singer and dancer. I share this partly with humor, but also with truth. There is something in me that loves expression, presence, and connection. Broadway might have been a stretch, but the desire to communicate, to move people, to share something meaningful, has always been there.

Over the past 30 years as a speech-language pathologist, brain health educator, and wellbeing advocate, I’ve had many opportunities to speak, facilitate, and even emcee events. I led the Health Foundations Speaker Series and helped create conferences focused on brain health and nutrition. I loved orchestrating those experiences, thoughtfully crafting the environment from lighting and sound to scent, food, and small take-home gifts. Creating spaces where people could feel engaged, supported, and inspired brought me real joy.

Recently, I co-led a workshop and later watched the recording. And I froze.

There I was, sharing my anchor words for the year, and yet I could see it clearly. I wasn’t anchored in them at all.

What I noticed was familiar. When I present, especially on Zoom, speaking to a screen of names rather than faces, I can slip into a kind of performance mode. It is still me, but amplified. More facial expressions. More hand movements. As a communication expert, I know that body language matters. But something felt off. I didn’t look as grounded as I wanted to feel.

I started asking myself some honest questions.

Why do I repeat the same idea using different words?
Why does it feel like I want to be seen a certain way?
And why, beneath it all, do I still need to remind myself that I am enough?

The truth is, I am enough. Exactly as I am.

I have professional training. I have decades of experience. I have lived a full, complex, real life. That matters. I matter.

This year, I am focusing less on fixing and more on observing. Observing myself. Observing my nervous system. Observing the energy in rooms, conversations, and relationships.

We are all energy. We are all connected. And the body does not lie.

When something rises inside of us, tension, fear, sadness, defensiveness, it is not a flaw. It is a message.

Over the years, I’ve become more aware of these messages and I’m still learning. I pause. I use the Power Pause Tool. I try not to react immediately, even though my nervous system sometimes wants to. I notice when my sympathetic system turns on, when I slip out of ventral vagal safety into fear or self-protection.

Recently, when I felt devalued by a family member, I didn’t react. Instead, I spoke internally to the vulnerable part of me, reminding her that she was safe, cared for, and enough. That moment felt like growth.

Change doesn’t happen all at once. Old neural pathways are powerful. They’ve been reinforced for decades. Sometimes we catch ourselves mid-pattern, doing the very thing we hope to shift. And that doesn’t mean we’ve failed. It means we’re aware.

I’m 58 years old and I’m still working on my “stuff.”

And honestly, I think that’s what makes us strong and beautifully imperfect. The willingness to keep noticing. To keep softening. To keep evolving. To help others while continuing to grow ourselves.

Maybe awareness isn’t about becoming someone new.

Maybe it’s about remembering who we already are, and choosing to meet ourselves with a little more honesty, compassion, and grace.

If something in this reflection stirred a quiet recognition, trust that. Much of my coaching work is about creating space to listen beneath the noise, to reconnect with the wisdom of the body, and to remember the deeper truth of who we are. When we slow down and become aware, guidance often reveals itself.