Confidence begins in the body.

We often think of confidence as something we generate with our minds—an attitude, a mindset, a belief. But confidence isn’t a command we issue from the top down. It’s a physiological experience that emerges from the state of our body; how safe, unsafe, or overwhelmed we feel.

When the body feels safe, connected, and regulated, we naturally experience trust. We trust our abilities. We trust our timing. We trust our place. This trust isn’t built from abstract affirmations—it’s built from embodied experiences of connection: to ourselves, to our craft, to our essence, and to those around us.

Confidence and belief, then, are byproducts of a deeper sense of safety. And safety, in performance settings, isn’t just about comfort. It’s about having access to our full range of skills, movements, adaptability, and expression. It’s about knowing how to return to the body when stress, uncertainty, or challenge pulls us out of it.

So what happens when confidence collapses? When belief disappears? When trust in our own abilities seems to vanish mid-performance? We don’t fight the doubt with bravado. We listen to it as information. We read the signal not as weakness, but as an........

© Psychology Today