290. The self-compassionate speaker
Ready to stop beating yourself up and start supporting yourself as a speaker?
In this heartfelt episode I sit down with psychologist, wellbeing expert, and author Dr. Hayley Quinn to explore what it really means to become a self-compassionate speaker.
From pre-speech nerves to post-presentation self-criticism, this conversation dives into the emotional reality of public speaking — and how to navigate it with more kindness, regulation, and self-trust.
Dr. Haley shares practical tools for calming the nervous system, reframing anxiety, softening the inner critic, and developing a compassionate inner voice that supports rather than sabotages.
We Explore:
The difference between self-compassion, self-care, and self-love
How anxiety and excitement can feel almost identical in the body
The “threat system” and why speakers often go into overdrive
How to develop a kinder inner voice
Why there is no “one right way” to prepare for speaking
Transcript
Hello, welcome back to That Voice Podcast. Hopefully you can only hear my voice right now in my ears, I have the sweet background sound of incessant pile driving. We've got construction happening across the road and it has been a constant for the last three days. My goodness, I do not know if it's a form of torture, but it should be because it is quite the disruptive sound to be in the background.
So this week it comes at a good time. We're giving ourselves a nice, warm hug. We are doing something for our future self. We are committing to being self-compassionate speakers. But how do we get there?
You know, I used to be someone who really beat myself up over speaking it like became part of the whole thing, go and speak, beat myself up. And so many of my clients reach out to me because they didn't like who they were as a speaker. It didn't feel good. They were feeling burnt out. It wasn't fun. And so today it's my absolute pleasure to introduce Dr. Hayley Quinn. She's a friend and a mindset and wellbeing expert, now expert in the true sense of the word. She has the knowledge, the qualifications, and the lived experience to help us take care of ourselves and thrive without burning out. And it's that voice podcast. So we are focusing on how to become a self-compassionate speaker.
And just before we dive in, I'm doing something that I have not done in over two years running a free online class. It's called Speak to Be Remembered. I'll be sharing live what you can do to become a memorable speaker. The link to register is in the show notes. I really hope to see you there. It'll be another two years before I decide to do it with a free class. Okay, let's bring in Dr. Hayley Quinn.
Sally:
Dr. Hayley Quinn. Welcome to That Voice Podcast. Great to have you here. New author from Self Neglect to Self-Compassion. I know this isn't a video podcast, but I'm holding up this gorgeous purple covered book here. Congratulations.
Dr. Hayley:
Thank you so much, and thanks so much for having me on as well, Sal.
Sally:
So let's get straight into it. What is the difference between self-compassion, self-care, and self-love?
Dr. Hayley:
Right, good question. I guess there's, when we think about self-compassion can be an element of self-care, I think self-care is a, is a much broader topic for that. And self-love can be part of what's involved in self-compassion. But I think we need to be careful that we don't mistake self-compassion for self-love. What we need to understand around self-compassion is the compassion piece is having a sensitivity to suffering. So whether that's in ourselves in self-compassion or in others in compassion in general, with then a commitment to alleviate or prevent that suffering. So it's really about moving towards the things that are challenging for us and taking action to do something that's gonna be helpful, not harmful when we're thinking about compassion.
Sally:
Right? So a lot of people listening to this podcast are moving with fear towards public speaking. So how can they show some self compassion when all of those feelings of, I'm not good enough, I can't do this, that come up both before the speech and often after the speech as well. How can we bring some self-compassion to it?
Dr. Hayley:
I think that's a great question. And you know, I think first of all, it's acknowledging that lots of people have a fear of public speaking. It's one of the most common fears that research has found. So acknowledging that for yourself that that's okay. But also one of the things I think that can be important to distinguish as well is anxiety and excitement can sit very similarly in the body. And I know for me, I grew up with a lot of anxiety. And if I had that feeling sort of, you know, in that sort of just sitting at the top of your gut kind of feeling, I would automatically label that as anxiety. But what can be helpful is to actually ask yourself, is this anxiety or is it perhaps excitement? Because they can situate and feel very, very similar. So it might actually be that you're excited to go and speak about something, or it might be that you're, you're anxious, or it could be both.
Sally:
And regardless of what it is, how can we show self-compassion towards it?
Dr. Hayley:
So the acknowledgement that what you're doing is challenging and it's bringing up difficult feelings for you, if that is anxiety, we can tune in and regulate ourselves, actually focus in on the breath. Now, again, I'll caveat this with that can be really difficult for some people. So it could be that you need to work on this so that it's something that you can do. But actually using our breath to settle and downregulate our nervous system can be really, really helpful. We can also remember to speak to ourselves in a tone of voice that is kind, a tone of voice that is friendly and say things to ourselves that might be helpful. I know for me, whenever I'm going to do a training or a workshop or or speak somewhere is I always remind myself that I'm going here with the best of intention. My intention is to be helpful.
My intention is to provide people with something that's going to be useful and that's the best I can do. Like go with this best intention, things might go wrong. You and I have spoken about this. You and I have both experienced this where you're talking and perhaps you drop something or something happens that you didn't expect, you can't control those things. Sometimes those are gonna happen, but reminding yourself that I'm gonna go, I'm gonna do the best that I can. I'm a human being. Mistakes might be made, but I'm okay. I've got this and I'll be able to manage. So almost by being your own compassionate coach.
Sally:
Hmm. It's so beautiful. And I guess that would be the same approach for the perfectionist or the self-loath that loves to come out at times. I see with my clients. I definitely had this when I was younger where after the speech it's like beating yourself up because it wasn't good enough. So would you say it's the same approach to really give yourself that, that reassurance that you know you did the best you can and it was not as bad as you thought?
Dr. Hayley:
I think it's really great that you mentioned that. And when I'm working with people or look at how can you be compassionate before, during, and after, because we know that after is a prime time for the self critic to show up. Particularly if you ask somebody that's prone to that. But generally for a lot of people is those are the times where you might look and go, oh my gosh, I didn't do this, or I forgot to say that. Or Oh, I was, maybe I was standing funny or perhaps I went red and everybody saw that I went red. And I think an important thing there is a lot of the time we think that our anxieties and nerves are very visible from the outside. And oftentimes they're not. Now for some people they might be, some people flush and go quite red, and people might see that, but people aren't paying attention to that.
People are paying attention to what it is that you're saying and more, more thinking about themselves and what they're gonna get from whatever it is that they're involved in. But it's really important to acknowledge that it's probably gonna be a time when that self-critic does show up, almost expect it. Oh, there you are. I was wondering when you were gonna turn up and to be able to distinguish between what is reflection on the work that I've done where I might wanna make some improvements for next time, and what is criticism that is just coming from a part of me that has been triggered because my threat system is triggered.
Sally:
Hmm. I love that part in the book about the three circle model. So you've got the threat system, which is the red circle, the drive system, which is the blue circle, and the soothing system, which is the green circle. Are you able to take us briefly through that, through the lens of public speaking event?
Dr. Hayley:
So the red, red circle, the threat system is on 24 hours a day, seven days a week. That might be that you get the notification that you're gonna speak, or it's, it's the morning of say you, you're gonna be on stage in an hour and your threat system gets activated because the threat system naturally activates in a way to keep you safe. Now, as human beings, we don't like to be judged. We don't want to make mistakes in front of big crowds of people because there is a, like a biological DNA in us that says, I don't want to be rejected by my peers. I mentioned in the book they're saying a lone monkey is a dead monkey where we are pack animals and we like to be in our pack. So doing things like putting ourselves out, taking risks, being vulnerable is likely to activate the threat system.
It's a very, very normal response. So again, don't be surprised if you start to feel anxious beforehand. And a lot of the time it means that you care as well about what you're doing, not just about staying connected to the people that you are connected with. So say the threat system activates, what we want to ideally do is regulate the nervous system. So activating the green circle, the soothing system. Unfortunately for many people, that is quite underdeveloped and it takes practice to start to make that more robust and more easily accessible. So they may go into what we would call threat-based drive. So that's the system that motivates us towards pursuing the things we want, achieving that sort of thing. So what might happen is you, from a public speaking perspective, let's say you might get triggered and rather than regulate your nervous system, connect with your wisdom and ask yourself what is actually helpful for me right now?
Somebody might start reading over their speech twice, three times, five times, 10 times to the point that they're perhaps over preparing. And then when they get on stage, they might actually sound like they are reading a script because they've tried to learn it so much. Yeah. Whereas if they had downregulated the nervous system, whether that is chatting to a kind friend or doing some breathing exercises, I'm sure there's lots of things that you teach people that they can do just before they're going on to, to talk. If they were to do that, they could then access their wisdom and check in with themselves of what is actually helpful for me right now. And the answer to that might be just look over the speech one more time and then actually go and have like a warm, soothing drink for your voice, or go close your eyes for a moment and sit down and rest before you're going on stage, or make sure you've had something to eat. Like whatever it might be for that person. But when we go straight into threat based drive, we miss that opportunity to actually down regulate and tune in with what we actually need.
Sally:
Yeah. it it goes to the heart of something I share all the time that it's less about what you say and more about the energy you bring. And Hayley, how did you get into this work?
Dr. Hayley:
So I became a psychologist later in life. I went to university to study, to be a psychologist when I was a single parent. My son was three and I became a psychologist. And back in 2013, I was fortunate enough to be introduced to Compassion-focused therapy, which is a therapy developed by Professor Paul Gilbert in the uk. And I did some training and I, it just really resonated with me and I really loved it. And he developed compassion focused therapy for people who had high shame, high self-criticism, and traditional cognitive behavior therapy wasn't quite working for them. And I'm somebody that had a very toxic relationship with myself growing up. So this therapy framework really resonated with me personally, and I just felt it would be really helpful for my clients.
Sally:
And you say you had a really toxic relationship with yourself. How was that showing up?
Dr. Hayley:
My self-talk was awful. The behaviors I engaged in for myself were not helpful or kind to me at all. Lots of ways. I mean, I, I really disconnected from myself because being in close proximity with me was actually painful. I didn't like it. I didn't like who I was, I didn't like how my life was, so I kind of disconnected from myself. But what I realized over time was by trying to avoid the pain of being in connection with myself, I created a lot of painful experiences in my life because I was not listening to what I needed. So for me, when I found this therapy, and the beautiful thing about it as a practitioner is it's a very embodied framework. So you kind of really learn it and embody it for yourself so that you can use it with your clients. So it made a massive difference for me, for me, like personally and professionally. And I really, really changed the relationship that I have with myself. I've gone from a, a default of like really toxic self-criticism to a default of like connecting with my compassionate self, which doesn't mean I don't ever have self-critical thoughts, but they are rare and I work with them in a very different way now. Like that part of me is a response to my threat system, which means I need to take care of the part of me that is feeling like that.
Sally:
Oh, and it rubs off on the people around you. That's why it's so calming to be around you, Hayley. When we practice self-compassion with ourselves, then we help others feel more compassionate about themselves when we're around them too.
Dr. Hayley:
Yeah, I think that that can be a big thing in the modeling. And I often say to people, 'cause people struggle with it and they have lots and lots of different reasons why they think they don't deserve to be compassionate to themselves, or perhaps it's gonna make them weak or they're not gonna achieve the way they did because their self-critic kind of pushes them to achieve. We know from the research that self-compassion is a far greater motivator than self-criticism. So whilst we think self-criticism works, it really doesn't and leaves us feeling pretty rubbish.
Sally:
Was that a big part of, of giving you the courage to leave being a clinical practitioner and starting your own business in the way that it is now?
Dr. Hayley:
Yeah, look, I think the changing the relationship with myself has, has allowed me to do many things differently and really tune into what's important and meaningful for me. And I'm late diagnosed autistic, ADHD. I was 52, I think. So that took on a whole other, you know, it was a whole other way. I needed to think about what do I need. And having a compassionate relationship with myself has allowed me to really tune into that. But I think it also, like you were saying before, it allows you to model this to other people. So if people are struggling with that themselves, I'll often say, if you can't do this for yourself right now, can you do it for, for say if they've got children, can you do it? So you're modeling this for your children or you're modeling this for somebody in your life.
Sally:
Yeah. And how do we cultivate that compassionate mind? We've spoken about the self-talk. What are some other ways that we can cultivate being more compassionate with ourselves?
Dr. Hayley:
So there's lots of different ways that we can do that. And it can come from the, from the talk. And that really is important in that, that when we do that, it is, we are mindful of the tone that we're talking to ourselves because we don't want to be, you know, talking to ourselves in a kind way, but in a harsh tone.
Sally:
What you say, it's the way you say it.
Dr. Hayley:
Yep, exactly, exactly. To be very mindful of our voice print when we are speaking to ourselves. Yes. But also there are like exercises we can do in terms of practicing to be our compassionate self. So even though if you think about method actors, when they are taking on a role for, say a film, they are not that person that they're going to be in that role for, but they act as though they are that person. So we can act as though we are our most compassionate self as we practice this. We can do, we can engage in guided meditations. There's a number of guided meditations throughout the book that people can just use a QR codes and I'll guide them through, or they, they're also there in script form. And I make a suggestion in the book that people can record that in their voice and play it back to themselves. Because I found that to be really helpful in me learning how to develop a compassionate voice. I didn't know what words to say. So I'd take a meditation of somebody else's and I would record it in my voice. And then it was my compassionate voice that I was hearing.
Sally:
Hayley, I love that so much, and I can tell you exactly why that's a better way to, to go. It's because when we think about the vibrations in our body, when we are actually physically creating the vibrations of our voice in our body, it's the fast track to integrating things.
Dr. Hayley:
So we can do the guided meditations, we can do the acting as though we can remember to speak to ourselves in a different way. We can do things like regulating the nervous systems. What Paul Gilbert would say is we prepare the body to prepare the mind.
Sally:
Oh, it's like one thing that's really helped me is morning and evening shower. So we're in Queensland, so it's quite hot. So two showers a day is fine, but often I would be like, oh, I don't really need a shower, I'll just go to bed. But having that, that shower skincare, that physical reset has made such a difference.
Dr. Hayley:
Yeah, and you've tuned into yourself to know that now for somebody else that might not feel good, but if they don't tune into themselves either try, like, try something and then did that actually work for me? We, we need to be connected with ourselves to understand that because I think there's a lot of advice, there's a lot of prescriptions out there in social media land that say, get up at five o'clock, do this, do that, do the other, but that's not necessarily gonna work for you. So we need to tune in to say, well, is this something I feel willing to try? And then if I do, what was that like? Did that feel helpful? Did that feel harmful? Did I enjoy that? Did I not enjoy that? So we can start to kind of curate the way that's gonna work for us.
Sally:
So it's self-compassionate, self-trust, which is really what confidence means. Confidence means to trust yourself. And it's the same with speaking for one person. Going to a quiet room and breathing deep might be exactly what they need before speaking for another person. It's a form of hell that makes them more nervous than before and they're better off speaking to people around before going on stage. Before my TEDx talk, part of the process was being taken from the speaker's green room into what they called a quiet room. And it was this university room that had the lights off. It was very dark. We were just like, shut in there for 10 minutes. And I was like, oh God. Like I, I wanted to just talk to the people backstage or you know. And so I was like, Okay, great. What will I do? I'll pull out my phone, I'll make a video, I'll just start talking.
That was great. And I was speaking to the volunteers who were taking the speakers around and she was saying that many speakers who were taken into that room were just completely silent and others were practicing. So it just just speaks to what you're saying. Sure, listen to advice to be able to inform your own way. Oh, Dr. Hayley Quinn, you are so full of wisdom. Congratulations on the book. Is there anything else that you'd like to add? Well, of course we want to know where people can get this book from. Self neglect to Self-compassion. Where can they find you and where can they buy it?
Dr. Hayley:
I would love people to buy the book, and read the book and do the reflective exercises and listen to the meditations because it doesn't happen by osmosis unfortunately. So I sell it via my website. You can buy it directly from me where I'll do a signed copy and send it out to you. Or you can get it online. There's links on my website for either buying it direct or online. Also people can find me on social media under Dr. Hayley D. Quinn. My dms and emails always open. I don't always respond immediately 'cause I'm clear on my boundaries with that sort of stuff. But I do always respond. So yeah, I love hearing from people.
Sally:
So. Great. Was there anything else you wanted to add?
Dr. Hayley:
For people to really recognize that they matter, their needs matter, and there isn't one right way to do anything, whether it's public speaking, whether it's working in a particular way, whether it's doing something at home, it really is about finding our own way. If we look at public speaking, for example, I think we are craving people, being human, not sort of this one way of being so so-called professional or how things should be done. And I think the more we can show up as ourselves to get across the messages that we've got to get across in the world, then the more people will see that. And then people will also feel like, oh, maybe I can speak up in a way that I wanna speak up as well.
Sally:
Oh, see, Hayley, this is why I have guests like you here on that voice podcast. We have been very human and proudly AI-free since the very first days of this podcast, of course. So thank you so much for joining us.
Dr. Hayley:
Thank you so much for having me. It's been an absolute pleasure.
