Why Confidence Isn't Something You Fake…It's Something You Remember

For the woman who's tired of pretending she has it all together

Let me tell you something that might piss you off: You already have everything you need to be confident.

I know. I KNOW. You're probably rolling your eyes right now thinking, "Abbey, if I had confidence, I wouldn't be reading this blog post while hiding in my car during my lunch break, wondering why everyone else seems to have their shit together."

But here's the thing—and this is where 16+ years of working with brilliant, capable women has taught me something radical—confidence isn't something you build from scratch. It's not a skill you master or a persona you perfect.

Confidence is something you remember.

And sister, it's time we talked about why you forgot it in the first place.

The Great Confidence Con

We've been sold a lie about confidence. The self-help industrial complex wants you to believe it's something you can manufacture with enough affirmations, power poses, and "fake it 'til you make it" mantras.

But here's what I've learned sitting across from hundreds of women who've tried every confidence hack in the book: You can't fake your way to real confidence. You can only remember your way back to it.

Every woman I work with—whether she's a CEO questioning her every decision, a mom feeling invisible in her own life, or a woman starting over at 45—has the same story. Somewhere along the way, she learned to doubt herself. She learned to look outside for validation. She learned to shrink.

But before all that learning? She was born knowing her worth.

Think about it. When you were three years old, did you wake up wondering if you were worthy of love? Did you analyze whether your laugh was too loud or your dreams too big?

Hell no. You knew you belonged here.

That knowing? It never left. It just got buried.

Where Your Confidence Went to Hide

Let's get real about what happened to that fierce little girl who used to demand the world listen to her stories.

She learned the rules.

She learned that good girls don't take up too much space. That smart women don't seem "too confident" because it makes others uncomfortable. That success comes from perfection, not authenticity. That her feelings were "too much" and her needs were "too demanding."

She learned to read the room instead of trusting her gut. To seek approval instead of following her instincts. To manage everyone else's comfort instead of honoring her own truth.

And slowly, quietly, she started outsourcing her self-worth to everyone but herself.

Your confidence didn't disappear. It went underground, waiting for you to remember that you never needed anyone's permission to take up space in your own life.

The Nervous System's Role in Confidence

Here's something most confidence coaches won't tell you: True confidence lives in your nervous system, not your mindset.

Your body keeps the score of every time you were told you were "too much" or "not enough." Every time you shrunk to make others comfortable. Every time you said yes when you meant no, or smiled when you wanted to scream.

Your nervous system learned that being big, bold, and fully yourself wasn't safe. So it developed incredibly sophisticated ways to keep you small and "safe"—even when that safety became a prison.

This is why positive affirmations often feel like bullshit. You can't think your way into confidence when your nervous system is screaming, "Danger! Don't stand out! Don't take risks! Stay small and they won't hurt you!"

Real confidence work starts with befriending your nervous system. Teaching it that it's safe to be seen. Safe to take up space. Safe to trust yourself.

The Difference Between Confidence and Performance

Let's talk about the difference between real confidence and the performance of confidence—because they're not the same thing.

Performance confidence is what you see on Instagram. It's the perfectly curated life, the "I've got this" smile, the endless productivity porn. It's exhausting because it requires constant vigilance, constant perfection, constant proof that you deserve to be here.

Real confidence is quiet. It's the ability to sit with uncertainty without needing to have all the answers. It's saying "I don't know" without shame. It's making mistakes without making them mean something about your worth. It's trusting yourself to handle whatever comes, not because you're perfect, but because you're resilient.

Performance confidence asks, "How do I look to others?" Real confidence asks, "How do I feel to myself?"

Performance confidence needs external validation. Real confidence generates its own approval.

Performance confidence is brittle—one criticism can shatter it. Real confidence is flexible—it bends without breaking.

The Remembering Process: Coming Home to Yourself

So how do you remember your confidence? How do you excavate that knowing from underneath years of conditioning and people-pleasing?

First, you stop trying to build confidence and start trying to uncover it.

This isn't about adding more to yourself. It's about removing what was never yours to begin with. The beliefs that you're not enough. The stories about who you should be. The rules about how women are supposed to show up in the world.

Second, you get curious about your younger self.

What did you love before anyone told you it was weird? What did you believe about yourself before the world taught you to doubt? What felt true in your body before you learned to live in your head?

That little girl who built blanket forts and declared herself the queen? She's still in there. She's been waiting for you to remember.

Third, you start small and build evidence.

Not evidence for others—evidence for yourself. Every time you trust your gut and it works out. Every time you set a boundary and the world doesn't end. Every time you take up space and people actually respond positively.

Your nervous system needs proof that it's safe to be yourself. Give it that proof, one small brave act at a time.

The Myths We Need to Bust

Let me bust some myths that keep women stuck in confidence confusion:

Myth 1: Confident people never doubt themselves. Truth: Confident people feel doubt and move forward anyway. They've learned that feeling uncertain doesn't mean they can't trust themselves.

Myth 2: Confidence means never caring what others think. Truth: Confident people care about others' opinions—they just don't let those opinions override their own inner knowing.

Myth 3: You need to feel confident before you can act confident. Truth: Sometimes action creates the feeling, not the other way around. Confidence is often born from doing the thing you're scared to do.

Myth 4: Confident women are born that way. Truth: Every confident woman has a story of finding her way back to herself. No one is born knowing how to navigate a world that systematically teaches women to doubt themselves.

Your Body Holds the Blueprint

Here's something beautiful: Your body remembers what your mind has forgotten.

Your body remembers how it felt to move through the world without apology. How it felt to speak your truth without measuring the reaction. How it felt to take up space without shrinking.

This is why confidence work isn't just mental—it's somatic. It's about reconnecting with your body's wisdom. Learning to trust the "yes" that rises in your chest and the "no" that settles in your stomach.

Your intuition isn't broken. It's just been buried under years of being told to ignore it.

Start listening again. Start small. Notice how your body responds to different people, situations, decisions. Your body is always giving you information about what's true for you—you just have to remember how to hear it.

The Ripple Effect of Remembered Confidence

When you remember your confidence—when you stop performing it and start embodying it—everything shifts.

Your relationships change because you stop abandoning yourself to keep others comfortable. Your work changes because you start trusting your ideas and speaking up in meetings. Your parenting changes because your children see what it looks like to be a woman who takes up space in her own life.

You become living proof that it's possible to be both strong and soft, confident and humble, successful and authentic.

And other women notice. They see you moving through the world with that quiet knowing, and they remember something about themselves too.

The Permission You've Been Waiting For

If you're waiting for permission to be confident, to take up space, to trust yourself—this is it.

You don't need anyone's approval to remember who you are. You don't need to earn the right to trust yourself. You don't need to prove your worth before you claim your space.

You are allowed to be confident without being perfect. You are allowed to trust yourself even when others don't understand. You are allowed to take up space even if it makes someone uncomfortable. You are allowed to remember that you were born worthy, and nothing you've done or failed to do has changed that.

The Work Ahead

Remembering your confidence isn't a one-time event—it's a practice. A daily choosing to trust yourself over the voices that taught you to doubt. A commitment to listening to your inner knowing even when it whispers quietly in a world that rewards shouting.

Some days you'll remember easily. Other days you'll forget and have to find your way back. Both are part of the process.

The goal isn't to never doubt yourself again. The goal is to doubt yourself and trust yourself at the same time. To feel uncertain and move forward anyway. To be human and confident simultaneously.

Because here's the secret: Confidence isn't the absence of doubt. Confidence is trusting yourself to handle whatever comes, doubt and all.

Your Invitation

So here's my invitation to you, friend: Stop trying to build confidence from the outside in. Stop performing it for others. Stop waiting until you feel ready.

Instead, get quiet. Get still. And remember.

Remember the little girl who knew she belonged here. Remember the teenager who had big dreams before anyone told her they were unrealistic. Remember the woman who made hard choices because they felt true, even when they looked wrong to everyone else.

She's still in there. She's been waiting for you to come home.

Your confidence was never lost. It was just buried under years of being told it wasn't safe to shine.

It's time to dig it up. It's time to remember. It's time to come home to the woman you were always meant to be.

Because the world doesn't need another woman pretending to be confident. The world needs you to remember that you already are.

Ready to remember your confidence? I work with women who are tired of performing their lives and ready to start living them. Because healing doesn't happen in your head—it happens in the body, the breath, and the subconscious layers we're taught to ignore. Let's excavate the real you together.

Contact me for 1:1 work to unravel the patterns keeping you small and remember the woman who was never meant to shrink, and/or grab the Return to You hypnosis and/or the Embody Her bundle to start rewiring your subconscious to trust what it already knows. Because the confidence you're seeking isn't something you need to build—it's something you need to remember.