Speak With Confidence: How Your Voice, Body Language & Habits Shape CommunicationSpeak With Confidence: How Your Voice, Body Language & Habits Shape Communication
RAW CHATTER!
Host Vicky Midwood talks with communication coach Helen Von Dadelszen about how voice, body language, breathing and habits influence confidence and connection. The conversation focuses on practical tools and small, intentional changes to make speaking feel more natural and less stressful.
38:36•10 Nov 2026
Finding Your Voice: Confidence, Breath and Body Language with Helen Von Dadelszen
Episode Overview
- Communication is a habit, so being intentional about how you show up makes a measurable difference.
- Normal physical responses to speaking, such as sweaty hands or racing thoughts, can be eased with simple breathing techniques.
- Clarifying how you want people to perceive you helps align your words, voice and body language with that intention.
- Short, regular practice and gentle steps outside your comfort zone are more effective than occasional big leaps.
- Using pauses and reflecting on your performance, including via recordings, supports clearer messages and more confident delivery.
“Communication is a habit. Be intentional about how you're showing up and congruent in the way that you are speaking with the intention that you have set for that audience.”
What drives someone to seek a more confident voice? This chat on RAW CHATTER brings together host Vicky Midwood and communication and vocal coach Helen Von Dadelszen for a straight-talking look at how your voice, body language and habits shape every interaction. You’ll hear Helen’s journey from HR and recruitment to teaching English in Italy with her "funny kiwi accent", then on to Switzerland and global work in healthcare and HIV conferences.
Working across cultures, languages and disciplines pushed her to adapt how she spoke, slow down, simplify and really think about how people experienced her – which now sits at the heart of her coaching. A big theme here is that communication isn’t a mysterious gift, it’s a set of habits.
Helen works one-to-one with clients to unpack how they see themselves, their audience and their message, asking simple but challenging questions like: "What do you want people to think of you?" From there, she helps them line up their words, voice and body language with those intentions. There’s plenty of practical chat too.
Helen talks about managing sweaty palms and racing thoughts, normalising the physical stress of speaking and using breathing tools such as box breathing and the "physiological sigh" to settle the nervous system. She and Vicky also dig into the power of pauses, recording yourself to see how you really come across, and stretching your comfort zone step by step rather than trying to catapult out of it.
Helen’s book *Courageous Action* pulls these ideas together into bite-sized techniques, reflections and checklists designed to get people actually practising, not just reading. If you’ve ever walked away from a conversation or presentation thinking, "That’s not how I meant to come across", this episode might be the nudge to look at your communication habits with fresh eyes – how do you really want people to experience you?
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