In my work as a psychotherapist, I often see how intelligent, capable, high-functioning people end up organizing their lives around voices that only sound authoritative.
I think of it as the Wizard of Oz effect.
A booming, confident voice that feels all-knowing in the moment… but is actually coming from a much smaller, more reactive place behind the curtain.
Most of us don’t realize how early those voices get installed. Or how subtly they continue to shape us.
When I was in second grade, I loved to raise my hand. I was that kid wiggling in my seat, arm stretched high, practically vibrating with excitement, hoping the teacher would call on me.
I loved school, I loved learning, I loved knowing the answer. It felt like joy. Like being fully myself.
And then one day, my teacher—someone I admired—looked at me and said, in a cold, cutting voice: “Anna, nobody likes a know-it-all.”
I can still feel what happened in my body in that moment. A kind of instant collapse. Shame, confusion... the sense that something that had felt good a second ago was suddenly not okay.
I didn’t stop raising my hand entirely. But something in me tightened.
Looking back now, what’s striking isn’t just what she said. It’s how much authority it seemed to carry. She didn’t sound uncertain, she sounded definitive. Like she was naming a truth about me.
But now, as an adult—and in the work I do with clients—I can see something different.
People who are grounded, connected, and secure don’t communicate in ways that induce shame like that. They just don’t. That comment didn’t come from wisdom, it came from reactivity. From a moment of disconnection in her own system.
And yet, to me as a child, it registered as truth.
That’s the Wizard of Oz effect.
The tricky part is that many of us continue to live by those moments. Not consciously, but in the background.
We adapt, we recalibrate, we become a little more careful. A little more attuned to how we might be perceived. And over time, those adaptations start to feel like personality. Like identity. Like truth.
I see this all the time with the people I work with—people who, from the outside, seem confident, capable, and fully expressed.
But internally, there are these subtle constraints: a hesitation before speaking, a second-guessing of what they know, a subtle pull to hold something back.
And when we trace it back, there’s often a moment like this one. A comment, a look, a tone. Something that sounded like truth… but was really just someone else’s fear, dressed up as authority.
Part of the work we do together is gently questioning those voices. Not ripping them out or fighting them. But getting curious about them. Where did this come from? Who said this? And what part of them was speaking when they did?
Because when you start to see it clearly, something shifts. The voice that once felt absolute starts to feel… human. Limited. Contextual.
And from there, you get a different kind of choice. Not to erase what happened, but to decide whether you still want to live by it.
Most of us don’t realize how much of our internal world is shaped by voices that only sounded authoritative. Voices that felt big in the moment, but were never actually wise enough to define us.
If you’ve ever felt that pull to hold yourself back, to second-guess your expression, or to shrink something that feels natural to you—it might be worth asking:
Is this actually true? Or is this just the Wizard of Oz, still talking?