Inviting Your Shadows to Dinner
Today I taught a yoga class where we explored the importance of not just witnessing our thoughts but inviting them in. Too often we treat our thoughts like strangers, brushing past them without acknowledgment or worse, resisting them in hope they’ll simply disappear. But true healing doesn’t happen through avoidance. It happens through presence.
Instead of turning away, we welcomed our thoughts to the table. We sat with them, acknowledged them, asked them questions, and fully felt into them. Each thought, whether it carried discomfort, doubt, or clarity, was given a seat. Every single sensation, awareness and thought had something to reveal.
Then, like any host, we didn’t let them overstay their welcome. We walked them to the door, expressed gratitude for their visit, and let them carry on with their day.
Why This Matters: Healing Beyond the Mind
This process isn’t just about shifting our mindset; it’s about deep, somatic healing—healing that happens through the body, not just the mind. Dr. Joe Dispenza teaches that our thoughts create chemical reactions in our bodies, reinforcing familiar emotional states. If we constantly suppress emotions or stay stuck in habitual thought loops, our nervous system adapts to that state, and we live in cycles of stress, anxiety, or stagnation.
In his work, Dispenza explains how neurons that fire together wire together, meaning the more we repeat certain emotional patterns, the stronger they become in our physiology. If we don’t disrupt these patterns, our body stays addicted to familiar emotional states, even if they’re painful. By bringing awareness to our thoughts and emotions and consciously processing them, we disrupt these patterns and create new neural pathways, allowing us to shift into expansion, healing, and transformation.
The Role of Somatic Therapy and Yoga Therapy
Somatic therapy and yoga therapy take this process deeper by involving the body in the healing journey. The body remembers what the mind forgets. When we’ve experienced stress, trauma, or even daily emotional overwhelm, those experiences don’t just exist in our minds, they live in our fascia, muscles, nervous system, and energy field.
Somatic therapy helps us reconnect with these stored emotions through movement, breath, and awareness. Rather than intellectualizing our healing, we let the body speak. Trembling, stretching, deep breathing, and mindful movement all help release what has been trapped inside.
Yoga therapy works similarly by integrating breathwork (pranayama), physical movement (asana), and meditation to shift our energy, regulate our nervous system, and create space for new emotional patterns. Certain poses help us access deep-seated emotions, hip openers, for example, are known to release grief and stored tension from past experiences.
Movement as a Pathway to Emotional Release
When we process our emotions while moving our bodies, whether through somatic therapy, yoga, breathwork, or even dance, we amplify the healing process. Why? Because movement shakes loose what has been stagnant.
• Breathwork activates the parasympathetic nervous system, signaling safety and allowing the body to process emotions rather than suppress them.
• Stretching and movement release stored tension in the fascia, where emotions are often trapped.
• Conscious movement helps rewire old trauma responses, replacing them with new, embodied experiences of safety and empowerment.
Healing Requires Presence, Not Avoidance
To create true expansion, we must sit with what’s already within us, what’s taking up space in our energetic and physical bodies. Healing is not just about thinking differently; it’s about feeling, integrating, and moving through.
Only when we know who lurks within the shadows, what thoughts, patterns, or emotions are asking for our attention, can we begin to shift our reality. And when we combine this inner work with movement, breath, and embodiment practices, we accelerate the process, allowing for deep, lasting transformation.
So remember, healing isn’t about pushing thoughts away or forcing ourselves into a state of “love and light.” It’s about meeting ourselves exactly where we are, with presence, curiosity, and movement, so that we can step into the fullness of who we are meant to be.
Until Next Time,
Sarah
