From Shame to Self-Expression: How the Body Holds Back- and How Yoga & Therapy Help You Speak Again
Women releasing emotion through yoga practice and somatic healing
Why You Might Struggle to Speak- and How Healing Helps You Be Seen
You’ve been doing all “the things” for awhile now. Going to therapy, learning how to speak your truth to someone safe, finding support in your body through yoga, setting boundaries in your life that you need, using movement that feels good for you, etc. Yet, have you felt like in the moments where you want it most, your voice disappears? Like something inside you tightens your throat, you lose your train of thoughts and feelings, and your body freezes when you try to share how you really feel? In the moments where you need it most, it doesn’t feel available to you.
I know those moments can feel so defeating. Like all the work and effort you’ve poured into yourself go out the door, and all you are left sitting with is frustration towards yourself.
But those moments are not just random.
It’s not “just anxiety.”
More often than not, it’s shame-held in the body. Or another way to look at it through Internal Family Systems, it’s an exiled part locked up away.
At Peace By Piece Therapy, we work with women who carry unspoken shame and help them return to themselves through trauma-informed therapy, yoga, and somatic practices. This blog explores how shame affects self-expression and how healing helps you reconnect with your authentic voice.
How Shame Silences the Body
Shame is different from guilt.
Guilt says, “I did something wrong.”
Shame says, “I am wrong.”
In Internal Family Systems we may even break these different experiences of shame even further. For instance there is the feeling of shamefulness (exiled part) where that part often feels wrong. And then there can be another part of shaming (protector part) that tells you are wrong, horrible, etc. Martha Sweezy discusses this further in her book called Internal Family Systems Therapy for Shame and Guilt. Below is a quick chart on the shame cycle and you can check out this video for a quick summary.
The belief of, “I am bad” doesn’t just stay in your mind- it sinks into a place in your body, where it can be held until you are ready to be with it.
The
Women who carry shame often experience:
Tightness in the chest or jaw
Shallow breathing or difficulty speaking up
Muscle tension or nervous system shutdown
The urge to hide, shrink, or “disappear” in social situations
These physical responses are the body’s way of protecting you from emotional risk- like rejection, judgement, or conflict. It’s the body’s way of holding what is there until there is enough felt safety to be with it.
The Link Between Shame & Self-Expression
When a part is shameful, other protective parts come around it to protect. These protective parts limit self-expression, because they fear that allowing you to be truly you would not be loved, accepted, etc. They use prevention of “never again” to limit you from any attempt of allowing that vulnerability to seep through and be exposed. Ways that this can feel in your body are finding yourself minimizing your needs or apologizing constantly “I’m sorry’s”, staying quiet to avoid “making waves”, suppressing creativity or intuition, or struggling to say no, even when you’re overwhelmed or burnt out.
It’s important to realize that even if these parts of you feel like they define who you are, they are not personality traits that you are stuck with. They are protective strategies developed through years of being told (or shown) that your voice was too much, too loud, or not enough. These protective strategies came into your being as ways to protect that vulnerability from being destroyed.
How Yoga Supports Emotional Expression
I know when you think of yoga, you may quickly go to exercise that stretches your muscles and contorts you in handstands and back bends. Yes that is how the wellness industry has sold yoga to many and yet the core of yoga through it’s tradition of centuries has been so much more than that. Yoga is not just movement- it’s a method for reinhabiting your body.
Yoga Sutra 1.2 states Yogas citta vrtti nirodhah. A way to be with that is state that yoga is directing your mind. It is a technology of union between the mind and body. Learning how to direct your attention and move away from all the things that keep you from living presently.
The Yoga Sanctuary states, “So what are modifications of the mind? Simply put, it’s the mind chatter that draws our attention away from the present moment. When you are in yoga class, focusing on your breath while feeling the movement of your body and suddenly you wonder what you’ll have for lunch, or you remember a conversation you need to have with someone, or you look over at the person next to you and wish that your pose looked like hers, your mind is fluctuating—you are no longer present. These are the modifications of the mind that yoga is trying to quiet.”
In a trauma-informed yoga practice, you’re invited to:
Slow down and notice where tension lives
Breathe into spaces where emotion has been locked away
Move gently through shapes that help release old stories
Develop awareness of your body without judgement
Each practice becomes a chance to reclaim your inner landscape- one breath, one posture, one moment at a time.
Somatic & IFS Therapy for Shame
While yoga reconnects you to the body, therapy helps you understand the “why”.
Through Internal Family Systems (IFS) and somatic therapy, we can help you:
Identify the protective parts of you that carry shame
Build a relationship with those parts and gain a greater capacity to be with those parts, rather than push them away
Offer compassion to your younger self who learned silence as safety
Gently rediscover your truth, release what no longer serves you, and claim your right to express your truth
Healing isn’t about “fixing” shame.
It’s about witnessing it- and offering it the connection it never had.
From Fragmentation to Wholeness
Shame was never meant to be an experience of the human body. There is no healthy shame. Shame removes us from our core being. However in order to help transform shameful parts, it is only through compassionate care do those parts finally feel seen and understood. From that place, they can finally release all that they have been holding onto, including the beliefs they have been carrying about who you are as a person.
When shame loosens its grip, something beautiful happens:
You begin to speak with honesty
You take up space- without apology
You reconnect to your desires, creativity, and truth
This is self-expression.
This is wholeness.
And you don’t have to get there alone.
Reconnect with Your Voice
At Peace By Piece Therapy, we help women move through the weight of shame and rediscover their voice- through therapy, somatic movement, and deep inner listening.
Curious about how this work could support you? Click here to schedule a free consultation.
Your voice is worth hearing.
Your story is safe here.
