Soulfly Therapy

Your Soul is Your Authentic Expression. Your Body is Here to Harness It.

Sarah Bustamante, C-IAYT, helps people navigate life change and find greater ease within challenging transitions. Sarah specializes in trauma and grief in relationship to pregnancy and childbirth, a recent diagnosis or ongoing illness, leaving a long-time job or relationship, coping with the loss of a loved one, acclimating to the demands of parenting, stress and stress-related illnesses, depression, anxiety, and in the process of death and dying.

03/24/2026

The window of tolerance — one of the most useful frameworks I know for understanding why we react the way we do, and how to build genuine capacity.

03/22/2026

Kindness toward resistance.

When you meet resistance — that feeling of hitting a wall, pulling back, or getting stuck — your first instinct might be to push harder.

To force your way through.
To override what your body is signaling.

But research in trauma recovery shows that self-compassion — treating yourself with care instead of force — actually supports nervous system regulation and healing.

What if kindness toward your resistance was part of the work?
What might that look like?

Noticing when you're pushing too hard and choosing to pause
Acknowledging that resistance is protective, not obstructive
Giving yourself permission to move at your own pace
Treating the parts of you that are scared or hesitant with gentleness instead of judgment

When you approach your body with force or criticism, you reinforce the disconnection you're trying to heal.

Befriending your resistance doesn't mean giving up.
It means recognizing that your body is doing what it knows how to do to keep you safe — and that deserves respect, not battle.

Your body isn't the problem.
Your resistance isn't the enemy.
What would it feel like to meet both with kindness?

03/20/2026

Twenty seconds with resistance.

You don't need hours of meditation or therapy sessions to begin shifting your relationship with resistance.

Brief moments of awareness — even just 20 seconds — can create meaningful change.

When you pause and gently bring attention to the sensations associated with resistance, you're doing several things:

Activating your prefrontal cortex
Signaling to your nervous system that you can be with what's present
Creating the conditions for choice

You're not trying to make the resistance go away.
You're just noticing: Where does resistance live in your body right now?
Is it tightness in your chest?
Tension in your jaw or shoulders?
A pulling back sensation?
Heat or heaviness somewhere?
Name what you notice.

That simple act of acknowledgment — "I notice tightness in my chest" — begins to shift resistance from an unconscious driver to something you can work with.
Without these micro-moments of presence, resistance stays invisible.
It runs the show without you realizing it.
Awareness of resistance is the beginning of choice.

03/18/2026

Your nervous system is constantly scanning for safety and threat.

It moves through three primary states:
Connection. Mobilization. Shutdown.

When you feel present and engaged, that’s your ventral vagal system online.
When your heart races and urgency rises, that’s sympathetic activation.
When everything feels heavy, numb, or far away, that’s dorsal vagal shutdown.

None of these states are wrong. They’re adaptive responses designed to protect you.

But when you don’t recognize which state you’re in, it’s hard to know what you actually need.
Regulation begins with awareness.
And awareness creates choice.

Grounded in Polyvagal Theory (Porges, 2011; Dana, 2018).

03/16/2026

Befriending your body.
What does it mean to be kind to your body — genuinely kind, not performatively well-behaved?

It might look like:
Rest when you're tired, not when you've "earned" it
Movement that feels good, not punishing
Nourishment without rigid rules
Gentle touch — your own hand on your heart
Simply listening to what your body is asking for

Research shows that self-compassion and body-oriented kindness can support nervous system regulation and reduce the physiological effects of chronic stress and trauma.

When you treat your body as something to control, fix, or override, you reinforce the disconnection you're trying to heal.

Befriending your body doesn't mean everything feels good all the time.
It means you're willing to meet what's there — sensation, discomfort, tightness, ease — with curiosity instead of judgment.

What would it be like to approach your body as an ally rather than an obstacle?

03/15/2026

Even brief moments of awareness—just 20 seconds—can help shift your nervous system from perpetual doing to gentle presence.

When we never pause, the body never receives the signal that it’s safe to settle. Three times a day, try this simple practice:

Choose one anchor—breath, heartbeat, feet on the floor, seat beneath you, or sights around you—and rest your attention there. No need to fix or change anything. Notice, return, repeat. That’s the practice.

03/13/2026

Your nervous system has different branches.
The autonomic nervous system organizes your physiological responses to safety and threat through distinct pathways:

Social engagement (ventral vagal): You feel connected, present, able to engage. Your voice has range, your face is expressive, your body feels resourced.

Fight or flight (sympathetic): Energy mobilizes. Your heart rate increases, breath quickens, muscles tense. You're ready to act.

Shutdown (dorsal vagal): Energy collapses. You might feel numb, heavy, disconnected, or like you're watching from a distance.

None of these states are wrong.

They're adaptive responses your body uses to navigate the world.

But when you can't recognize which state you're in, it becomes difficult to know what you actually need — rest, movement, connection, or space.

Awareness of your nervous system states isn't about controlling or changing them.
It's about recognizing the signals your body is already sending so you can respond with more choice.

What do you notice about which state feels most familiar to you?

03/11/2026

Going inward—tuning into your breath, heartbeat, or body sensations—can support healing. But sometimes it feels overwhelming, and that’s okay. Your nervous system may still be organized around threat, and pushing too fast can activate more defense, not less.

Pendulation is the gentle practice of moving between inner and outer anchors: breath ↔ feet on the floor, heartbeat ↔ sights around you, body sensations ↔ sounds nearby.

This back-and-forth isn’t a detour—it’s the work of building capacity, respecting your system, and learning what it can safely hold.

Have you noticed the rhythm between your inside and outside today?

03/09/2026

Acceptance doesn't mean they were right.
When trauma has been caused by others, acceptance can feel impossible — even dangerous.
You might fear that accepting what happened means:

Condoning it
Forgiving the people involved
Saying it was okay
Letting them off the hook
Minimizing the impact

Research shows this is one of the most common blocks to healing.
But here's what acceptance actually means:
Accepting what happened doesn't mean approving of it.
It doesn't mean what they did was right.
It doesn't mean you have to forgive anyone.
Acceptance means acknowledging the reality of what occurred — and the impact it had — so you can stop organizing your life around denying, avoiding, or fighting against what's already true.
Staying in resistance to protect your anger or maintain a boundary keeps the trauma active in your system.
You're still carrying it.
Acceptance is about releasing what you're holding — not for their sake, but for yours.
So it stops shaping your present.
You can accept what happened without excusing it. You can acknowledge the impact without giving anyone permission.
Acceptance is for you.

03/08/2026

Your body has been protecting you—sometimes for years—and that’s a good thing.

Rushing past those layers can feel overwhelming or retraumatizing. Instead, try this: one small moment of noticing today. One breath. One heartbeat. One pause.

Each tiny moment matters. Slow isn’t avoidance—it’s honoring your system, your pace, your healing.

Have you given yourself permission to go slow today?

03/07/2026

Trapped survival energy.
When a threat occurs and your body mobilizes to respond — preparing to fight or flee — but that action is interrupted or prevented, the energy generated for that response doesn't just disappear.
It stays in your system.
Trauma research shows that incomplete survival responses leave mobilized energy trapped in your nervous system, unable to discharge.
This can show up as:

Chronic muscle tension
Restlessness or agitation
Feeling stuck or frozen
The sense that something is always "unfinished"
Difficulty settling or relaxing

The pathway toward release isn't through pushing harder or forcing the energy out.
It's through gently building your capacity to stay present with the sensations as they arise.
When you can notice, name, and allow the sensations — heat, tightness, trembling, buzzing — that trapped energy can begin to move through your system and complete.
Not all at once.
Not overnight.
But gradually, as your nervous system recognizes it's safe enough to let go of what it's been holding.
What sensations have you noticed that feel "stuck" or incomplete?

03/05/2026

Narrative awareness—our thoughts, explanations, and stories—helps us make sense of the world. It’s part of survival.

But when those stories are dominated by rumination or fear, your present experience can feel distorted. Your body might be reacting to the past, anticipating the future, or responding to a story about what’s happening—rather than what’s actually unfolding now.

Embodied awareness offers a different path: noticing your breath, heartbeat, and body sensations, and reconnecting with the present moment. Slow, gentle, and human-centered.

Address

1900 Northwest Expressway Suite R206
Oklahoma City, OK
73118

Website

http://soulflytherapy.com/

Alerts

Be the first to know and let us send you an email when Soulfly Therapy posts news and promotions. Your email address will not be used for any other purpose, and you can unsubscribe at any time.

Want your practice to be the top-listed Clinic in Oklahoma City?