Smiles and Shadows - Yoga Beyond Pretending

Yoga Celebrates the Darkness as much as we do the light!

We live in a world obsessed with smiles. Bright faces. Performances of “I’m fine.” Polished wellness. Glittering spirituality. But beneath every smile, there is a shadow. There are the silent places inside us that still ache. There is shame our bodies remember. There is guilt that shaped how we behave, love, react, and hide. There are fears we learned to suppress because they were never welcomed. The world has taught many of us to perform life instead of actually live it. And that is how this body of work has come to be.

Yoga Isn’t About Escaping the Shadow

I am not here to fix people. I am not here to cleanse darkness. I am not here to make anyone perfectly enlightened, endlessly positive, or spiritually tidy. Real yoga was never about escaping. It was never about smiling your way through pain. Real yoga is the art of meeting yourself honestly, shadow included. In my sessions we do not exile what hurts. We invite it in. We breathe with it. We let it speak. We give it a place at the table of our being instead of shutting it away in a locked room of the psyche. This is not avoidance. This is integration. This is radical love.

What Happens When We Make Space for the Shadow?

When we breathe with our shadow instead of fighting it, something sacred happens. The nervous system softens. The body sighs in relief. The spirit loosens its armor. The shadow no longer needs to scream for attention because it has finally been welcomed home. True yoga is not the fake smile covering pain. True yoga is the authentic smile that rises naturally when nothing inside you needs to hide anymore. That smile is not decoration. That smile is liberation.

This is the Work We Do Together

In my spaces, whether on the mat, in ceremony, or in community, we do not escape life. We learn to live it. Fully. Honestly. Tenderly. Courageously. We honor light. We honor shadow. We allow both to exist without shame. This is how we become whole. This is how we remember who we truly are. This is how we build a world where truth and tenderness matter more than performance.

If This Speaks to You

Come breathe with me. Come move with me. Come remember yourself with me. Explore my world of yoga, art, queer healing, retreats, ritual, and soul work at www.salasbananas.com. I am also recording yoga sessions that guide you into this practice of shadow integration, emotional release, nervous system healing, and radical self acceptance. These will be available soon on Patreon. If you want to receive them first, comment LIGHT on my socials or reach out to me personally. We are not here to perform life. We are here to live it. Wildly. Tenderly. Truthfully. Shadow and smile together

I’m so grateful to @where_is_yonel for these images that reflect the presence, vulnerability, and truth of this journey. Yonel is an incredible photographer for yogis and wellness spaces, and he also holds beautiful space through his deeply nurturing Reiki sessions. check out his instagram here