Your inner teen chaos queen ♛
Have you met with your inner teenager lately? Not just the one in old photos or distant memories, but the one who still lives somewhere inside your nervous system today, rolling her eyes and slamming doors (literally or figuratively… or both!)
What would your inner teenager say if you asked for her story?
(Brace yourself. Mine had a lot to say… vulnerable share below ↓)
My inner teenager has been VERY alive lately ❤️🔥 She’s been showing up with a smirk and a side-eye, demanding my attention.
Honestly, she’s a little shit sometimes. Sneaky. Bitchy. Likes to run the show. Quick. Witty. *Thinks* she’s smarter than everyone in the room and not afraid to let them know it. A tiny trickster with a touch of eyeliner and a whole lot of attitude 🖤🐍 Lol, can you picture her? Ohhhh dear. What a fun, wild rebel she is.
She’s also quite self-assured, unapologetically confident, and unafraid to take up space… qualities I admire, and if I’m honest, have had a complicated and often fleeting relationship with in my adult years.
Lately, my inner teenager has been showing up in my internal world with her arms crossed and her hip cocked, daring me to listen to what she’s really trying to say underneath the all that sass 🧚♀️ And through my own self practice with somatic partswork, I’ve been letting her speak. Listening for her story.
Because even when a part is a little (or a lot) shadowy, dramatic, chaotic, or compulsive, it’s never intentionally trying to hurt you. Every part has a positive intent. Even the loud ones. Even the avoidant, angry, defensive, or performative ones. And when we get curious with these parts instead of banishing them, we start to hear what that part is really here for.
The truth is, the shadowy parts of yourself aren’t looking to be expelled (in fact, they get a little cranky when you try to push them out… sometimes they get even louder).
The shadowy parts of yourself are LONGING to be HELD.
Literally and figuratively DANCED WITH.
Alchemized into something that serves your soul’s purpose 💎
Not demonized and discharged.
So when I started to listen the story of my inner teenager, when I literally danced with her and allowed her to be moved through me with somatic movement and dance, I gave her space to express herself. I asked her through the dance what she’d rather be doing to help guide my soul, and her answer was simple:
“Helping you feel confident again”
*Cue the mic drop*
Because here’s the thing, while we’re getting real honest here, I’m feeling called to share with you that just about 2 years ago, I came to this place where I felt like I lost my confidence, my voice, and my self-trust. Years of quiet self-abandonment finally caught up with me, and led me to not trust my own self. And the result was a kind of paralysis… a frozen place where I realized I wasn’t living in my full truth, I didn’t trust myself at all, and my confidence shattered in this confronting realization.
But lately, little moments have started to repair that rupture with myself. Slowly building back up my self trust and confidence.
Last Friday for instance, I showed up to teach my vinyasa class at The Attic with ZERO plan. Not even a mental sketch or general idea of what I was going to teach. Just my body, my voice, and my willingness to be present and teach to the humans right in front of me. This is something I used to do years ago when self trust and confidence (even if faux) were instilled, but ever since I lost that, I’ve been overthinking, over-planning, and overanalyzing what I teach in my weekly vinyasa classes.
And guess what? The class was absolutely beautiful. One of the most attuned and alive classes I’ve taught in a while.
It felt like something inside me exhaled and truly softened in that act.
A part of me that had been holding my breath finally trusted me again. It was such a reparative experience for me to feel rooted in my confidence and voice again. Truly an act of repair with myself, to trust that I am indeed capable. To trust that I do indeed know what I’m doing. To shed the shackles of imposter syndrome.
(also, teenage me was VERY smug about it hehehe)
Additionally, bittersweetly, and synchronistically, that was my last public vinyasa class for the foreseeable future. After 10 whole years of teaching weekly flow classes, I’m stepping away from that role. Not because I don’t love it (I do!) but because I’m making space. I’m finally being really honest with myself about where I want to direct my energy.
The truth is, I do love guiding both the faster, more sympathetic, activating practices AND the slower, melty, parasympathetic ones.
But these days, I’d rather channel the activating side of my facilitation into embodied dance containers, kriya practices, sacred rage expression, and more upbeat somatic movement practices, instead of vinyasa yoga.
I keep hearing this beautiful inner whisper lately:
"Trying to be everything is preventing you from being THE thing you most want to be"
... and ouff is that ever TRUE. So I’m listening to that inner knowing. I'm stripping back, getting clear and intentional, and in my work only offering what feel truly aligned with me and my soul's purpose.
If this stirs something in you, maybe a memory of your own teen self, or a curiosity about what it’s like to get somatically CLEAR on what feels aligned with the true you, I’d love to welcome you into my 1:1 work where we explore deep nervous system regulation, emotional expression, and reconnection with your body’s wisdom.
With 7 years of experience working in trauma-informed care, and 10 years of experience working in the wellness industry, I bring richness and depth in the way that I hold space for your beautiful, messy, unique process to unfold, in its own time.
If you feel the pull in your heart, book a 15min discovery call here 🌹
With sneaky sass and sacred rebellion, Ayesha xx
p.s. I highly recommend solo dancing as medicine. Truly. Let HER out. No choreography, no performance. Just intuitive, uninhibited, expressive movement. Put on your favourite song or playlist and MOVE 💃🏽✨🪩