Soul Talk and Psychic Advice

Somatic Manifesting: Healing Your Body To Receive

• Dr. Donna • Season 1 • Episode 26

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What if your body—not your mindset—sets the ceiling on what you can manifest? After a profound loss, I discovered that affirmations and vision boards couldn’t override a nervous system stuck in protection. Today I share a candid look at why manifesting can stall after grief and trauma, and how somatic practices rebuild the safety required to receive love, money, rest, and visibility without backlash.

We unpack the hidden rules many of us learned: that love requires sacrifice, success invites punishment, visibility leads to rejection, money is dangerous, and rest isn’t safe. I break down how these beliefs live in the body as fight, flight, freeze, and fawn responses—and why that isn’t self-sabotage but self-protection. From there, we move into somatic manifesting: regulating before visualizing, using breath, shaking, grounding, and EFT to shift state, then training your system with sensation-based visualization—feeling warmth, stability, and spaciousness so your body learns what “having” actually feels like.

You’ll learn why small, embodied wins matter more than giant leaps, how to release survival identities like hustler, caretaker, and strong one, and how to honor grief while letting desire coexist with sorrow. We talk practical tools to make intentions land, rebuild trust with life, and become a safe place for your desires to arrive and stay. If you’ve ever thought “I’m doing everything right but nothing changes,” this conversation offers a compassionate, actionable path forward grounded in nervous system wisdom and trauma-informed manifesting.

If this resonates, subscribe for future episodes, share with someone who needs gentle hope, and leave a review so others can find us. Connect with me on Facebook and Instagram at Dr. Donnelly, join the email list at drdonnay.com, and come into the Grief Alchemy group on Skool to continue the work together.

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SPEAKER_00:

Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of my podcast, Soul Talk and Psychic Advice. Today we're going to talk about manifesting, but not the kind that tells you to think positive or just a vision board or you know, it's a couple of steps and you get there. There are many ways so to manifest, but for someone who has unhealed trauma or grief in their background, manifesting can be harder. And this is something that I learned because I was always a powerful manifester when raising my son. I can manifest enough money, whatever we needed. I manifested nice places to live, although we were poor. I did a lot of that, but when he died, I couldn't manifest to save my life. And I had a lot of financial problems because of it. I even had to file bankruptcy more than once. I had a lot of things go wrong. And I realized that manifesting is different when you have grief. And where I believe that a lot of these programs work, I do believe that someone who has had trauma or grief needs a different type of approach. So you can't just visualize or override fear with affirmations. And so we're going to talk about somatic manifesting. Somatic manifesting is the understanding that your body, your nervous system, your muscles, your breath, your sensations are all the true gatekeeper of what you allow, receive, and sustain. That is very important to understand because somatics is the body. So everything within the body, muscles, breath, you know, just your soul, just everything is a part of somatics. You don't manifest what you want, you manifest what your body feels safe holding. And that's for anyone. But when it comes to a person with trauma, this is really true. So you don't always manifest properly. You can end up manifesting something that you don't even want. And you can only manifest at the level of your healing. That goes for anyone. And unfortunately, if you've been through trauma or grief, you're not going to be able to manifest as much as you would like. And for me as a somatic grief coach, I focus more on life after loss because I want people to see that there's hope. You know, there are grief coaches who focus on just healing, you know, the situation, but I'm really about what happens, you know, life after, and manifesting is a big part of it. Always say you want to be able to manifest massive abundance, and abundance can be love, better relationships, not just money, not just business. Abundance is whatever you see as abundant to you. So if your body is bracing, guarded, exhausted, dysregulated, grieving, traumatized, no amount of mindset work will override that. And this episode will change how you understand manifesting, especially if you ever felt like you're doing everything right and still staying stuck. A lot of people don't even know that their trauma is getting in the way because we bury so much to get through the day. And even if you have trauma, you can still have good days. It doesn't mean that you're just drowning in your trauma every day. So mindset alone doesn't work. Traditional manifestation focuses on thoughts, think positive. You know, a lot of the positive thinking we know that ends up being bypassing, right? You can't just sit there and think positive and believe that everything's going to be okay. It also focuses on reframing your beliefs, just trying to think differently, changing your mindset, right? Visualizing outcomes, which is important, but you got to do some inner work before you get there. And repeating affirmations. I personally love affirmations, but they really don't work when you need to heal. You could use them as your healing, but there's more that needs to be done. But thoughts are only one layer of the system. Mindset is only one layer of the system. Your nervous system decides, okay? Your nervous system decides what feels safe, what feels threatening. Okay, we all are going to define these things differently. What feels possible? And when you have trauma or your grief, and you may be full of doubt, you may feel like nothing will work, you probably feel like nothing will ever be good again. If your body learned early that love requires sacrifice, a lot of people are in relationships that resemble that. You know, it's going to be very hard to manifest. If you don't believe that love should come easy and be good, and you think you have to sacrifice part of yourself, you know, to have love, which is a trauma response, you're going to struggle with manifesting a loving relationship. That success brings punishment. You know, we hear all these things that rich people are greedy and rich people had to hurt other people and successful people had to step on a lot of toes, and it just isn't always so. Yes, it happens, but you can't say that about everyone. There's a lot of good people out there doing good things with their wealth. And if you desire wealth, you can do good things with it. I know whenever I have extra money, I love to donate, I love to share. You know, so don't fall into any negative mindset traps. Visibility leads to rejection. A lot of people are scared to be visible because they don't want to be rejected or talked about. We know the internet can be unkind. Money creates danger for a lot of people. What is the saying? More money, more problems. A lot of people believe that. And they believe that rest is unsafe. And your nervous system will block manifestation to protect you. If you believe any of this, if you believe that love requires sacrifice, that success brings punishment, that visibility leads to rejection, that money creates danger, that rest is unsafe. Yes, your nervous system will block manifesting to protect you. This is not self-sabotage. It looks like self-sabotage, and people will tell you you're self-sabotaging, but it's self-protection. So manic manifesting works with your body, not against it. So it's going to work where you're at, and you can only manifest so much. That's why when you see some people getting everything, and you're like, why are they getting it? And people turn into, well, they're not a better person, they're not a good person, they're not a bad person, but it's not about being good, bad, worthy, or deserving. It's about where your body's at, which you will allow to manifest. Some people can just manifest anything and it'll show up, and that's what it is. So what somatic manifesting actually is somatic manifesting is the practice of teaching your body that what you desire is safe to receive. You're teaching your body, and then the mind, okay? But it starts in the body because we know from the book, the body keeps a score that trauma, everything is stored in the body. It's not just a mind. So this involves nervous system regulation. You've got to regulate your nervous system, you've got to do somatic exercises, you've got to heal trauma, you gotta do therapy if necessary. Emotional processing, how you process your emotions, going back to nervous system regulation, releasing stored survival responses. Therapy can help with that. A lot of times people try to heal on their own. No, we need help healing, repattering safety around expansion. You have to allow yourself to feel safe, and that's doing the work to get there, healing the grief, healing the trauma. Letting the body experience having before the mind believes it. You want to feel it in your body. That's why they say with manifesting, you got to feel it. You can't just think it, you have to feel it. And when you could create that feeling, it becomes possible. Now I'm gonna say a note. We know you can't just a hundred percent heal trauma or grief, but you can make it better, you can navigate through it, you can have a good life despite it. Okay, so that I want you to keep in mind, and this is why some people who can't do this, they think abundance, but they feel scarcity, right? They're thinking abundantly, but they're still feeling like it's not possible. If I have money, that means somebody else is sacrificing. You know, it's not pie. The universe constantly expands to accommodate all of us. The universe would not allow eight billion people on the planet if it couldn't accommodate eight billion people. Desire, love, embrace intimacy. You desire love, but you're embracing and you can't handle intimacy. You want success, but you collapse under visibility. This is what happens when you don't have a regulated nervous system. You crave rest but feel guilty when you're resting. Your body is not resisting your dreams, it's protecting you from past pain. Manifesting begins when the body no longer feels threatened by expansion. Manifestation begins and it becomes easier when the body no longer feels threatened by expansion. You have to feel safe resting, you have to feel safe being seen if you want success. You can't fear rejection. You have to believe that there is enough for everyone. You have to let go of scarcity, you have to let go of thinking that money is bad and money equals greed, and people get hurt by rich people. It doesn't have to be that way. There's a lot of people with a lot of money doing a lot of great things. Okay, so how trauma shapes what you can manifest. Trauma is not just about what happened to you, it's what your body learned about the world. Because once you have the trauma, your body has a different perception about the world. Your system may have learned that more responsibility equals danger. And a lot of times it has for people, especially children who have been parentified and had to be adults when they were still children. Being seen leans leads to harm. When you see successful people being attacked online, it could be like, oh, I don't want to be seen because look, I'd be talked about, I'd be put down, I'd be laughed at. Depending on others isn't safe. If you haven't been able to depend on people, it's not safe for you. It's going to be hard to trust people and to depend on someone to be reliable in your life. Good things don't last. I really used to hate that saying. I would hear that so much from people growing up. Because you know, we know bad things happen, they just do, but good things can last. If I relax, something bad will happen. You know, some people are stuck in fight or flight, and they're always on alert, right? They're always looking out for something to go wrong. And you know, no, you can relax, you could go on vacation, the world will be waiting for you. Um, so when you try to manifest ease, abundance, love, support, or stability, it becomes very hard because it's like you want your life to be easy, but you're used to it being hard, you're used to problems constantly happening. You know, manifesting love doesn't feel safe because you've had bad relationships. Support, you haven't been able to rely on somebody. Stability, who's been stable in your life, you know, abundance. It just seems like can I have that? It looks like other people get it. Your nurse, your nervous system is going to respond with anxiety. Anxiety can come from this procrastination. Yep, you were procrastinate. You just say, I'll do it another day. I I work on my goals another day because goals are a part of manifesting, right? Overgiving. We give away our abundance because it doesn't feel safe. You know, it's a trauma response, collapse, numbing out. You know, a lot of people just go numb. That's safer. Overworking. A lot of people will do that, they just overwork and they feel like they have to do that to distract from any discomfort. It's not always just to pay the bills, it's a way to distract, right? When we had the pandemic and people were stuck at home, a lot of people were fighting within their relationships and within their family. There was a lot of breakups. I live in a huge apartment complex. I think there was 400 units. It was huge. And a lot of people who were couples, they broke up during that time because they had to face so many things about each other that they didn't like. And being stuck at home really triggered a lot of people, and it probably triggered a lot of trauma, just not the fear of dying from COVID, but everything that we avoid, we had to face. COVID was spiritual, although it was traumatic at the same time. And so all of these behaviors are conditioning, it's not failure. Somatic manifesting honors this truth instead of bypassing it. So somatic manifesting, it it honors where we're at and what we're going through and what we need to heal. The body states that blocking manifestation is okay, that the body, we're gonna talk about the body and how we can block it. Let's talk about the most common nervous system pattern that interferes with manifesting. Okay, fight. You may feel driven, controlling, impatient or aggressive about outcomes. Manifesting becomes force, not flow. So we're gonna talk about fight, flight, freeze, fine. So when you fight, you're in the fight or fight response, especially when you're in the fight, you may feel driven. You may feel controlling, impatient, or aggressive about outcomes, and you're trying to force the manifesting instead of it flowing. That's very important to know the difference. You're fighting the flow. Flight. You flight, how do you run? You stay busy, you're distracted, you constantly are planning, but not allowing for stillness, you're not taking action, you're just planning. A lot of people are just constantly planning. They're like, one day I'll be ready to take action. Your body never registers safety because you're running by staying busy and being distracted. Freeze, you feel stuck, you feel numb, you're overwhelmed. Your system shuts down all possibility. You just freeze, you're just like, I don't know what to do. You get really stuck. Fawn. Okay, I've been hearing a fawn response. A lot of us have. You overgive, you give away your abundance. You people please, you manifest for others instead of yourself. A lot of people do that. And it's you know, think about it. If your people please are overgiver, you have manifested for other people, but you don't feel safe manifesting for yourself. These are ways, these are body states, okay? States of the body that blocks manifestation. Okay, manifesting requires regulated ventral state. You need to be regulated, where your body feels grounded, present, and open. So you can manifest for yourself and you're not fixing everybody else. Without regulation, intention cannot land. You can't be intentional if you're not regulated. Very important. So let's talk about what somatic manifesting looks like in practice. Somatic manifesting is slower but more effective. Sometimes you have an instant result. I still have that sometimes. Like, whoa, look at me. You know, because it feels good. It's like I really recovered from some type of trauma. It includes practices like regulating before visualizing, do a somatic exercise, simple ones, doing shaking, doing breath work, doing some EFT. That's why EFT is so powerful. You calm the body first through breath, movement, or grounding. A regulated body can imagine without threat. Okay? That's very important. Feeling the sensation of having. Having this. Instead of picturing outcomes, you notice sensations. Does it feel soft, spacious? Do you feel like you're expanding? Do you feel warm? Do you feel stable? Do you feel relief? You know, when you're visualizing having what you want. These sensations teach your body what receiving feels like. Working with resistance, not forcing it. When fear arises, you pause. Okay, you listen. You listen. Where's that fear in your body? You reassure your body. You do not override it. You don't start having doubt and say, Oh, it doesn't work for me. Safety comes before expansion. You have to feel safe to expand, to manifest. Embodying small wins. Any small win. Don't go, well, it's not the big one. The small wins are huge. And you say, thank you, universe, and thank you to yourself for acknowledging the small wins. Your body will start trusting consistency, not leaps. Small embodied successes requires capacity. Reclaiming survival identities. Overgiver, hustler, caretaker, strong one. Okay. I think all of us have been these things, more than one of these things at one time or another. These identities keep you safe. It keeps you safe to be the overgiver, the hustler, the caretaker, the strong one. But now they limit you. Okay. You don't want it to limit you no more. So you want to release the survival identities. You want to release being an overgiver. You want to release being a hustler. You want to release being a caretaker, and you want release being a strong one that's important when it comes to somatic manifesting so let's talk about somatic manifesting and grief for those who carry grief loss deep emotional trauma manifesting can feel complicated all of a sudden I had lost my ability to manifest and that was weird because I used to do it like it was nothing so I had to learn it all over again grief contracts the nervous system it teaches the body to brace and it just feels like nothing matters after a traumatic experience right what matters nothing somatic manifesting honors grief by letting desire coexist with sorrow remember we're dualities we have layers it isn't all or nothing all happy all sad we're really in the middle okay so you let desire coexist with sorrow it's okay to desire even though you're going through grief and loss you just don't have to survive the moment allowing joy without betrayal you're not betraying the people who you lost by allowing joy and trust me they want you to feel joy again I know that I'm a medium creating safety to receive again very important rebuilding trust with life it's one day at a time you're not blocked because you grieve your body just needs gentleness and that's why somatic manifesting is so great expansion after loss must be embodied not rushed we can't rush to feel better rush to heal we have to walk through it that's so important and if you are grieving it can feel like oh anything positive is all BS it doesn't work and sometimes people get mad at me when I post online they're like I don't know and it's like I know I've been there but I'm who you come to when you want to do it life after loss I'm really a life after loss coach or a life after grief coach okay and that's how I see it and manifesting is very important to your healing but you have to be ready for it so you know we're going to talk about manifesting from safety not force you don't need to think harder you don't need to be more positive sometimes it's hard to be positive you don't need to push through fear you don't need to teach your body that it's safe to have it's safe to receive it's safe to rest okay you need to teach your body this that it's safe to have it's safe to receive it's safe to rest it's safe to expand it's safe to want more you have to tell yourself it's safe I am safe this is not a threat to want more to to receive to expand to be happy you have to teach it and through somatic work your body can believe it and once your body believes it and you can feel it you can manifest it and my manifesting has gotten a lot better since grieving yeah you know some days it's quick and I'm like whoa okay I got it and you can have it again if you've lost it or if you never had it you can have it now. Somatic manifesting is not about chasing outcomes it's not it's about becoming a safe place for your desires to land to exist when the body feels safe manifesting becomes inevitable. That's really what it's about okay it is safe to manifest it is safe to expand it is safe to want even after trauma and after grief and I invite you to keep on exploring somatic manifesting I talk about it a lot on my Facebook my Instagram I'm Dr. Donnelly on both and I talk about it in the emails so you can go to drdonnay.com and join my email I always have free offerings I have a group it is called grief alchemy on school and you could join the group and go on the journey of somatic manifesting and just navigating grief through somatic healing. So I want to thank you for listening and have a great day.