146. Why Isn't Everyone Dancing Their Feelings? with Sah D’Simone

What if ninety seconds on a dance floor could do what ten years of therapy couldn't?

In this episode, Emily Fletcher sits down with Sah D'Simone, a spiritual teacher, humanitarian, and bestselling author whose approach to healing was forged through over 300 days of silent meditation, clinical spiritual care training at Cedars-Sinai Hospital, and years of direct service in the margins. Sah is the creator of the Somatic Activated Healing (SAH) Method and founder of the Somatic Dance Institute, and his work has drawn collaborations with Harvard, Columbia, and the UN.

They trace Sah's path from meditation teacher to dance mystic: the night in Bali when a trance on the dance floor cracked him open into a full-body recognition of strangers dancing beside him, the year his mother died and everything he'd built around joy fell apart, and why he believes talking about trauma can trap you in a cycle of blame while dancing it moves the charge all the way through. They also get into how Christian missionaries turned the god of dance into the devil, the nuanced difference between chasing pleasure and finding it inside whatever is true, and why no feeling, however big, is the one that finally breaks you.

In this episode, Sah explores:

Why talking about your trauma can trap you in a cycle of blame, while dancing it moves the charge all the way through

The night in Bali when a trance on the dance floor cracked him open into a full-body recognition of strangers he'd apparently known before

How Christian missionaries turned Pan, the god of dance and revelry, into the image of the devil

The difference between chasing pleasure as an escape and finding the ecstasy inside whatever is true, even rage or grief

What his mother's death taught him about prayer, pain, and the limits of visualization

A Vipassana retreat gone sideways, and the wave of full-body release that followed once he stopped resisting

Opening for a DJ with five minutes' notice, and the closest he has come to a physical experience of the divine on a stage

Why no feeling is too big to survive, and what actually makes people exhausted

Key Moments:

00:00 – Emily's introduction: from meditation teacher to dance mystic, and why Harvard and Columbia came calling 03:02 – Why the most prestigious universities on the planet are studying his work 05:10 – His mother's death, and the six months of "sanctioned insanity" that followed 07:48 – The Osho line: why a woman dancing is closer to God than a man meditating 08:40 – Why talking about your trauma can trap you in a cycle of blame and victimhood 14:11 – How Christian missionaries turned Pan, the god of dance, into the devil 19:40 – The night in Bali when dance cracked him open into a past-life recognition on the floor 27:06 – 2020, and the moment "the goddess" rewired his entire career overnight 28:00 – "Part rave, part ritual": why the fastest, most industrial beats create the safest place to disappear 30:47 – His pushback on spiritual bypassing in ceremony culture, and Emily's response 40:34 – What his mother's death taught him about pain, prayer, and the edges of joy 42:27 – A Vipassana retreat, "princess and the pea," and the full-body release that followed 44:23 – The Iceland eclipse festival, and opening for a DJ with five minutes' notice 49:31 – The first-ever multi-day festival at the pyramids, and the Egypt eclipse he's building toward in 2027 51:16 – What he'd say to the exhausted parent of three who says they don't have time to dance 54:05 – His one request: dance to a single song, eyes closed 58:04 – A Lakota elder's line: all the suffering on the planet traces back to uncried tears

About Sah D'Simone

Sah D'Simone is a spiritual teacher, humanitarian, and bestselling author of Spiritually Sassy and Spiritually, We. He is the creator of the Somatic Activated Healing (SAH) Method and founder of the Somatic Dance Institute, where he has trained teachers and guided communities worldwide in trauma-informed, body-b