Trauma-Informed Yoga

Trauma. In a moment all that once what was shifts. Changes. After nothing was as it had been. Trauma makes you long to know who you are. Makes you question everything you want or like or love. Leaves you alone not sure which direction is right. All these thoughts running through the mind, what if this didn’t happen. What did happen? What if I am imagining all the feelings arising? Who can see me if I can’t see myself? Trauma leaves me uncertain and unsure. Questioning what others intentions are. Asking am I ok? Am I ok? Such a simple question yet the answer always seems out of reach. In a flash, those moments the trauma can come back. Quickly. Feeling it still even through time as deep as it was the first time. Pain. Loss. Uncertainty. Confusion. What does safety look like now when the strings of connection have been broken? How to wrap the mind around this to make sense of senseless things.

Yoga lets me come inside to breathe. Softens the anger, pain, hurt, all that one carries. Breath settles. Mind settles. The body begins to reclaim itself. Simple movements allow for this. Beginning to make choices. What feels good in my body? Breath. Movement. Stillness. Yoga allows for choice to be used. Choice empowers. Creates a sense of control. To know what feels good and what doesn’t. In the body. In the mind. In the heart. Deciding for yourself which way to move here and now and then later. To be healed from what has invaded or broken. For our souls and our deepest feelings to be awakened. Felt and realized.

Trauma-informed yoga allows a focus on the present moment experiencing of the body creating awareness of the connection between the mind and body. Which has been shown to increase awareness of how clients/participants notice feelings in the physical body and from there begin to tolerate their emotional states longer and with a sense of safety. It aims to give control to the client/participant creating a sense of empowerment and ownership over one's body which has often been taken away during trauma.

Trauma-informed yoga helps build skills for emotional regulation and growing a deeper sense of connection to understanding and listening to one's body and what it needs.