Therapeutic Approaches in Yoga Therapy

Working Through Trauma

Yoga is a very unique tool in healing, and we understand more and more about how and why the more we research and understand the nervous system. Ultimately, though, yoga is not about parts of you- it is about you as an inherently whole being. The world “healing” is used as a way of addressing and feeling that wholeness, not about “fixing” you.

Yoga therapy is different from a yoga class, even a trauma- informed one. We do use movement and poses/asana, as well as mudra ( hand gestures), and gradually introduce meditation, breath- but the focus is not on learning poses but on using all of the practices to help regulate the nervous system and understand the messages your body is giving you.

What calms and soothes the nervous system is different for each person, so it’s important to have options. Some people need to engage the body more and some need to move from a very soft, gentle place. There is room for all of that. With trauma, stillness can be triggering so we come to that very slowly, whether it is holding a pose or a relaxation practice- so we work first to establish a dialogue with ourselves that we can move at any time. That we are always in choice.

Ultimately the practice of yoga is about your wholeness, which is innate to you but sometimes hard to feel. All of the practices - physical to subtle- seek to clear the illusion that you are anything but whole, even in the face of great challenge. The physical poses are part of that, but not the whole thing.

Trauma is not an event. Trauma is a process of your system attempting to return to balance after being overwhelmed by the unfathomable. While symptoms of trauma, PTSD, and relational trauma are unquestionably challenging, it is important to recognize that they developed out of the life force your body survived or is surviving with. As such, they must be approached with respect, self-compassion, and great gentleness. Healing, ultimately, is not about bypassing human experience. It is about gradually embodying, and living within our full experience.

My focus is to help you find ways to anchor and stabilize. Please know, however, that everything you feel is ok. Triggers sometimes happen. You are not failing if you need to take a break, feel overwhelmed, or need to do something entirely different than what I am leading- in fact, uncovering your needs is at the heart of yoga.