Trauma Informed Yoga
Why Trauma Informed Yoga?
If you have ever felt depression, hopelessness, anxiety, unexplained physical ailments, or a disconnection to your body, it may be due to the impact of a trauma on your nervous system.
As the result of traumatic life events, the parts of the brain that connect mind and body become disrupted and you may experience a wide range of intensely unpleasant feelings like fear, depression, anxiety, anger, or panic. You may have trouble catching your breath, eating, or sleeping. Trauma has a profound effect on feelings of self-esteem; you may feel worthless or that life isn’t worth living.
You are not broken. You are not alone.
There are ways to heal.
By developing a positive relationship with your body, practicing breathing techniques, customized movement, and stillness, you can begin the process of allowing your mind and body to reconnect. Through the process of practicing TIY, the neural networks in your brain can be rewired and balanced, which can provide relief from suffering.
Trauma Informed Yoga establishes a safe space for you to begin to notice sensations in your body through customized yoga techniques. I offer variations for each posture, and students are invited to explore the level and pace of movement that feels best throughout the practice.
TIY is an evidence-based treatment for PTS(D) and treatment-resistant trauma based on clinical trials performed at the Trauma Center in Brookline, Massachusetts by leading trauma researcher, Dr. Bessel Van der Kolk and yoga teacher David Emerson.
If you have experienced trauma through physical, sexual, or emotional abuse or assault, medical trauma or illness, neglect, complicated grief, combat or service related trauma, TIY can help bring you relief by allowing you to feel more at ease in the world and your body. This unique yoga practice:
Helps the body learn to maintain homeostasis, while also offering gentle challenges.
Teaches use of breath for calming and inner awareness to calm hyper-vigilance.
Teaches that things (a pose, or a threat) will not go on forever- they will end – and one option is to wait and be with it.
Helps create movement where physical patterns from trauma responses are likely to be rigidly held in the fascia, the nervous system or elsewhere deep in the body.
Helps you to feel stronger so you feel like you can help yourself.
Is a healthy social habit and helps create a feeling that other people are with you and can help you.
List of benefits courtesy Living Yoga