In order to make a connection between yoga and trauma we must first set some guidelines as to what these principles mean. We have come to understand trauma as the result of an overwhelming amount of stress that exceeds one’s ability to cope or integrate the emotions involved with the experience. These adverse experiences can remain tucked away in the body’s tissues for months, years, an entire lifetime, and even be transferred through generations. In the wild, animals instinctually shake off shock trauma. I’ve witnessed this myself in deer, in domesticated dogs and cats, even the fish in my aquarium when they dispute who gets the food! Humans tend to work a little differently. If we... say... hit our thumb with a hammer, that we can shake off and carry on, learning from the experience. If we experience a loss of a loved one, an abuse, and any number of other more psychological traumas then its a bit harder to just shake off. In fact it sounds condescending which can be traumatic in and of itself. What we are learning is that these psychological traumas can live within our tissues and are never given the opportunity to be released, and therefore, affect our ability to navigate life and make more informed decisions. We are in fact living from a place of subconscious fear.
Yoga gives us the ability to slow down, be in our bodies, connect with our breath and feel sensations in the body. These sensations often house the key to releasing old wounds. This however, is a scary feat and must be approached with care, understanding, and trust. Yoga gives students a number of tools to peel away the layers that keep us bound in suffering and dis-ease. One of those tools is sensation in the body. Recognizing that we are moving into a place of stress and anxiety is key. Having an understanding of the sensations in your body, and having a moment to check in, is a great resource.
The next tool is the breath. By slowing down the breath, students are able to lower their heart rate and find a place of increased relaxation. In essence we are moving from fight or flight where the sympathetic nervous system is in charge, to a place of rest and digest where the parasympathetic nervous system takes over. I’ve used the technique of harnessing a minimum of three big breaths to move my body from a place of fear and anxiety, into restful focus. With the understanding of these tools we can now begin to peel away a deeper layer which is that of our routine behaviors, places that we go because it’s comfortable and relatively easy based on its repetitive behavior. Through a well thought-out and contained yoga practice teachers can encourage students to find their bodies, find their breath and then move into familiar places… from those familiar places move into unfamiliar places and ask simple questions such as, ‘where do your thoughts go?’ Its by asking these questions, with the gift of the breath to keep the parasympathetic nervous system in play then students can recognize voices, faces, experiences etc that have stuck with them. Now we have something to work with. While identifying these adverse experiences through a new lense we can reinstate the “shake off” which looks more like reminders that people have agency over their bodies, they have opportunity to forgive, to heal, to grow, to love, ever to forgive themselves for not being able to forgive others and therefore release shame. As these things feel scary and traumatic, properly informed yoga teachers know that they have set the conditions of courage, trust and opportunity to feel, partnered with access to the breath which allows students to slowly shed the pages of suffering they carry.
With this perspective we come to understand that yoga does create space, when done from a trauma informed lense, to release dis-ease held within tissues of the body from experiences within this life… perhaps even generationally. Partnering a consistent yoga practice with a trauma informed teacher with professional therapy experience can be extremely helpful in moving through some of the suffering that people carry.
By Kristen Williams, ERYT500
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