Yoga for Trauma
What is trauma?
In our busy lives, where we tend to be juggling a lot, our nervous system can be on high alert too much of the time. Add into that the stresses and uncertainty of living through a pandemic and we can risk overwhelm, burnout and mental health issues.
Perhaps you've also had a traumatic event happen, which has affected you in different ways such as insomnia, overwhelm, anxiety, depression, hypervigilance, always on high alert or perhaps numbness and feeling disconnected.
We tend to think of trauma with a capital 'T' for a life-changing event, but trauma can also come from too much or too little of something over a period of time. Like too much to juggle with work, childcare and aging parents. Or too little support at work. It's real and makes it difficult to be resilient.
Trauma is held in the body until we support its release. This can be done through simple practices that help you find a feeling of being grounded, centred and finding stability.
I work with individuals who have experienced trauma and organisations who would like trauma-informed yoga for their service users.
Yoga for Trauma.
A body-based approach aims to gently bring a feeling of safety or soothing to the body through simple movements. It is a collaborative process where choice is given about how to do something, how much of it to do, even where to be in the room.
Trauma-sensitive yoga shows how a person can soothe their own nervous system and reconnect with their body in small steps.
When working with individuals, we would have an initial telephone call to talk about what you are hoping to work on and a chance to get a sense of me. Then we would decide on when to have an initial session. After trying the body-based approach, we would then book a series of sessions in.
When working with organisations, I can facilitate a number of sessions for a particular service user group and am also available for talks/ workshops to staff about using a trauma-informed approach through a movement modality such as yoga. (NB. The talks/ workshops are for awareness raising and do not lead to a qualification in Yoga for trauma.)
Read my article on a Body-based approach to birth trauma (relevant to other types of trauma also).
I have been a British Wheel of Yoga teacher since 2004. I am a trainer of other yoga teachers for the Yoga Teacher Forum and completed Yoga for Trauma trainings with Aneta Idzcak and Alex Cat.
I specialise in Birth Trauma because of my particular interest in pregnancy and postnatal yoga, but teach more general on the importance of a trauma-sensitive approach
