Thoughts on Yoga for Trauma
This is a précis of my notes for the presentation I gave over the weekend at Evolve Yoga Festival. I’m going to put up a voice recording of my talk too, in case that interests any you, so stay tuned!
I owe a debt for some of the info in this piece to American yoga teacher Linda Karl. She has lived trauma first-hand, and she, like me, has been teaching in a pretty much trauma-sensitive way for many years, thanks to her training in the Krishnamarcharya tradition (and her own experience). Find more of her thoughts on the topic here. (She also runs teacher trainings – very awesome!)
Read on!
Note: this piece might be triggering if you have suffered a trauma of your own, and if that is the case and you find you need help, please call Lifeline’s 24 hour support line on 13 11 14.
As I prepare to present on the topic of Yoga for Trauma at the Evolve Yoga Festival in Melbourne, I can’t help but think about how I wound up here.
By the time I first stepped onto a yoga mat, I was crawling out of my skin.
I’d run out of strategies for dulling my feelings. Starving myself hadn’t worked. Nor had eating too much. The door-locking, the hand-washing, the counting, the compulsive scratching at my face.
None of them were keeping my monsters at bay anymore. (My particular monsters were the memories of my dad sexually abusing me when I was a child, and the anxiety, fear, and self loathing it caused me.)
I felt like I was going to explode. Then, quite randomly, I went to a yoga class, and, for sixty minutes, got some relief from myself. That feeling of lightness actually lasted for several hours after the class: it was the longest stretch of time I had felt at peace since I was eight years old.
That was my first inkling that yoga might help me deal with the trauma of my past. Research is now showing that yoga and meditation can activate the brain’s ability to make new synaptic connections (neuroplasticity) and can also reactivate old (healthy) pathways. Research conducted by The Trauma Center’s in Masachusetts has shown that a 60 minute yoga class once a week in a 10 week session begins to reduce PTSD symptoms.
However, as I got more into yoga, I discovered that some ways of practicing made things worse for me, not better. Once I qualified to teach I worked with many, many people who’d suffered quite major traumas. It was South Africa, which has a high rate of violent crime, and I specialised in teaching one-on-one sessions tailored to the needs of the individual. My students had been through all sorts of things: being held up at gunpoint was a common theme, having armed men try to break down their bedroom doors.
Drug problems.
Alcoholism.
Abuse.
And then there was the woman whose small children had both died in a car accident.
You just never know what someone else has been through: life can be tough. Life is tough. And yoga helps, there’s no doubt about that.
Patterns started to emerge in my own practice, and in my teaching.
What people need, when they’ve been through a trauma (and most of us have, at some point, be it a car accident, sudden bereavement, or abuse) is to feel SAFE and to feel STRONG.
Safety needs to be addressed first. In chakra terms, that’s a base chakra need: to know that your right to BE, to exist, is not under constant threat. People might not be ready to admit out loud that they have experienced trauma, or suffer from Post Traumatic Stress. Lord knows I wasn’t, for a very very long time. They might not feel ready or able to make changes in their lives. But that doesn’t stop them needing to feel safe. Yoga can do that for people, if certain parameters are observed.
Trauma survivors may not want to be touched, they may get anxious in enclosed rooms. If you are lucky enough to teach a special class for trauma survivors, you will be able to control these things, but if you are teaching a general group class, what do you do?
Start with the basics:
- Be mindful of your language. Suggestions rather than commands. You might steer clear of sexual reference of any sort. I often don’t, but then my students tend to know me well and know my background, so it opens a different kind of a conversation.
- Be respectful of people’s limitations and differences in their bodies. Sounds obvious, but it isn’t – we are often quite unconscious of how we treat others in yoga class. I’ve certainly been guilty of slipping up here!
- Be sure people always know where you are in the room.
- Be careful what poses you choose: hip openers might be an issue, as might backbends. As might Child Pose. I hated Child Pose when I started yoga because it opened the back of my body, where I felt most vulnerable, and it meant I couldn’t see what was going on around me. Not good when you don’t feel safe. Not good at all. Learn modifications to give people.
Then, people need to feel strong. A natural conclusion, if you have been victimised, is that you have no control over how you are treated. That you have no power. And, because hurt is inflicted on bodies, we disembody, draw up into our heads, and do our best to stop feeling. I have found that practicing and teaching in the Krishnamacharya tradition, where breath starts and ends every movement, and Ujjayi is woven into asana practice, to be the most effective way to come back into my body, and bring my students back into theirs.
The other basic basic principle is to use the fight-or-flight muscles: quads and glutes. Warrior poses are GREAT for this, as are squats. Some forward bends are good too. This helps the body work some of the stress hormones off, and it also helps people to start feeling strong. Just about everyone can do a lunge, if it’s modified for their body, and in that way, just about everyone can start to experience the power in their legs.
Power that they could use to run or kick if they needed to. Power to stand their ground. Power to hold themselves up as they go through the traumatic (yes, it usually is) process of healing, if and when they are ready to do that.
Want to feel strong?
Try this short sequence – just click the image to download the full PDF.
Moving from Stability: Understanding the Pelvis in Posture (Online workshop)
Light Up Your Life
Thank you, lovely! So many of us DO feel anxious and scared, whether we have had trauma or not. That in itself can be so debilitating…I love how you found your strength in yoga!
Absolutely amazing piece! I’ve never suffered trauma as you have, but I do know what it’s like to be scared, helpless, lost, and yet never feeling safe enough that I could just feel those feelings. The yoga mat became a place where I could be vulnerable, but safe and strong at the same time… Namaste! You’re gorgeous!