Trauma Healing Yoga: release trauma from your body
The original yoga for trauma
Trauma Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY) is very different than the yoga you may have seen online or experienced in a typical yoga studio. TCTSY is a somatic therapy for folkx living with traumatic body memories, in the presence of someone who understands what it’s like and supports them in coming home to themselves and befriending their body without judgement or shame. There are no hidden agendas, goals, pressure to perform, should’s, must’s, can’ts, or dogma, and it centres around the knowing that:
YOU ARE THE EXPERT OF YOUR EXPERIENCE.
Which means that your choosing is more important that doing (or not doing), and that the only teacher here is the experience of what it feels like to be in YOUR body. My only purpose is to support and accompany you in your process by facilitating TCTSY.
Who is TCTSY for?
TCTSY was initially developed for individuals with complex trauma (C-PTSD) and PTSD, but you do not require a formal diagnosis to participate. It is designed for anyone who has difficulties in the relationship they have with their body or identifies as having experienced trauma, whether it be physical, verbal, or sexual abuse, neglect, intergenerational or historical trauma, systemic oppression (like racism, misoginy, homophobia, transphobia), accumulated chronic stress, or any other extreme event that you feel overwhelmed your living body, mind, and nervous system.
You do not have to have any prior yoga experience. TCTSY is accessible to everyone and the practice is always tailored to your individual needs.
You don't have to have any experience with yoga, or be strong, flexible or able-bodied. Every body is welcome here.
What happens during a TCTSY offering?
- Opportunities to be in your body, to notice your breath, and/or pause in stillness in the present moment.
- There are no physical adjustments or assists.
- I won’t be looking at you. I will be sitting in my chair or on my mat practicing along with you.
- Invitational Language -I will never tell you what to do with your body. You are in charge and the expert of how you decide to move or not move your body. Chasing not to do something is just as important as choosing to do it.
- Choice Making- Opportunities to make choices based on what you’re noticing or feeling(or not) in your body. I will offer different accessible options and you are welcome to choose and explore whatever works for you.
- Interoception – Opportunities to notice and experience your felt sense, meaning awareness of what you feel inside your body, as you are still, moving, and/or transition between shapes.
- Opportunities to explore the survival stress (trauma responses) that may still be alive within your body, in a safe enough environment. This may provide insight to what you might be experiencing in your body, how you you might engage your body in the process of healing, and making empowered choices that move beyond surviving towards thriving.
- We will not be talking about your past or making meaning of emotions, or sensations. This might be a nice change if you feel talk therapy hasn’t been bringing you the relief you are looking for.
trauma-sensitive yoga is NOT psychotherapy
Trauma Healing Yoga TCTSY is not psychotherapy nor does it substitute it. It is a somatic therapy which works in a completely different way- bottom-up- meaning it involves befriending the language of the body: the sensations, feelings, and stored survival stress and implicit body memory. As a trauma-sensitive yoga facilitator, I don’t diagnose mental health disorders, we don’t talk about or process past trauma.
TCTSY does not require you to be in psychotherapy as it’s a stand alone treatment. It is encouraged however to have some sort of support system – like a friend, partner, therapist, coach, spiritual guide etc- as working with the body in this way can bring up to surface implicit memories, so things like sensations, images, memories or emotions may emerge.
TCTSY is an approach that creates a safe and non-judgmental atmosphere and by focusing on sensations originating from the body (interoception) as a source of information for making one’s own decisions, it also allows participants to restore the connection between the mind and the body and nurture a sense of agency, which is often weakened as a result of experiencing trauma.
"The constant reminders to go at your own pace and to listen to your body for what it needs and when it's ready to turn or how far it wants to turn that was super helpful and has extended in so many other places in my life. Yoga classes I have taken other places, I have heard people say, "You can push yourself; you don't realize what your body can do. Just push it." I feel like that's the kind of thing I have been doing my whole life. What is so valuable about this yoga class is that it was not about pushing yourself. It was about letting yourself get there in your own time."
Core Principles
How does TCTSY have potential to be healing?
The 5 core principles of TCTSY support parts of the body-mind that may have been affected by trauma. Interception invites a titrated and deliberate contact with the felt sense, choice making and invitational language support autonomy and encourage self-exploration and agency, non-coersion and shared authentic experience create a safe enough space that’s the opposite of trauma, and create relational safety and attunement,
TCTSY encourages making safe and deliberate contact with the body, which supports the natural process of nervous system regulation. The vagus nerves acts as a communication system between the brain and the body and vice versa. A whopping 80% of the nerve fibres send information from the body to the brain! ( only about 20% send info from the body to the brain). When the body starts to feel safer, so does the mind.
Trauma often impacts the interoceptive regions of the brain – responsible for feeling our internal world of bodily sensations, feelings and emotions- while Trauma-Sensitive Yoga has been shown to bring these parts of the brain back online, helping participants feel safe enough and build capacity to feel more and more in their body.
Benefits participants have experienced after just 10 sessions::
- Reduction of C-PTSD/PTSD symptoms – 52% lose the diagnosis that lasted for years despite participating in psychotherapy
- Improvement in awareness, regulation, and emotional tolerance
- Stress reduction through the regulation of the nervous system
- Enhancement in functioning
- Diminishing anxious and depressive symptoms
- Greater tolerance for physical and sensory experiences
- Increased sense of safety and reduction of constant vigilance and bracing
- Greater ease in making choices and recognizing their effectiveness
- Practicing decision-making in relation to the body
- They feel they agency over their lives and can impact how they feel
- Greater self-awareness and compassion for oneself
- Deepening connections with other people
- Drawing strength from all these new experiences
"The core experiences of psychological trauma are disempowerment and disconnection from others. Recovery, therefore, is based upon the empowerment of the survivor and the creation of new connections."
-Judith Herman MD
more about TCTSY
TCTSY is supported by more than 10 original peer-reviewed studies and over two decades of therapeutic intervention expertise by renowned psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk, a global expert in the field of trauma.
I am a certified TCTSY-F facilitator, with 300 hours of training from the Center for Trauma and Embodiment at the Justice Resource Institute ( formerly known as the The Trauma Center), TCTSY was founded by Dave Emerson and evolved from clinical trials with adult trauma survivors at the Trauma Center. You can learn more about the TCTSY methodology HERE and you’re welcome to view my facilitator profile HERE.
learn more about TCTSY from it's co-founders:
TCTSY integrates trauma theory, attachment theory, neuroscience, and hatha yoga.
What do I need to practice TCTSY online?
You don’t need anything special, but if you like you could bring a yoga mat,a chair, blanket, or yoga blocks/books. You are welcome to wear anything that you like.
TCTSY in an online format is more and more commonly used and the benefits are the same as when practicing in person. The added bonus is that you can practice fret the safety and comfort of your own space and You don’t have to turn your camera on.
Request a consultation
A free initial consultation via Zoom/Googgle Meet or phone is required before you purchase your session. This is where we will get to know each other, talk about your expectations and ask any questions you may have, so that you can decide if this feels right for you.
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