Weekly Trauma-Informed Yoga Practice
You might not think of yourself as a yoga person. Maybe you've never done yoga before, or you feel like you don't know enough to even start. Starting might just feel too scary. Or some part of you feels like your body isn't good enough to show up in a room like this. (Trust me, I know that one well.) Beneath all of that, there's a simpler truth. It's vulnerable to move your body and be seen doing it.
Yes, you can do yoga
After twenty years of practice, across different styles and teachers, and my own trauma work, I can tell you what makes yoga challenging is rarely the yoga itself. It's the feeling that you have to be a certain way to be worthy of even showing up.
It's so easy to spend years believing that the poses are the goal of your yoga practice, when in fact, they are tools handed down to you to experience inhabiting the body you are currently experiencing your life in. I myself spent years believing it. I thought I had to earn my place in the room by performing, finding the advanced shape, looking disciplined enough, or spiritual enough.
That feeling doesn't only come from the shapes. In a traditional class, the teacher observes in order to assess and correct, so being seen and witnessed is evaluative by design. And this is why it's very normal to be nervous about a group class. The practice asks you to turn your attention inward to feel your body, and being observed pulls your attention right back out. On top of that, for many people who have experienced trauma, your nervous system may be so habituated to turning outward that turning inward feels unsafe.
The true aim of yoga is to bring mind and body together and discover liberation. Your body is a vehicle in that experience of liberation.
It's how you experience being alive. Everything you feel and experience moves through your body first. That makes your relationship with it unique and sacred. In trauma-informed yoga, there's no getting it right and no correct way to move or hold a shape because there is no standard to measure against in the first place.
You're allowed to not know, to feel unsure, to not have that relationship figured out yet. There's still room here for you to begin. Every part of this practice is intentionally built to help you feel safety, and trust it, in your body and your nervous system, not something you're just told is already there.
A trauma-informed yoga class may look similar to other yoga classes from the outside, but the experience can feel different. You don't need any prior experience with yoga, just willingness to move at your own pace and stay connected to what you're noticing.
You are welcome just as you are
The class is intentionally built to help you create a new relationship with your body. I base a large portion of my class from my training in Trauma-Sensitive Yoga from the Center for Trauma and Embodiment, and it rests on five pillars.
Invitational language
Rather than being told what to do with your body, you'll hear language like:
"If you'd like, you might explore…"
"You might choose to stay here, or try…"
"One possibility is to notice..."
This is deliberate, and it repeats throughout the class, because every invitation is another reminder that you're the one choosing.
Choice-making
Everyone's practice will look different, because everyone is invited to make their own choices. You might decide to stay in a shape longer. You might choose try a different shape, or rest, or challenge yourself. Those are all choices you can make regardless of what anyone else in the class is doing, because that's the point.
Non-coercion
You won't hear a shape described as comfortable, or opening, or grounding. Naming what a movement should feel like puts my experience where yours belongs. Your experience is yours to have. Whatever you notice is what's there. There is no goal that the facilitator wants you to achieve. We are simply practicing what it means to you to feel your body.
Shared authentic experience
I practice alongside you rather than watching you practice. There's no assessing happening, no corrections being made, no one whose body is the reference point for everyone else's. You're witnessed rather than observed, and being seen here has no purpose beyond being witnessed.
Interoception
Interoception is known as your "sixth sense" and it is your ability to notice present moment sensations in your body. Trauma can diminish interoception and that can affect your fundamental sense of self: identifying what you need, making decisions, understanding your emotions, and even trusting yourself.
What makes trauma-informed yoga different
Sliding Scale
You are welcome to honestly choose the rate that fits your circumstances. You don't need to match every line — pick the one that mostly sounds like your life. Nothing to prove, no explanation needed, and you can choose differently any week.
Adapted from the Green Bottle Model by Alexis J. Cunningfolk. Numbers alone don't capture anyone's financial situation. You know yours better than any form could.
