What is Trauma-Informed Yoga & Why Does it Matter for Everyone?
Trauma-informed classes reject a one-size-fits-all approach. A trauma-informed yoga teacher gives classes that support choice, consent, and agency. This means options will be given to support students to access greater internal safety. Read on to find out more about how this looks in practice and why trauma-informed Yoga can benefit everyone, regardless of if they have a trauma history or not.
Our nervous system is wired to keep us safe. But the stress of life and/or the impact of trauma can lead to it activating a hyper-aroused fight or flight state or going into a freeze shutdown on a daily basis. These responses are survival based, and work to keep us alive in dangerous situations.
However, when someone is recovering from trauma, their whole system can be primed to detect threat in everyday life, with the body mobilising or shutting down to respond. This kind of chronic dysregulation in the system can mean perceiving things as dangerous that aren’t, being generally on edge, and having less capacity to recover from daily stressors.
Tending to our nervous system to access safety within can help us to regulate, to recover more effectively from triggers/stress and to respond instead of react to real or perceived threat. The goal isn’t to remain calm at all times; moreso it’s to have movement between states so that the right parts are switched on and off at the right times.
For example when we’re riding a bike on a busy road, we’ll have some sympathetic (fight or flight) activation to keep us alert and safe. When we’re relaxing at home before bed, we’ll want to downregulate into our parasympathetic (rest + digest) to get us ready for the night’s sleep. But before I get distracted and geek out on all this…
First things first, let’s define Trauma.
Trauma can include feeling unsafe, under threat, powerless, abandoned, scared, trapped or humiliated. It’s when there wasn’t access to safety, connection and regulation. It can be direct (something that happened to you) or secondhand (something you witnessed or are affected by e.g. supporting someone close going through something traumatic.)
Trauma is complex and impacts people differently. Throughout our lives, many of us have experienced varying degrees of trauma. However not everyone has experienced trauma and it’s important we use the word correctly. In recent years, it’s become a bit of a social media buzzword, and we’ve seen how people can use ‘trauma’ in the wrong context. Trauma is serious, and PTSD is a real, debilitating condition.
There is no one-size-fits-all approach to recover from trauma, and many people will have intersecting experiences that compound to make the impact of trauma more difficult to manage e.g. racial trauma, sexual trauma and medical trauma.
The word “trauma” isn’t only used for the big incidents that might first spring to mind such as surviving a natural disaster, an assault or plane crash. It doesn’t mean only one off events, lots of ongoing events over time can all add up to trigger a nervous system response of trauma, such as ongoing abuse.
Another important note on trauma is that what one person’s nervous system responds to as traumatic and dysregulating, another might not register as traumatic and stressful. Because of this, comparison isn’t helpful when it comes to trauma. Trauma isn’t neccesarily the exact incident that happened, but the disconnection and dysregulation that is left in the system because of what happened (or didn’t happen e.g. lack of connection due to neglect.)
So what is trauma-informed Yoga?
Trauma-informed Yoga supports trauma survivors to recover from the somatic (body) and psychological (mind) impact of trauma by making the practice more accessible and centred around cultivating a felt sense of safety.
A trauma-informed Yoga teacher gives classes that support choice, consent, and agency. This means various options will be given and students will be guided to explore accessing greater internal safety in a way that feels most supportive for them.
Trauma-informed Yoga classes can look like:
Making it clear to students where the exit is and letting them know they can leave at any time, ensuring there are no obstacles to leaving the room.
Grounding practices that orientate students’ awareness into the room, what they can see around them, how the stable ground feels beneath the body etc.
Encouraging students to make choices that feel most supportive to them and their needs e.g. taking a break when needed, doing savasana seated instead of lying down, keeping the eyes open if closing them feels uncomfortable. Closed eyes can lead to intrusive thoughts or flashbacks for some trauma survivors, so it can be more helpful to keep the eyes open.
Using invitational language to support students to cultivate a sense of curiosity and compassion towards their internal experiences. This is done in a way that encourages staying within one’s window of tolerance (a space in which we are comfortable and feeling safe.)
In the postures or styles that typically involve more stillness like meditation or Yin Yoga, offering the option to either rest in stillness if it feels okay or if not, then to squeeze and tense the hands into little fists then release again as many times as feels interesting.
When doing more active parts of the practice, offering 2 - 3 options to suit different needs. It can be good to be specific about what the options are and give context as to why you might choose them e.g. ‘Stick close to the ground for this flow back and forth if you want the more gentle option OR if you’re looking to bring in something more dynamic than the other option is to come up into a plank then downward facing dog. Both options are great and it’s always good to see people choosing what feels right for them.”
There are so many more examples. But hopefully that started to provide some context about how trauma-informed Yoga is specifically designed to support survivors of trauma.
I’d go so far to say that every Yoga teacher training should be trauma-informed or at the very least, include a module on trauma.
Why? We never know who might need it. Imagine we’re running open classes, e.g. a weekly studio slot, and there might be 18 people in class. As a teacher you likely won’t know the personal history of everyone in that class, and anybody could be coming to class with PTSD, complex PTSD or residue stress in the body from trauma.
Content warning: statistics to follow on rape and sexual abuse
There is a high likelihood that one or more students in class is going to be dealing with trauma. Unfortunately many people are dealing with the impact of trauma whether that’s due to childhood neglect, domestic violence, loss of a loved one or other forms of trauma.
Given that 1 in 6 children have been sexually abused and 1 in 4 women have been raped or sexually assaulted as an adult, then it’s also highly likely that survivors of sexual abuse will be in class. Trauma-informed Yoga helps survivors of abuse to heal. So shouldn’t all Yoga classes be set up in an accessible and inclusive way that is supportive of survivors and those recovering from trauma?
Trauma-informed Yoga can benefit everyone in class, regardless of if they have a trauma history or not.
Even if someone doesn’t have trauma or doesn’t identify with having experienced any trauma in their life, there are still many benefits of attending a trauma-informed class. Being given options, centring consent, choice, and agency can only be a good thing. Don’t we all benefit from spaces where we are supported to bring awareness to our bodies and move in a way that’s most supportive for us?
We’re all so wonderfully unique and have such varying needs when it comes to movement and relaxation practices like Yoga. A trauma-informed class honours the wide range of needs that exist in a shared group class and aims to make sure that there’s something for everyone. This makes the whole class more inclusive, not only for trauma recovery but also for people with other needs such as a neurodivergent person needing to stim or a person with chronic illness needing to take regular breaks.
Many teachers have done trauma-informed training and integrate that into all their classes without necessarily advertising their classes as such. I choose to label myself as a trauma-informed teacher because I see it as a clear signpost or green flag that helps affirm to survivors of trauma that my classes welcome them. I myself, as a Yoga student with complex trauma, have experienced first hand the harm non trauma-informed Yoga classes can do and I hope no one else has to go through that.
A trauma-informed Yoga teacher is committed to:
Ongoing self-enquiry and practices that expand their own capacity to be able to teach from a more resourced place.
Undergoing continuing training to learn more about trauma and how to support a wide range of needs in class.
Respecting boundaries, centering consent and implementing trauma-informed practices in their business behind the scenes.
Social justice, because how can we heal internally without repairing the systems that caused many types of trauma in the first place?
As a trauma-informed Yoga teacher, a question I’ve been asking myself a lot over the years is; How can we navigate finding internal safety when so much about our external society isn’t safe for so many?
I’ve been feeling a huge conflict for so long about language used in trauma-informed training spaces. There can be an over emphasis of finding safety within without acknowledgement of how there is still so much external danger in society. These dangers disproportionately affect racialised people, LGBT+ folk, disabled people, women and those who are systematically excluded by dominant culture (white supremacy patriarchal capitalism).
So whilst we can learn techniques to soothe our systems, many of us are having to constantly navigate ongoing danger, threat and lack of safety. That’s why I think any trauma-informed training is incomplete without addressing social injustice.
I really recommend reading these words by Kei Cheng on decolonising trauma recovery.
Maybe, the most significant part of the work as trauma-informed Yoga teachers is creating shared safer spaces that allow people to access rest & recovery supported by relational and internal safety, even when there is a storm raging on outside.
Linked further reading:
What is Trauma? By Mind mental health charity
Trauma-Informed Yoga: A Guide on Psych Central
Why Teaching From a Trauma-Informed Lens is Critical in These Times by Zabie Yamasaki
Guide to PTSD & Car Accidents by NST Law
Are you a Yoga teacher looking for trauma-informed Yoga training? Zabie Yamasaki offers an online training: check it out here
Curious about where I did my training? There’s been so much continuing professional development on this and personal practice so it’s hard to list everything! But I’d definitely like to credit the Yomala Yoga Therapeutics YTTC at Yoga Therapies for first introducing me to Polyvagal Theory and teaching an in depth training in somatics and trauma-sensitive Yoga adaptations.
Plus Claire Diane’s ANCHORED Trauma-Informed Entrepreneur Certification program which recently certified me as a Trauma-Informed Coach.
And Accessible Yoga School for embedding trauma-informed principles into all of their trainings. I loved training with them.