All our energy was outward toward our relationships and what others may do. With trauma, the actions and behaviors of others set in motion what we needed to adapt to in order to survive. They weren’t accountable for the choices we didn’t get to make or the ways in which we turned off our inner world to try and make sense of our outer world (and within those relationships). We were staving off chaos and a deep sense of annihilation.

To keep ourselves alert in our environment, we learned how to turn off our inner sensations, what we call interoception.2 Feelings of hunger and thirst, noticing our heart rate and breath, as well as our emotions were not needed to survive. In fact, those inner sensations and emotions may have induced more relational trauma and we learned quickly to stop feeling those things. When moments became utterly intolerable, dissociation became another superpower. As Judith Herman writes in her book, Trauma & Recovery, “Dissociation appears to be the mechanism by which intense sensory and emotional experiences are disconnected from the social domain of language and memory, the internal mechanism by which terrorized people are silenced.”

Our inner landscape, the silenced part of ourselves, can feel like an emotional minefield exploding at unexplained moments. Sensing thirst or hungry can feel odd. Integrating and expressing anger or vulnerability can be an overwhelming task. And yet, living life without the opportunity to feel our existence is profoundly hard.

We deserve to feel the life we deserve to live.

With trauma-informed yoga, the invitation is to explore sensation within a safe relationship with the facilitator and those participating (which takes time). You’re welcome to choose how you’d like to move and perhaps your choice, supported by your body, can be felt. Maybe as you move your arm, there could possibly be some sensation around your shoulder. Your action of movement perhaps can be felt in your body. Sometimes this happens and sometimes you may not feel anything, or those feelings may feel intolerable. But moment by moment, your choices can disconfirm the automatic reflex to read the room, to place all your focus on the outside.

Perhaps new feedback loops of choice and sensation can offer you moments of presence, moments of feeling the here and now, inside. A quote from Alan Fogel’s book, Body Sense: The Science and Practice of Embodied Self Awareness, “Interoception is a way of monitoring ourselves so that we can ease the felt pain, expand the felt joy, and make sure that we get the resources needed in any given moment.”

With relational trauma, we need relational healing. With trauma-informed yoga, together we can each experience our own sensations in a shared, authentic experience. Yoga gives us the space to practice our practice, to disrupt the unknowing with the knowledge, with the potential of knowing.

In deep gratitude to all those who bravely share time and movement in this way.

Guest Post Disclaimer: Any and all information shared in this guest blog post is intended for educational and informational purposes only. Nothing in this blog post, nor any content on CPTSDfoundation.org, is a supplement for or supersedes the relationship and direction of your medical or mental health providers. Thoughts, ideas, or opinions expressed by the writer of this guest blog do not necessarily reflect those of CPTSD Foundation. For more information, see our Privacy Policy and Full Disclaimer.

Mindy Levine

Mindy Levine facilitates the trauma-informed yoga program at the CPTSD Foundation. She is trained as a volunteer crisis counselor with Crisis Text Line as well as being a TCTSY-F (Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga Facilitator). She recently published an article about Utilizing Polyvagal Theory practices in trauma-informed spaces for the international journal, “Voices Against Torture.” More information about Mindy and her work and writing can be found at https://www.mindylevine.org/

What is Present Moment Choice Making?

Life is lived in the present moment and then the new present moment and so on. It’s not a bullseye to hit and then you’re done with it, but rather a flow that attunes to your own rhythm. When we have survived trauma, our protective and survival adaptations can make it feel like our trauma is an ever-present past. It invades our moments in ways that are unique to our own experience, ranging from panic to dissociation and all the blends and flavors in between. It can make living in the present moment terrifying and painful.

We didn’t have a choice back then. Our only goal was to survive. We had to turn off choice-making (an emergent property of safety and connection). For example, if I was being chased by a bear, my whole system will turn towards one thing-survival. It doesn’t matter if I wanted to take that hike or if I was hungry or how I felt about friendships, politics, anything. And then perhaps every time I walk outside, my whole self is on alert, sensitive to any cue or clue that there is a bear nearby. I can feel like I’m always about to be chased by a bear. Being on alert for danger and threat, choices once again feel inaccessible.

There is a possibility of new feedback loops, the possibility of “creating autonomic pathways of safety and connection,”^[1] meaning that I no longer feel like I’m always about to be chased by a bear. Perhaps trauma-informed yoga can invite moments to disconfirm the patterns of protection with patterns of connection. Moment by moment.

Part of what is baked into trauma-informed yoga is that we’re not alone. We’re doing this present moment thing together. It doesn’t mean the same, it means together. If I wanted to choreograph a yoga sequence and have the whole class perform it in ways that I think are correct, then I’m not offering a choice. I may offer some options but it’s within the aesthetic, performative container. I may feel like a bear to some people.

So what I offer is an invitation. And if you’d like, we can try it here.

As you’re ready, you’re welcome to maybe lift your arms. Maybe it’s forward and up or maybe it’s to the side. The pace and range of motion of how you’d like to lift your arms (if you’re lifting your arms) is totally up to you. And if we were together, you would see me exploring the lift of my arms, making a choice of how I’d like to lift them as well. Maybe it’s similar or maybe we’re moving in different ways. If it feels interesting to explore, there could be some sensation, some felt sense inside as you lift your arms. Maybe it’s around your shoulders or maybe somewhere else. There’s always space for not feeling anything or noticing anything. That’s totally okay. Or maybe there’s something that’s awakening that feels intolerable and you’d like to stop moving your arms. You’re welcome to stop and it could be for any reason. There’s no right or wrong in the way that you are choosing to move or not move in this moment.

As you’re moving your arms, maybe you notice your breath, your inhale and your exhale. If you’d like, you could experiment with your movement having some relationship to the rhythm of your breath, or maybe you’d like to move faster or slower than your breath. You’re welcome to engage with your movement choices, as feel useful to you at this moment.

And that was present moment choice making. If you gave that a try or read my words and imagined the movement, you may have noticed some of the questions living inside my words. What do I want to do in this moment? How would I like to move my arms? And as I’m making that choice for myself, can I feel that inside my body in some way?

Sustaining some curiosity about how you’d like to engage with trauma-informed movement is a way to embody (beyond language here) that there isn’t a bear at that moment. Perhaps those moments and those choices you deserve to make for yourself are ways to disconfirm that ever-present past.

Thank you for being willing to read this and perhaps try some movement.

^[1] Dana, D., & Porges, S. W. (2018). The Polyvagal theory in therapy: Engaging the rhythm of regulation (Norton Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology) (Illustrated ed.). W. W. Norton & Company.

Mindy Levine

Mindy Levine facilitates the trauma-informed yoga program at the CPTSD Foundation. She is trained as a volunteer crisis counselor with Crisis Text Line as well as being a TCTSY-F (Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga Facilitator). She recently published an article about Utilizing Polyvagal Theory practices in trauma-informed spaces for the international journal, “Voices Against Torture.” More information about Mindy and her work and writing can be found at https://www.mindylevine.org/

There may be a time when you reach out for the support and care you deserve. It could be by reaching out to a compassionate friend, a therapist, or to a peer in your community. At some point, they may say to you, “Maybe try yoga or mindfulness or meditation?” And then you enter a yoga class. You bravely harness the energy to put on some “yoga clothes” and walk into a yoga studio with varying degrees of stimuli (boutique of tight and expensive clothing, scents, promotions of class packs, communal changing room, etc).

I’m going to generalize here based on conversations I’ve had with people I work with and therapists I collaborate with and my own experience as a student and facilitator of yoga for over twenty years. This is not every class nor every teacher. But it happens and for those who have felt traumatized in a yoga class, your voice deserves to feel heard. To those who may read this and feel defensive or offended, I hear you also. I hope that we can gracefully lean into the discomfort together.

There isn’t a requirement when being certified by Yoga Alliance to become a yoga teacher to learn about trauma and how it’s held in our bodies. Nor is there any outside governing or regulatory body when receiving a yoga teacher certification.^[1] This is important to note as many yoga teachers don’t know what they don’t know if it’s not being taught. Unfortunately, without regulation, many schools and lineages of yoga are caught in a cycle of coercion on one side of the spectrum and horrific abuse on the other end.^[2]

The byproduct of this type of education in western yoga teacher training is a looping of information and teaching styles that have become what we very often encounter when we walk into a yoga studio. For some, that familiarity and predictability can be comforting and feels like a deep connection to a practice that serves them. For others, it can feel like something quite different.

Our nervous systems are built for survival. Our system is constantly surveilling each moment and letting us know if the moment is safe, dangerous, or life-threatening.  Below consciousness, our nervous system is taking in millions of bits of information from inside of us, from our environment, and from other nervous systems (person-to-person relationships). When we have endured trauma, our system can become highly sensitive to cues of danger. It’s how we survived. ^[3]

What is being offered in a yoga class? What are the cues?

There is an inherent power dynamic in a yoga class between a yoga teacher and a student. And when it comes to the subtlety of our mind-body-spirit connection, there is an added vulnerability to that dynamic. Someone can give me the pathway towards peace and zen? I will try anything, do anything because I’m in so much pain.

And then class begins. The yoga teacher usually stands in the front and then walks around the room. There’s a sequence of movement and breathwork. The teacher tells me/instructs me/commands the following:

• When to breathe and breathwork practices
• How to move and very specifically
• How to stack my bones
• Where to place my feet
• Where to gaze
• How to feel or what to do so I can feel a certain way
• May offer beginner to advanced options making movement hierarchical
• Use language that is commanding
• Tell me I can’t drink water
• Tell me to endure the pain
• Lay still
• Close my eyes

And so on and so on.

This scenario is another situation to adapt to and survive. This is another power dynamic in a relationship and an environment where I have no choice. I can please my teacher by doing the right thing or the safe thing (very often movement cues are cushioned with safety from injury, which is a myth).^[4] I will have to turn off my internal sensations to endure and cooperate with the external guidelines. I’m good at it – it is my superpower – being able to read the room and figure out how to do what’s expected of me. Or maybe, in service of survival, I disappear and go on autopilot. Then there’s the silent aftermath of this minefield. The inner narrative of how even yoga can’t help me or that there’s something wrong with me and that yoga doesn’t work. I can’t breathe right or move right. Everyone is so flexible and coordinated and I’m clumsy and restless and on alert. Everyone can lay down with their eyes closed with the teacher is walking around the room and I’m about to have a panic attack.

What is trauma-informed yoga then?

As a trauma-informed yoga facilitator, it is vital for me to understand and learn about trauma. It’s crucial to understand my scope of practice and to have safety guardrails and boundaries. My presence is one of compassion while having the capacity to deeply listen without an agenda or the need to fix it. It’s important for me to understand my own nervous system so I don’t enter the space dysregulated because of that superpower mentioned above (others will be able to immediately and below consciousness may sense my nervous system state as unsafe in some way).

Trauma-informed yoga is about sharing power, safe relationship, and offering space for the possibility of present-moment choice-making. If I’m hyper-focused on technique, methodology, ideology, curating my brand, and so forth then I am (as Judith Herman writes) taking power away and fostering disempowerment rather than recovery through empowerment and agency. I have failed, not you.

“No intervention that takes power away from the survivor can possibly foster her recovery, no matter how much it appears to be in her immediate best interest.”

If this has resonated with you in any way, you’re not alone. There are other options and choices and ways to explore this practice. Thank you for taking the time to be here with me. I will continue writing and advocating for trauma-informed yoga spaces.

Mindy Levine facilitates the trauma-informed yoga program at the CPTSD Foundation. She is trained as a volunteer crisis counselor with Crisis Text Line as well as being a TCTSY-F (Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga Facilitator). She recently published an article about Utilizing Polyvagal Theory practices in trauma-informed spaces for the international journal, “Voices Against Torture.” More information about Mindy and her work and writing can be found at https://www.mindylevine.org/

References:

^[1] Yoga Alliance (YA) as quoted on their website is the largest nonprofit association representing the yoga community (yoga schools register with YA and then yoga teachers can be certified by YA).YA also has a stance on government regulation and is against it, as stated on their website and last updated 6/8/2016.

^[2] Highly recommend Matthew Remski’s book, “Practice and All is Coming: Abuse, Cult Dynamics, and healing in Yoga and Beyond.” I’m not advocating for regulation, only that you can’t be disbarred or have your license revoked like in other professions.

^[3] Principles of Polyvagal Theory (neuroception), created by Dr. Stephen Porges

^[4] According to well-researched principles of pain science, it is multifactorial: physical, psychological, and social factors. Therefore, claiming a certain movement as safe from pain/injury is trying to give two-dimensional answers to our complex three-dimensional selves. Oftentimes these cues used in yoga have no basis in science.

Mindy Levine

Mindy Levine facilitates the trauma-informed yoga program at the CPTSD Foundation. She is trained as a volunteer crisis counselor with Crisis Text Line as well as being a TCTSY-F (Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga Facilitator). She recently published an article about Utilizing Polyvagal Theory practices in trauma-informed spaces for the international journal, “Voices Against Torture.” More information about Mindy and her work and writing can be found at https://www.mindylevine.org/