Transformative Trauma Yoga

[jedijackie]

I currently do Transformative Trauma Yoga 1 hr + 30 min of meditation a week since last July. I attend a female's-only class. My instructors (one main, another as backup) were both taught at the JRS Center. Love them! My class is no more than 3 students, occasionally I'm the only student that day (the night classes are filled I'm told with a bunch of male vets).

In a yoga session I don't talk anything about my traumas and they don't ever ask. We start a session on the floor with simple breathing exercises. Then we do VERY simple poses. Everything is very basic, very flowing. Instructors preface everything with "invitation" style directions (e.g.; "If you'd LIKE to move into this pose... you could TRY this pose... if it FEELS safe attempt this pose... etc).

They talk me through the whole thing, giving a count-down of sorts (e.g.; "We're going to be in this pose for 2 more breaths... if it feels right to YOU, try to remain in this pose for 30 more seconds... you can come out of this pose anytime you noticed you're no longer breathing... etc).

This basic pose stuff is working for me as my trauma was very physical and certain movements like neck rotations or arms behind my back tend to cause anxiety (heart-rate increases, facial flushing, migraine starts, breathing stops) and I tend to attempt to white-knuckle through the poses so I don't cause a fuss... unfortunately every so often I mentally check-out for a bit (and after a while it became noticeable to my instructors).

After a LOT of thinking for a few months in the beginning I swore I was going to quit this crap because I hated for anyone noticing when I'd have an anxiety attack or dissociate. But I've stuck with it, talked privately with the instructors after class and now I'm pretty much okay with sticking with it. It's helping immensely.

For me the instructors have started keeping up a steady chatter so I can stay out of my head while doing (mentally) uncomfortable poses. I do SE and EMDR along with yoga and it's working for me.

 

[SeaQuel]

My therapist recommended A Yoga Practice for Healing Emotional Trauma by Mary NurrieStearns. It comes in DVD format and you can order it online. I haven't done it in a while, but it was my first real go at yoga and I quite liked it. I quit because of triggers in my house and because it seemed to exacerbate my anxiety/breathing issues. But I intend to get back to it in the future. The poses made me feel empowered and the mantras were comforting.

 

[greenleaf]

I took a 12-week session with someone who had done training with Van der Kolk's group. The phrasing was simiilar to what @jedijackie mentions, which I found helpful.

I would like to do more of it, or even just regular classes with that instructor, I find her energy very soothing. (I guess I'm supposed to learn how to do that myself, maybe in another few centuries.)

 

[jedijackie]

I wanna share... my trauma yoga instructor tried something different last week and I was sorta impressed. I was the only client that day and she asked what I wanted to work on... ugh, I never know when it's my turn to pick. Oh occasionally she'll say this month we're gonna work on kidneys, or it's allergy season week, and all the poses will have that kinda focus in addition to the trauma work. On the rare occasion I've spoke up on a topic we focused on my migraines and trying to do some inversion-type poses like standing on my head, legs against the wall... which unfortunately, just angered the pain further, ick :-(

But last week Ms. Yogini got out some paper and started to make a list of the top poses that I tend to... well... not really like. As in, the poses that cause me the most mental discomfort that she's witnessed. Now I'm no dummy, I know which poses I don't particularly care for and why. Just was baffled anyone else noticed my reaction. Was torn between being upset I was so visually transparent in my freak-outs, to honored that someone actually "saw" me, being... well, me. I know certain poses cause me certain flashbacks; I'll usually white-knuckle through doing that pose. Just was surprised (and a little freaked out) I was so dang obvious about it. But that's why I'm there, right?

So she writes down my top "bad" poses... then we discussed which poses I liked doing (and why). Made me (try to) use a lot of feeling words to describe why I liked which ones I liked. Then she ranked them, and paired one of the good ones with one of the bad ones. The concept is very simple: to rewire my brain into a negative pose becoming a positive.

Example: I don't like any pose where I involve my shoulder. I don't like to bring my arm behind my back, nor extend my arm out from my body for very long, nor do I like to rotate my palm up while my arm is extended. My body-language is very reserved and beyond a short handshake, I'd much rather keep my arm against my body or something against my arm at all times. So in Mountain pose I keep my hands pressed at my heart. My arm shakes like the dickens during Sun Salutations and occasionally that triggers me to check-out for a bit when I white-knuckle through it.

But I do like this pose we usually start class off with where we sit cross-legged and stretch using grounding imagery, imagining we're rotating our torso around a pole in the ground, making circles forward/left/back/right then do it reverse whenever we choose to, all the while the instructor is talking us through it with visual imagery & her very soothing yoga-voice. We lean forward until we almost lose balance, then lean to the left (or right) but still remain in balance, then to the back... making very slow circles. Sitting cris-cross style, hands on our knees, just making these circles with our torso, remembering to breathe. Totally works for me; sounds boring but it's calming. We do this like 3 minutes.

So last week, she had me do the torso circle thingy, talking all calming chakra-groundy yogini stuff while verbally guiding me to slowly turn one palm resting on my knee upward. Then, slowly, she says in the trauma-yoga language, stuff like, "...if it FEELS okay... I invite you to TRY... etc" to try to turn the other palm face-up on my knee too. Then try to get some air between my hand and my knee by raising my hand up a millimeter at a time with my breath, raise it up as high (or as low) as I want, then put it back down. Then pretend my hand is a feather, rising a few inches upward with my inspiration, then lowering with my expiration. All the while she's talking me through it and I'm still making these circles around the grounding pole with my upper body. We did this like 10 minutes.

Afterwards, I was a little nauseated but totally not dissociative, not shaky, not feeling like I was white-knuckling anything -- a positive!!!