I love yoga and writing. I need yoga and writing. Both are relatively affordable and can be done alone and at home or in community. Both have been central to my survival, recovery and growth which I write about below.
I also love sharing and supporting survivor-led resources created for survivors and others. Here are two links to those if you want to get to those right away. There are more details about each following the essay:
- Write Your Story, Heal Your Life Summit: Alaura O'Dell
- Transcending Sexual Trauma through Yoga, Online Training & a Self-Paced Survivor Class, Zabie Yamasaki
Writing as Healing
I'm not sure who or where I'd be without writing, yoga or pets. I don't intend to ever find out.
As a kid, I turned to the unconditional love of pets and the open page when overwhelmed.
I had a little red diary with a gold key when I was 11. I'd write to my future self at times recording things like, "At 11, you are 5 feet 4." Other times I'd confess my feelings to the crush I was having though I'd never share the words.
Other times, I'd rage across the page writing, "I hate" scrawled in big bold letters for days to weeks at a time over and over. I can only guess those were especially hard periods of time when I wouldn't or couldn't write details.
In my teens, I kept writing but remained secretive referring to things I now call abuse, trauma or ACEs as "it" if mentioning "it" at all.
Still, writing helped me feel less alone. Though it didn't change my circumstances it changed how I felt. There was something about the writing that helped me feel seen, heard, honest and real. It helped me get a little bit closer to myself and a little more distant from pain.
All through my teens my mother got me blank journals for Christmas and my birthday. I still have trunks of childhood words, feelings and memories. More important that the words I wrote though is the process of writing. That process is a practice I do as much to improve my health as to fuel creativity.
Today, I try to remind others that writing is for everyone. Writing isn't only for writers anymore than exercise is only for athletes. One need not get excited to write or exercise to know it's beneficial to do both. In fact, writing can be especially powerful for trauma survivors. I've attached a white paper on how expressive writing can improve health if you have more interest in that topic.
Yoga to Feel Safe in My Skin
I discovered yoga as an adult. While writing and pets helped me survive childhood it was yoga that helped me get grounded, centered and feel safe.
In yoga, I learn to be in my own body without being overwhelmed. For those with early trauma, the body might also be the crime scene, so feeling safe and inhabited don't always go hand in hand.
In yoga, I learned it was possible to be present without being afraid, that it could be a neutral or maybe even a tiny bit pleasant even to have a body.
Yoga is where I learned how often I was clenched and holding my breath. I didn't even know my up the neck shoulders were supposed to be much lower down. Yoga was where I began the very long process of untangling the difference between sensations and trauma symptoms - which took me about a decade - and which I am continually learning about still.
For those who haven't had a lot of ACEs, it's probably hard to imagine that people can eat, sleep and be sexually intimate with others without being present or inhabited.
For those with a lot of ACEs it's equally hard to imagine that people feel safe, physical, good or find intimacy appealing or desirable.
We know what we know and assume others live the same way until we see or learn or experience otherwise.
Yoga was a place where I learned about myself and others. For example, it was shocking for me to be in a class and hear how people earn that people loved and looked forward to being with themselves on the mat or with one another. My first yoga goal was entirely strategic: to feel less anxious.
I had always felt the body was a thing I had to control, suppress, deny or ignore. My body was the source of all my trouble, at least that's what I thought. For me, staying all up in my head was ideal. It worked.
Without yoga, I'd have no clue or way to consider all that subtle stuff related to noticing and paying attention to how bones, muscles, sensations and even skin can feel.
Yoga introduced me to my body.
Before yoga, I avoided touch, hugs, intimacy, people and my own self. Before yoga I had no idea why anyone would "sit with" an uncomfortable emotion or sensation when one could simply try to beat them out of existence instead.
As a kid, I avoided bathing and showering. If I did it at all, it was in the dark. I didn't look at, revel in or appreciate my body. I wore layers and layers of unclean, loose and baggy clothing. I covered my eyes with bangs and pretended when I couldn't see others they couldn't see me.
To me, having a body was dangerous and inconvenient and something to work around.
I'm still coming home and back into my body after two decades of off and on yoga and healing. And I don't share this easily but hopefully, for those who wonder why it takes so long to heal and how and why yoga can help.
The beauty of yoga is that it can be done regularly and allows for the slow and steady learning that it facilitates. It's hard to convey how long it takes for some of us to even consider wanting to be willing to be present, still or inhabited.
For me, healing has been slow and incremental and deepens. If you have found ways that are quicker, easier or faster, please share some miracle magic and inspiration here and with others.
I can speak for one who heals as quickly as a snail. I'm not complaining though because I'm not in crisis. I'm decades in and can sometimes find it's even glorious and rewarding - though not always. But I wouldn't have believed that even possible when younger so feel it needs to be said. At times, I'm amazed by how much I continue to grow and change. Other times I'm irked and daunted that the mountain feels steep and no matter how tired I am there seems to be lots higher to climb. Healing never stops and that's the good news and bad news, I guess, depending on the level of pain. Few try to speed up bliss. Most of us are eager for agony to go more quickly.
For years I raged at the healing process. I was angry, confused, jarred and puzzled that it took so long. I wanted healing to be done after one good solid and serious effort.
I'm more patient now but only because I exhausted myself trying so hard.
There are times I feel bone tired, ancient and old. But there are times I feel I'm aging backwards because I keep discovering what it means to be a healthy, vibrant human. I get to have joy and can revel in the beauty of the world and even my own body. That's hard to do if one doesn't feel safe to look, listen, taste, touch, see and be seen.
Yoga has helped me know life can be tolerable and maybe even better with a thing called a body once one feels safe a good amount of the time.
Yoga for Parenting after Trauma
If we are parenting with ACEs, chances are, as a kid, to cope, we ignored body signals for danger, comfort or hunger.
Maybe, we couldn't walk to the bathroom at night, or we had to eat food we despised or risk something worse.
Maybe we knew if we cried we'd be scolded not supported or if we asked questions we'd be threatened, mocked or punished.
Many of us learned that safety was distance from other people or that shutting down or off our responsiveness to our own bodies was how to live.
But how do we tune into and turn on those primal, ordinary and needed ways of being in order to learn to attend, and respond to ourselves and to other people and most especially to children who need us?
How can we do this with and for our children if it's never been done for and with us and if we haven't had a chance to unlearn what we learned and learned new ways of being? These are some of the questions we'll be discussing with others during the Parenting with ACEs & PTSD chat on Tuesday.
For me, yoga was and is central to my healing and parenting. Without yoga, I would not know how to make eye contact, slow down my breathing or have a set point to know what calm is so I can recognize when I'm "off" sooner.
Yoga has helped me be more physically and emotionally present and available as a mother. Because I'm more inside my own skin I can be a base, a rock and also a source of comfort. Because I'm more solid in myself I don't take it personally when sometimes my daughter needs to use me as a trampoline she can bounce off of and away from as she goes off into the world. I can be happy she is being bold and also stay still when she returns to ground, rest and refuel.
So many of us become parents before we even know the impact of our ACEs. This complicates parenting and healing - which is an understatement. It can feel bad and I've felt guilty I wasn't more healed before I became a mother. However, not one parent chose to be parenting with ACEs. No child can choose to experiences ACEs. Those aren't decisions we get to make.
We can choose to heal, change, grow and share. We can choose to learn about ACEs and parent in a way so that our children experience fewer or none.
I still grieve for the safety, love, trust, attachment, attunement and interdependence I didn't get or provide enough of. And, I'm motivated and happy as heck that the brain is plastic and can be upcycled throughout the life cycle no matter what.
Here are some resources. Please share ones you use, know, enjoy, lead or learn about.
- Write Your Story, Heal Your Life Summit: Alaura O'Dell
This is a video interview series about the power of the written word to transform and heal lives.
Here are some of the topics covered:
- Finding the Courage to Write Your Story
- Delving into the Stories of Your Family & Ancestors
- Writing as Activism & Healing
- Writing Coaches
It works like most online summits. You have to register via email and are then mailed an interview a day which you can view for up to 72 hours.
There are best-selling authors, publishers, writing coaches, artists, entrepreneurs, and health activists interviewed. There are people I've never heard of as well as more well-known authors such as Mark Wolynn who wrote It Didn't Start With You: How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes You and How to End the Cycle.
The summit is half over but even if you miss some of the interviews, check out the speakers listed here who are doing amazing writing and working fro great organizations.
- Yoga: Transcending Sexual Trauma through Yoga, Online Training
Yoga: Transcending Sexual Trauma through Yoga, Online Training / June 16th
I heard about Zahabiyah Yamasaki a few years ago and profiled her for an article entitled, "Why Talk Therapy Doesn't Heal Rape Trauma" for Elephant Journal. Here's an excerpt:
“I try to make the world a more welcoming place to heal,” Zabie said recalling the pain she felt when she worried she would forever feel unhappy and unlovable. She remembers thinking, “There are only two paths. One was a feeling that this is it. Deep depression. The other path was a choice to be resilient and empowered.”
To move through her trauma, Zabie literally had to move her body.
Talk therapy, which she had tried several times, didn’t help enough. “Most people don’t process trauma cognitively. Google rape symptoms and you’ll find people experience GI distress, insomnia, depression, anxiety and flashbacks,” she said.
Zabie has worked hard to help survivors learn that there are varied approaches to healing and recovery and to help make hope feel practical, physical accessible. Her manner is warm and kind and she's determined to help people learn about modalities not always covered by insurance plans. I think of her as a gentle warrior.
When I learned of her work I was disappointed she taught so far away and that survivor specific classes are so hard to find. She didn't offer anything online. But that's no longer true.
Starting next week she offers training to providers and an online yoga class geared towards survivors. The online class costs $180. Her training can be purchased in whole (for $650.) or as individual parts (for $125.).
Here's detail about her online training and the survivor-specific class which I've taken from her website.
Trauma impacts all areas of human functioning: the physical, mental, behavioral, social, and spiritual. So often, the impact of trauma is somatic. Survivors often times experience flashbacks, dis-regulated breathing, anxiety, depression, insomnia, GI issues, migraines, and many more. As a result, trauma treatment must consider the person as a whole. In yoga terms, trauma can elicit "vasanas" which are emotional imprints in the body that often times become deep rooted, hardwired, and lodged in various areas of the body depending on the nature of the trauma. These vasanas can impact the nervous system, the endocrine system, and our physiology and cause a variety of trauma symptoms, dissociation, physical pain, and illness when left undigested (Amy Wheeler). By working to heal the body, we can create a critical pathway to safety and embodiment for our clients.
This comprehensive training will provide yoga teachers, mental health professionals, or anyone interested in teaching from a trauma-informed lens with all of the necessary tools to create a safe environment for survivors of sexual trauma:
Opening: Creating Safety and Introduction to the Training
Lecture 1: The Brain, the Nervous System, and our Capacity to Heal Trauma through Yoga
Lecture 2: Comprehensive Considerations for Teaching and Understanding Trauma-Informed Yoga
Lecture 3: An Overview of Therapeutic Yoga Techniques for Trauma Survivors
Lecture 4: How to Build, Implement, and Launch a Trauma-Informed Yoga Program for Survivors
Lecture 5: Teaching Trauma-Informed Meditation and the Impact of Trauma on the Chakras
Lecture 6: Yoga Teacher Collaborations with Mental Health Professionals
Lecture 7: An 8-week Self-Paced Yoga as Healing Series for Survivors
For survivors interested in just the 8-week Self-Paced Yoga as Healing Series:
This program specifically focuses on self-acceptance and self-compassion and provides survivors with tangible benefits that may become noticeable throughout their practice. This gradual integration can be transformational and healing for survivors. This program provides the opportunity for survivors to:
- Access to 8 audio recordings of themed trauma-informed yoga classes
- Find peace and healing through trauma-informed yoga practice
- Exercise the choices they have to move their body in ways that feel comfortable
- Learn to establish connection to self, trust others, and strengthen relationships
- Establish safety and stability in the body
- Tap into inner strength and build skills and positive coping mechanisms for managing painful experiences
- Regain power and control through mindful movements and reconnection to the body
Again, please share any resources you know about and have found helpful to your healing, parenting or health.
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