- Has pain and anxiety made your body an enemy rather than a friend?
- Have you disconnected from your body due to pain and panic?
- Do overwhelming feelings sneak up on you and take over?
- Do you hate to look in the mirror?
It can feel like you don’t know how to calm down and relax when your body is full of tension and distress. Your life can feel like a walking nightmare when your body is still reliving the past.
When your body feels like a battle ground, we disconnect from the overwhelming feelings. Your mind may be loud and racing, which makes it hard to even focus on your day. The immense weight of the past weighing on your body can feel like the pressure will crush you beneath it. When you’re alone, and your mind is racing, you just want to feel comfortable in your own body.
The Body Holds Everything
The body holds and expresses our feelings for everyone. Everything we have experiences is stored in memories in our brain but also in our body. Stress, fear, joy, excitement, it is all in the body. And according to this study more than 80 percent of the American population has experienced an adverse event or traumatic situation.
We feel the past even more than we think it. Our body then gets stuck and we feel the same way that we did during the experience. To save our life. The body thinks it will protect you by being prepared. But much like when you get a new car, you see it everywhere now. Your body doesn’t haven a clock. It doesn’t know what is the past, present or future. When we don’t know how to handle what we are feeling; we want to avoid it; get away from it. That is why we disconnect from our body.
Humans are pain avoiding and pleasure seeking; all of us. Why would we want to feel distressful feelings in our own body? But we can take control of our body and reclaim our territory with the help of a holistic therapists who sees the whole picture and knows how to map out this healing journey.
YOGA Therapy
If you’ve been following my other services, you read EMDR is 84-90 Percent effective in treating PTSD from a single trauma in 3 sessions and 77 percent effective in multi-trauma victims in 6 sessions. So why do I need to do YOGA. Well, EMDR focus mostly on the brain. What about the rest of the body? Long after overcoming the memories, we can still have the physical reactions from these events. Remember it is also stored, in the body. We now have to work through the body’s store of trauma. Empty both buckets.
I am a trauma therapist that teaches yoga to heal trauma in the body. Not a trauma informed yoga instructor. The difference is I incorporate yoga into your healing path instead of adjusting yoga teaching to accommodate trauma reactions. I teach yoga to trauma survivors to love their body and feel comfortable in their own skin. Incorporating yoga into trauma counseling is very seamless. During your initial assessment we will identify health problems, assess lifestyle and physical capability’s and discuss your reasons for seeking. After we have assessed the reactions from the past, we will make a plan for treatment. This is when we will discuss frequency of sessions.
Once we complete our assessment, plan and establish frequency, we will start learning skills. Notice I never mentioned word vomiting up our trauma histories. These will most likely include breathing exercises (Pranayama), physical poses (Asana), meditation, guided imagery, and between session work. Breathing exercises, Pranayama, are controlled ways of breathing. For some this is harder than others. I am one of those people. Sometimes just learning to notice the breath is hard enough. Physical poses, Asana, are poses or postures specifically chosen to help with the particular symptoms you are experiencing such as insomnia, depression or anxiety. Relaxation and mindfulness are the focus of meditation when it is combined with yoga poses. You can read more on meditation in my “Take Control of your Brain” page. With guided imagery, we will direct your brain through a story or path you can use to calm your body and mind by providing a guided visualization intended to bring inner peace. Sometimes this is the way we learn to do breath work and meditation, like a stepping stone. Between session assignments are a chance to incorporate the skills we learn in session, to your daily life.
Even if you feel disconnected from your body right now, with the help of a supportive and experienced therapist, it is possible to learn to connect and communicate with your body in new ways. To shed a light on the darkness that we feel inside us, I believe you have to have lived in it yourself. I will never say I know what someone is going through, because you’re the expert on your life and experiences. We all have our own shit, I can just see it, acknowledge it, and help you out of it.
You may still have concerns about Yoga Therapy
I Dont Have Time To Do Yoga
When we think of yoga, we get an image of those hot yoga classes that are an hour long and cost more than we pay in gas for a week. That is not what I’m talking about. I am talking about learning specific ways to sit or lay down or stand up and hold for 5 breaths that have specific benefits for your particular stuck points. For example, just sitting with your legs up the wall can help with insomnia, stress and anxiety. Just laying your back on the floor with your legs on a chair or up the wall. That is yoga. You are going to breath 5 breaths right? You could be breathing them into your healing.
I Am Not Bendy
Yoga is not about flexibility, you will work with me to make a list of positions that work for you. We will start from a chair, just like sitting in a counseling session. I treat from Telehealth video only, but regardless, I would never touch you or get near you in anyway. You move to your own breath as it works for you. You reach up as far as you can and you bend as much as you can. Sometimes that’s just a few inches. Your only competition is the person you were 5 minutes ago.
How Can Exercise Help Me
If you’ve read this far, then you already know I am going to say, trauma is stored in the body. Exercise can work it out of your body. There is no way around trauma. We have to go through it and come out the other side, reborn. Have you ever watch a sport you used to play on tv and your body actually twitches? That’s your neurons and muscles remembering. It also happens when we tense up at a reminder of the past. The only way to work through a physical issue, is to physically work through it.
Time To Take Care of Your Body
I wish I could write testimonials of client’s I have worked with and have told me that learning these skills alone has made the world of difference. I know that it works because it has for me. Yoga has taught clients and myself to reduce our stress and increase self-esteem. Yoga has been proven to be highly effective to reduce chronic pain and enhance immune response. We all need that with today’s world. It has been shown to lower blood pressure and improve posture and body alignment. We know it increases muscle strength but it also floods the brain with those feel good hormones, providing a sense of joy and well-being.
I have been a die hard jogger. I used to think that unless I went a couple miles at my own pace, then I wasn’t burning any calories. I track my calorie burn with yoga and in a 30 minute slow flow of postures, I burn more calories than jogging for an hour. I can’t even believe it but I tracked it myself. When I learned to slow it down and pay attention to my body and just hold an uncomfortable, not painful, pose, I started to be thankful for all that my body can do. I no longer punished my body with high intensity workouts to be able to reward myself with food. I changed my relationship with my body and as a side effect, changed my relationship with it’s fuel, food.
You Can Heal From Trauma Too
If you would like to schedule a free 30 minute consultation or discuss any questions you may have regarding Yoga Therapy, I am available at 234-600-8200. I get back to all voicemails and email within 24-hours.
