Trauma-Sensitive Yoga

Trauma-Sensitive Yoga is meant to help people to reconnect with their bodies and reclaim their bodies after trauma. When trauma occurs, it often manifests physically in ways that disconnect us from our bodies and its sensations, keeping us in our heads rather than in the present moment. This can cause symptoms such as anxiety, a lack of interoception or ability to interpret signals from the body, loss of feeling in the body, or unexplained pain/headaches/etc.

Trauma-Sensitive Yoga provides a safe space in which to empower participants after trauma steals their power or sense of control. This empowerment is achieved through offering choices throughout the session, utilizing invitational language, being non-coercive, and avoiding hierarchical language which is oftentimes used in a typical yoga class.

Unlike in a typical yoga class where the perfection of the form and the workout itself are goals of the class, with trauma-sensitive yoga, the goal is to heal the physical manifestations caused by past trauma, to reconnect and reclaim the body, and to begin living in the present moment rather than reliving moments of the past or living in fear of the future.

Provider: Andree Philpot founder of Therapeautic Yoga Cincy