Are you interested in Trauma-Conscious Yoga?
Thank you for sharing my practice! I wanted to share a few ways that you could incorporate trauma-consciousness into your class. I recommend starting, with one or two tips and go from there. Make sure it feels authentic to you, take what you love and leave what you don’t.Tips to make your class more trauma-conscious:
- Set up the mats in a circular format and do the practice, it practices equality and removes hierarchy.
- Inform the students of how the class will be organized and the timeframe, it allows the student to know where you’re going and to choose to go with you.
- Sincere invitational language, it gives your student agency and autonomy over their movement and practice.
- It can look like: “I am…,” “maybe you can try…,” ‘I invite you to…”
- Articulate what you’re feeling, it allows students to know that their feeling is okay.
- Never offer hands-on assists, use words and allow your students to find the pose in their body.
- During the practice listen, create a space for your students to share without your reaction or influence, just listen.
- Always keep your eyes open, it allows you to maintain a safe space.
- Stick to the time you offered, it allows your students to trust what you say.
- Let it go - offer your practice and allow your students to make it their own.
- Be authentic to yourself, your students will know when you’re faking it!
- Poses you may choose not to use to be sensitive to student’s trauma. (Use your own discretion)
- Downward facing dog
- All fours
- Child’s pose
- Happy baby
- Baddha Konasana
- Hanuman
- Standing split
- Etc.
- Offer meditation! But pay attention to where your students go. If you open up a space, make sure you can close it.
Again, thank you for sharing my practice. I am humbled and grateful to the Setu Community and all the beautiful yogis out there, do your thing and spread it with love!In you want others to be happy, practice compassion.If you want to be happy, practice compassion.Dalai LamaMahalo Nui Loa,Laura Toyofuku-Aki Resource list:Social Justice:
- The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
- Just Mercy by Bryan Stevenson
- “We need to talk about injustice” TED Talk by Bryan Stevenson: https://www.ted.com/talks/bryan_stevenson_we_need_to_talk_about_an_injustice
- Vera Institute of Justice Website
- The Marshall Project Website
- 13th Netflix Documentary by Ava DuVernay
Trauma Consciousness:
- The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind and Body in the Healing of Trauma by Bessel van der Kolk
- Overcoming Trauma through Yoga: Reclaiming Your Body by David Emerson and Elizabeth Hooper, Phd.
- Tribe by Sebastian Junger
- The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog by Bruce Perry
- Waking the Tiger by Peter A Levine
Healing and Community:
- Healing Justice Podcast
- Reconciliation by Thich Nhat Hanh
