“I’m nervous about coming to your class because I don’t know what might happen. Do you talk about trauma?”

I’ve also heard folks share that they can’t come to a yoga class because “nothing horrible” has happened to them.

Trauma is : Anything that overwhelms the system, leaving us helpless, hopeless, and unable to respond. It can be from too much too fast or too little for too long. We all have experienced something in our lives that has left us feeling out of sorts and taken us outside of our window of tolerance. AND we don’t assume every student is “broken” or “wounded.” A trauma informed class offers s a space where the instructions are invitational, and the environment is geared toward inclusion, healing, choice, empowerment, embodiment, kindness, and community. It creates a space to move into challenging or vulnerable territory (heart openers or strong standing poses, for example) knowing that we are safe enough to cry or growl or move out of the pose to take care of ourselves while also being witnessed by the instructor.

As my dear friend Hala Khouri says, “A trauma informed class is a people informed class.”

In a trauma-informed class, we meet you with compassion instead of judgment; encouragement instead of competition; inclusion instead of exclusion. We meet your human-ness: Maybe you’re grieving, maybe you’re angry, maybe you have PTSD, maybe your child just went to rehab, maybe you’re anxious or depressed, maybe your ecstatic, maybe you’re excited, maybe you’re joyful.
Human beings are dynamic, multilayered, complex beings and in that, it’s invaluable to be able to be seen.  So, people informed, healing centered, trauma sensitive: all of these nomenclatures are applicable.

Come check out my classes at One Down Dog on Monday nights, both are healing centered, people informed classes. Come play!