Bottom to Top & Inside Out: How Yoga Therapy Can Help You Process Trauma
Trauma can leave deep scars, not just on our minds, but also on our bodies. Memories and emotions can become encoded in our physical tissues, leading to chronic pain, anxiety, and difficulty connecting with ourselves. While talk therapy, a form of "top-down processing," excels at helping us understand and process trauma through conversation and cognitive reframing, it often doesn't fully address the physical manifestations of trauma.
This is where yoga therapy can help. Often referred to as "bottom-up processing," yoga therapy utilizes a unique blend of physical postures (asanas), breathwork (pranayama), and mindfulness practices to help us access and release trauma held within the body.
Here's how yoga therapy complements traditional talk therapy in the trauma healing journey:
Accessing Embodied Trauma: Talk therapy primarily uses language to understand and process trauma. However, trauma can be stored in the body as tension, dissociation, or pain. Yoga therapy uses gentle movement and breathwork to access these embodied memories, allowing for their release in a safe and controlled environment.
Building Body Awareness: Trauma can disconnect us from our physical sensations. Yoga therapy emphasizes body awareness, helping individuals reconnect with their bodies in a safe and non-judgmental way. This can be particularly empowering for survivors who have experienced a sense of violation or loss of bodily control.
Regulation of the Nervous System: Trauma often dysregulates the nervous system, leading to hypervigilance, anxiety, and difficulty relaxing. Yoga therapy incorporates breathwork techniques and calming postures to activate the parasympathetic nervous system, promoting relaxation and feelings of safety.
Building Self-Compassion: Yoga emphasizes self-acceptance and a gentle approach to movement. This fosters self-compassion, a crucial element in healing from trauma.
By combining talk therapy with yoga therapy, individuals can achieve a more holistic approach to trauma recovery. Talk therapy provides a safe space to explore the cognitive and emotional aspects of trauma, while yoga therapy offers tools to directly address the physical manifestations of trauma held within the body.
Here are some additional benefits of yoga therapy for trauma recovery:
Improved sleep quality
Reduced anxiety and depression symptoms
Increased feelings of empowerment and self-efficacy
Enhanced emotional regulation skills
If you're interested in exploring how yoga therapy can complement your trauma recovery journey, try a yoga therapy session! A yoga therapist can create a personalized practice that meets your unique needs and helps you reclaim your sense of wholeness.