Yoga for Trauma, Healing & Recovery Part 2

Featuring 5 Koshas Teacher: Annie Lockwood, RYT-200

Yoga may help someone healing from trauma by offering a compassionate pathway back to the body, providing tools that help individuals reconnect with themselves in gentle and supportive ways. Through mindful movement, breath practices, meditation, and self-compassion, individuals develop a greater sense of safety within themselves. When life is interrupted by trauma and it is hard to move through normal routines, yoga becomes a steady companion along the healing journey, offering moments of grounding, resilience, and support.

As a yoga teacher, it’s important to remember that every person’s experience with trauma is unique, so yoga practices should be individualized whenever possible. The goal is not to achieve specific postures but to discover movements and practices that cultivate a sense of safety, comfort, and empowerment.

In a class setting, we prioritize offering choices rather than directives. Participants are encouraged to listen to their own bodies and modify, rest, or opt out of any practice at any time. Practices often incorporate gentle movement, breath work, mantra, meditation, and self-compassion practices. These tools help regulate the nervous system and can reduce feelings of anxiety or overwhelm that frequently accompany trauma. In classes, postures, breath practices, and guided experiences are selected to promote comfort, grounding, and nervous system regulation. Language is invitational rather than commanding. This helps students maintain control of their practice.

In one-on-one sessions, practices are tailored to the individual’s specific experiences, needs, and goals. Together, we explore movements, breath techniques, affirmations, and relaxation practices that best support their healing process. Personalized mantras, guided visualizations, and restorative practices are developed collaboratively to support healing from their trauma.

What You May Experience in Yoga Class

• Breath + Gentle Touch: Placing the hands over the heart while focusing on the breath. This can create a sense of self-soothing and connection, offering a compassionate gesture toward oneself during challenging moments. Through practices like these, individuals learn how to access care, support, and comfort from within.
• Movement + Mantra: Simple movement sequences can also be beneficial. For example, moving gently between table pose and child’s pose (Chakravakasana variation) while repeating a soothing mantra can encourage relaxation and support nervous system regulation. The combination of mindful movement, extended exhalation, and soothing mantra often promotes a sense of calm and grounding.
• Affirmations: Another valuable tool. Repeating supportive phrases throughout the day such as, “I AM Safe,” “I AM Loved,” or “I AM Supported” can help reinforce positive beliefs and cultivate greater emotional resilience. Over time, these practices encourage the brain to spend less time in fear-based patterns and more time in pathways associated with safety, connection, and well-being.
• Visualization Meditation: Also can be particularly supportive. Individuals may be guided to imagine a place where they feel safe, peaceful, and relaxed. The imagined destination may be a beach, forest, garden, or favorite vacation destination. By engaging all the senses in the visualization, the nervous system can experience many of the same calming responses that occur when physically present in a restorative environment. This practice can help strengthen an internal sense of safety and reduce stress.
• Self-Compassion: Often we look outside ourselves for comfort, reassurance, or validation. Yoga teaches us that we can also become a reliable source of care for ourselves. Through mindful breathing, gentle touch, kind inner dialogue, and intentional rest, we learn to ask, “What do I need right now?” and then respond to that need with kindness and care.

Incorporating Yoga for Trauma Healing

If an individual wants to incorporate yoga to help with trauma healing, I suggest they begin with learning how to practice yoga breathing. Start with the 7-breath sigh practice; 7 deep breaths takes roughly one minute, and that is enough time to activate the parasympathetic nervous system.

Next I would teach the compassion break:

1. Recognize the uncomfortable feelings, emotions, symptoms—and befriend them—this is your body communicating to you asking for help.
2. Normalize—remind yourself that what you are feeling is what others experience after going through similar trauma.
3. Ask yourself “What do I need right now?” And offer yourself kindness through:

• Gentle touch
• Positive affirmation
• Addressing a need: drink of water, food, rest, breath practice, walk outside in nature