Somatic Immersion: A Yoga Therapy Journey
My new 6-week series, Somatic Immersion: A Yoga Therapy Journey, starts October 7! If you've considered exploring individual yoga therapy sessions or you've done them in the past and would like a "tune-up", this course may be the perfect option. Over the next 3 weeks, I'll be writing to you about the frameworks I use in my individual and group yoga therapy sessions so you can decide whether now is a good time to jump in.
Here's where we're going in today's blog - feel free to scroll down accordingly:
1. Somatic Immersion: A Yoga Therapy Journey
2. Refining your approach to fight, flight and freeze: a yoga therapy perspective
3. Yoga therapy and trauma
#1 Somatic Immersion:
A Yoga Therapy Journey
Six Weeks
October 7 - November 11
Choose from 3 options or mix and match:
In-person in Salt Lake City
Zoom
Self-paced
Register or Learn More
#2 Refining your approach to fight, flight and freeze: a yoga therapy perspective
I know you've heard me talk about nervous system regulation a lot but today I'd like to zero in a bit. By now, most of us know that the flight, flight response is a state of activation or hyperarousal where things move fast, including our thoughts, our heart rate and our blood pressure. And whether we are literally or figuratively fighting or fleeing, we are acting on a threat and our system is putting all of it's energy into action or movement. On the other hand, the freeze response is a passive state or hypoarousal. Our systems don't feel capable of fighting or fleeing - the threat feels too overwhelming - and so instead, we freeze, check out, distract, or dissociate.
In a moderate active or passive response to a stressor or a threat, that can look like a yelling match or walking out the door and slamming it behind us (hyperarousal) or a scrolling/binging session where we try to avoid the stressor all together (hypoarousal).
We all have tendencies - largely based on what we did as kids to stay safe when we were more vulnerable and had less control over our lives.
In a yoga therapy session, we can reflect on those tendencies, or explore a recent scenario to determine whether we fought, fled or froze. And then we may explore grounding and regulating breathing or mindful movement to help us more thoughtfully navigate the conflict or threat.
But what I want most want to stress is this:
Fight and flight are activated states that require us to calm down. Freeze is a passive state that requires us to reengage.
They are also physiological states, which means that we can't just think our way out of them.
We need somatic practices that either calm or excite our nervous system to bring us back to baseline.
In other words, when you are in fight or flight, you can't just burn off that energy with intense workouts. That might offer some temporary relief, but it won't calm down the system. And if you're more regularly on the freeze spectrum, restorative yoga or relaxation techniques may not provide the energy you need to get back into your body. A few rounds of sun salutations or a brisk walk are likely more appropriate.
But deciding how to respond requires that we have the awareness to recognize the state of our nervous system in the first place, and the tools and resources to address what's happening.
In a yoga therapy session and in my upcoming Somatic Immersion Series, we'll explore this framework and others, and work with mindfulness practices, including movement, breathwork and deep imagery, to develop an individualized approach to your unique nervous system.
#3 Yoga Therapy and Trauma
None of us escape traumatic experiences.
We live in a world that presents us with difficulties everyday, so whether we are experiencing personal or collective trauma, it is unfortunately part of life as we know it.
The latest research on trauma and the nervous system shows that embodied mindfulness practices (and yoga in particular) are an essential part of the healing and resilience-building process.
As a yoga therapist and instructor, I have been developing and teaching mind/body and trauma sensitive practices for over 20 years. And over these many years, I have found that there are particular frameworks that are most helpful in both the healing process and the simply figuring how to live in this world process.
If you are curious about yoga therapy, please join me in October or schedule an individual session with me.
If you have questions or want to learn more about yoga therapy in general feel free to email me or check out my yoga therapy page.
As always, if I can answer any questions, don't hesitate to reach out.
Sending so much love your way,
Rachel