9 lessons I’m embodying through Trauma-Sensitive Yoga
In September 2021, I began my 300-hour training as a Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga (TCTSY) Facilitator with the Center for Trauma and Embodiment, Justice Resource Institute. Prior to this, I had attended multiple yoga classes at commercial studios in Singapore as well as a couple of yoga teacher training programs both in Singapore and overseas. While all of my previous experience practising yoga were helpful in their own ways to reconnect me back to my body, and in intellectually understanding the principles and philosophy of yoga, none of them truly supported me in embodying the true wisdom of yoga as much as my practice of trauma-sensitive yoga did.
The lessons I share here are not isolated to the practice of yoga on its own, but are highly relevant and supportive to the way we live our lives as well. In fact, yoga is a way of life (and not just a physical asana practice, limited to one hour on a mat). These lessons arrived in my being as the fruits of my practice and now I offer them to you, in hopes that they too may plant seeds of hope and peace within you, and invite your curiosity to explore the depths of your being through yoga or a different form of embodiment practice.
1 - There is no right or wrong way to practice (or live). There is just my way and your way.
We live in a society and culture that constantly differentiates between right and wrong, and oftentimes the ‘right’ way that is enforced or imposed onto all of us is simply the way of the majority (or the ones with the most power or whoever shouts the loudest). I believe this is true, no matter which society we are a part of, or which country we come from. But what I have found to be true is that there is no ONE RIGHT WAY that works for everyone. Even though all of us share 99.9% of DNA, we are not meant to be carbon copies of each other. The 0.1% difference in our genes have led to an overwhelmingly large and beautiful range of diversity among human beings. This means that our bodies, our minds and our desires and vision for life are all shaped differently, depending on our innate personalities, the environments we were exposed to and the life experiences we’ve had. This is a blessing to be celebrated! For a long time, I used to believe that there was a right and wrong way to live my life, and that I needed to make the ‘right’ life decision in order not to screw up my life. I have seen far too many people becoming paralysed by the fear of making the ‘wrong’ choice (myself included) that we end up living lives that are no longer our own because we try too hard to conform to the norms of society (which we mis-perceive as the ‘right’ way) or mould ourselves to fit in with the expectations that others have for us.
Similar to how we might injure ourselves when we try too hard to force our bodies into asana shapes just to look like the teacher in front of the room, or another student to the left or right of us, when we believe that there is only one 'right’ way to live our lives, and give away our power to choose what is right for us, we might one day find ourselves feeling lost and hurting on the inside. Perhaps, it is time for us to stop trying to conform to other people’s version of an asana shape or to others’ version of success and an ideal life, and instead begin the inquiry of what feels right for us, in our body, our mind and our soul. Maybe we can begin to flip the script - both in yoga (as widely practised in today’s world) and in life - that there is no right or wrong way to practice (or live), there is just my way and your way, and what is more or less useful to each of us.
2 - I am free to change my mind and I am free to make choices that look different from others.
As I was learning to embody this lesson through my practice of yoga, I began to feel ripples of energy liberating itself through my entire body. Knowing that I am never stuck with the choices I have made, and that I am free to change my mind to move into a different shape when I needed to, felt empowering. This meant I could explore how different yoga shapes or movements felt in my body, and notice what felt more or less useful for me in that moment as a guide for making choices in my practice. This also meant that I was free to make choices that looked starkly different from others, including the yoga facilitator who is guiding the practice. Both as a participant and facilitator of trauma-sensitive yoga practice, this has been so freeing because there are no longer any expectations for the future nor expectations of looking or moving exactly like the person next to me.
Likewise, when we are moving through life and ageing as we live each day, our needs, our lifestyles, our vision and our longings are going to shift and change, and we are allowed to change our minds about the decisions we have made in life along with it. In my experience, this also meant that I could let go of the guilt I felt for leaving a job in social work that I was once passionate about, and fully embrace my choice to be a spiritual solopreneur which might not make sense to others who are in the world of social work and non-profits. This lesson from my yoga practice gave me permission to stop and ask myself if the choices I had made in the past were still supporting my needs and desires, and if not, what other choices could I consider or make in this present moment, regardless of what others may think. Now, it’s your turn.
What choices are you making in your life? Are they still serving you or have they lost their value over time? Do you feel the need to make a different choice in any particular area of your life? You’re welcome to use this as your permission slip to make a different choice in your life today, without any guilt.
3 - It is okay to move at my own pace. It is okay to pause and find stillness in my body if I need to.
When I was young, I used to be really slow at eating. It was not a conscious choice, I was naturally a slow eater and liked to chew my food for a long time. In fact, I did not really think of myself as a slow eater until others made it a point to single me out for it. Like when I was in pre-school, my teacher would leave me to eat on my own in the cafeteria and forced me to finish my food while the other kids went back to the classroom and attended lessons. As a result, I often ended up late for my lessons and developed a phobia of eating a full meal during recess time when I moved on to Primary School. At home, my sister would get upset and angry with me for eating so slowly, and would sometimes lash out at me or make fun of me for it.
As I grew older, whether in school or at work, life always felt like a mad rush. Everyone was usually busy with something, and if you’re not moving fast enough, or producing some type of work, labels such as ‘lazy’, ‘inefficient’, ‘slow’ and ‘incompetent’ are slapped onto you. Even though I did my best to keep up with the pace of this world, and everyone around me, and at some point even learnt to be good at it, my body, mind and soul eventually wore down and grew extremely exhausted. I began experiencing burnout in my job and honestly, I think I was feeling burnt out by life even before that. This was when I first began noticing my body craving for slow movement and a more mindful way of living. This brought me to the practice of yoga. Unfortunately, the way that yoga was taught in commercial studios mimicked the modern way of life, filled with fast-paced energy and competitive vibes about who could bend the most or stay in an asana the longest.
It was not until I found my way to my first yoga teacher training and then eventually to the practice of trauma-sensitive yoga that I could finally relax and truly practice moving at my own pace. Sometimes, I find myself falling into old patterns of thinking that I needed to do things at a faster pace or be somewhere other than where I am right now, and when that happens, I find myself returning to this lesson and feeling its truth settle into every cell of my being - it is OKAY to move at my own pace. It is OKAY to pause and find stillness in my body, mind and soul. It is OKAY to stop the doing, and just be.
4 - My body is a well of wisdom, and my best guide. She is constantly speaking to me, if only I will stop to listen.
My body is the home for both my mind and my soul - this is something I knew intuitively and understood cognitively for a long time. However, it took me a while to really recognise the wealth of wisdom that my body held, and the natural intelligence by which she functioned. The first time I started studying human anatomy in my 300-hour Uplifted Yoga Teacher Training, I was in awe of how amazingly complex, and extraordinarily intelligent the human body is - from the way each cell joined forces to form our tissues, muscles and organs, to the way they created networks of communication that made us a single, whole organism with thoughts, words, feelings and consciousness. Have you paused to truly appreciate the wonder of your own being? As I moved from learning about the human anatomy to learning to listen to the language of sensations within my body, I began to pay attention to the messages that my body was constantly sending me. This was the beginning of me embodying the understanding that my body is more than capable of healing itself if I were to trust its guidance and nourish it well with movement, high quality nutrients, and compassionate thoughts. What messages are your body sending you? Are you listening?
5 - My body and the sensations I feel are constantly shifting, and that’s a gift.
As I began to pay more attention to my sensations through my trauma-sensitive yoga practice, I also became more acutely aware of how my body and the sensations I feel within are constantly changing, and this meant that no matter what I am experiencing in life, pleasant, unpleasant or neutral, they too shall pass. So even though sometimes there is a tendency to want to grasp onto the pleasant emotions or sensations, and push away or avoid anything that feels unpleasant, my practice of yoga has taught me to neither cling to nor avoid the pleasant or the unpleasant. Instead, I am learning to see the gift of the impermanence of all things, including my body, my mind, my thoughts, my feelings, my sensations. Knowing that nothing lasts forever, and both my body and all of life is in flux, I can learn to appreciate the moment for what it is, and let it go when the time comes. This, to me, has been a gift.
6 - I do not need to make meaning out of every sensation/ feeling.
A primary goal or intention of trauma sensitive yoga is to support participants with staying in the present moment and cultivating greater awareness of their internal bodily sensations (i.e. interoception). Through my practice, I have observed that sometimes I notice sensations in certain parts of my body, and sometimes I do not, and either way, it is okay. Most importantly, there is no need for me to interpret the sensation or feeling I have in my body if I choose not to, because as mentioned in lesson 5, the sensations I feel are constantly shifting anyway, and not all of them has to mean something.
Similarly, I have found that when I do not attach meaning to every single life event that occurs, and maybe stop making certain situations mean something (and it’s usually something bad) about myself, it becomes much easier to let go of that event as another passing moment of life. When I was younger, I used to make meaning out of everything that happened, especially when it was something bad or unpleasant. For example, when my cousins teased me about the way I looked (because I looked different from them), I made it mean that I looked ugly and that I was not loveable. Even though there is so much evidence to the contrary, I could never shake off this meaning I attached when this event occurred (albeit multiple times, in different ways). Now that I am older, I have a clearer view of these events in my past, and can clearly see that not all of my life events have to mean something, just like I do not have to make meaning out of every sensation or feeling I experience in the now or in future. Sometimes, things are just the way they are, and we just might need to wait for them to pass.
7 - The goal is to be present, not perfect.
The very first time I started practising yoga, it was in a commercial yoga studio, in a group class led by the ‘expert’ yoga teacher at the front of the room who would go around the room during the class to correct each of our postures and alignment. At that point, I remember being completely stuck in my head about getting into the ‘perfect’ form and then feeling awful about myself for not getting the pose ‘right’, if the yoga teacher corrected my pose. I also constantly looked at the other students in class and compared my body to theirs, sometimes even sub-consciously competing with the others to see if I was more flexible or stronger than them. Oftentimes, I would leave the yoga class feeling either inferior or superior to the others in the room. This was my experience of a typical yoga class in a commercial studio, about 10 years ago. This time of my life was also the peak of me feeling insecure in my body, and believing that I should be a certain size, a certain body shape, have a certain level of strength and flexibility, which inadvertently resulted in a lot of internalised body shaming and dissociating from my own body.
Fast forward to my first training as a yoga teacher, and most significantly, training to become a Trauma Center Trauma Sensitive Yoga facilitator (TCTSY-F), I began to realise that the true goal of yoga is to be present, not perfect. By emphasizing not on alignment or how one should look in a particular asana shape, and instead honouring the diversity of body structures, forms and range of movement available to each of us, as well as the importance of staying present in our bodies, TCTSY taught me that the purpose of my yoga practice is to be present with and in my body. This is a lesson I learnt and understood from my first yoga teacher training under Ms. Nitya Mohan (of Svastha Yoga and Ayurveda), but I believe that I only began embodying the lesson (feeling its truth in my body and actually practising it with myself and in the way I facilitate classes) after going through my TCTSY training. This is a lesson I carry with me everywhere I go now, in whatever life presents me with, I tell myself - “My goal here is to be present for what is, not to show up perfectly”.
8 - There is peace to be found when I let go of any expectations of how I (or life) ‘should’ be, and instead be with what is.
Ahhh.. the relief and sense of peace that washes over me every time I remember that the goal is to be present and not perfect in life is both warm and sweet. This lesson is a direct result of embodying Lesson 7. Once I learned to simply be present in my body and in my life, without any attachments to how I should be or how the situation should be, everything in life became more easeful. As Byron Katie would say, I was no longer arguing with life or myself, I could simply relax into being with what is (If you’re interested to learn more about Byron Katie’s work, check out her book: Loving what is). Now, whenever I find myself feeling conflicted or in an internal state of disharmony, I take a step back and check in with myself - what expectations of myself, of others or of life am I holding onto?, and is it possible for me to let go of these expectations (for maybe just one minute) so that I may reclaim my peace? Try it out for yourself, and let me know how this experiment goes for you in the comments below.
9 - The wonder of life lies in being in the present moment.
Closely tied to both lessons 7 and 8, I found my awareness of myself and of life growing more and more, as I practised staying present in my body and in the moment, without any expectations. And my growing awareness has slowly led me to the feeling of wonder and awe of life itself. Truth be told, I have no words to describe nor explain this lesson I am embodying except to say that it is something you too can feel as you practise staying in the present moment more and more.
Take a moment or two, breathe in and out, and feel what it is like to be in your body. Do you feel your breath moving? Do you feel your heart beating? Do you notice the thoughts in your mind? Can you be present without any judgements? Can you feel the spaciousness within your body, and your soul expanding from your core? What wonders do you see within yourself and around you?
Share your experience of yoga with me in the comments below. Let me know if any of these lessons resonate with you! If you’re new to yoga or would like to explore a different type of yoga practice that allows you to become more embodied, reach out to me here. 