Trauma Informed Yoga
A person-centred, body based approach towards healing from Trauma.
What is Trauma Informed Yoga ?
Trauma-informed yoga is an approach to yoga that prioritizes safety, choice, and empowerment for individuals who have experienced trauma. It adapts traditional yoga practices to be more sensitive to the needs of trauma survivors, with the understanding that certain movements, language, or environments can trigger traumatic memories or responses.
Through somatic tools, we adapt yoga to befriend our nervous system and approach presence within our bodies, gradually building a capacity to begin to heal.
A somatic approach to healing the nervous system focuses on using body-based (soma = body) practices to release stored tension, trauma, and stress, helping the body return to a state of regulation and safety. Unlike talk therapy, which emphasizes cognitive processing, somatic healing works through the body to calm the nervous system, reconnect with bodily sensations, and build resilience.
How can it help?
For ease, we'll abbriveate 'Trauma Informed Yoga' to 'TIY'
01
Stabilizes the Nervous System
Meeting ourselves in the present following Trauma can be extremely overwhelming. Often when we try yoga for the first time in a regular class setting, it can leave us feeling worse. This may be an indication that TIY is for you. We create a safe environment to allow the nervous system to begin re-stabilising. This happens naturally once we feel safe & so TIY puts this safety first before anything else. Co-creating an environment to meet you.
03
Processing
As safety begins to return to our bodies, processing helps us to understand events & the somatic responses that occur following trauma. Processing involves meeting challenge while remaining within your window of tolerance, gradually building resilience to hold space for emotions and allow ourselves to slowly regain a sense of self. This may show up for you in other ways such as journalling, through art or connecting to nature. This area of TIY pairs with a psychotherapist of your choosing to help you discuss safely any areas that come up for you.
02
Understanding our Nervous System
As we begin to find safety, an important aspect towards post traumatic growth is understanding ourselves & beginning to re-trust our bodies signals. This is known as 'befriending the nervous system'. Tailored and guided at a pace that you feel comfortable with, TIY offers an understanding of the responses our body makes to help us create a language for our nervous system.
04
A non-invasive approach
TIY understands that overwhelming the nervous system is of no use when it comes to Trauma Recovery. Sessions are guided from your window of tolerance & sense of safety at your pace. It acknowledges & respects where you are in your healing journey so you can make lasting steps towards understanding who you are in post traumatic growth.
What might a session include ?
Resourcing
Being in the present can be difficult when we're experiencing post traumatic stress, when beginning to stabilise your nervous system, we'll explore resources and co create a safe space. We'll learn how to ground, regulate and move between our nervous system states to establish a route back to our Ventral state where we feel calm and centred.
Somatic Movement
Movement is guided in a way that suits you & your experience internally, this may look like small movements or larger movements depending on your window of tolerance. Some yoga positions can be used to help discharge excess energy in the body. These are offered to you intuitively as you find your own way that helps to keep you anchored in presence & shape your nervous system responses. Other practices help us to connect through our natural responses in our bodies.
education
Sessions can also include education of how our nervous system works.
Mapping our nervous system helps us to understand our bodies signals & how they show up for us. It aids in bringing ourselves back towards a sense of self & being able to trust our bodies once again when Trauma may have left us distrusting our actions. We befriend our nervous system to learn the language of our somatic experiences.
processing
During processing, your sessions may begin to start widening your window of tolerance. This might look like holding positions until you feel the need to come out, establishing our own sense of understanding boundaries. Practices may include moving between stimulating & calming practices to build resilience & flexibility in your nervous system or tracking sensations & attuning to them. Gradually building up resilience to experience difficult emotions & create space for more joy in life.
Power of presence
Overall, we seek to find a way to bring you back to presence awareness & to slowly offer a wider capacity to live in the here & now rather than in the past or future.
In doing so, we're able to experience & accept life's beauty, leading to wholeness
Coming back to presence is a foundational practice in healing trauma, because trauma disconnects us from the here and now. When we're stuck in trauma, our nervous system can live in a past event or brace for an imagined future. Returning to the present is not just a mental act—it's a felt experience of safety, awareness, and connection.
Presence brings the nervous system out of survival mode.
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It allows:
Reconnection to the body and sensations.
Integration of fragmented traumatic memory.
Choice, where reactivity once ruled.
When we're present, we can feel what’s happening without being overwhelmed by it—this builds nervous system resilience.
​Coming back to presence doesn’t mean staying perfectly calm all the time. It means building the capacity to return to yourself when triggered, and to do so with compassion and slowness. It’s how the body learns it’s no longer in danger—and that’s where healing begins.
Katie was extremely supportive and very aware of how we were all feeling. I knew going into each class that I could be real and raw with how I was doing and Katie would amend the practices to best support this.
- Group Intake Participant
I felt that I have gained so much since the start of the programme that I can use to help change how I deal with my anxiety and depression problems. I now feel more able to cope with situations I previously didn't deal with that well, armed with the practices I've learnt thoughout the programme. It has helped me make a positive change and I wouldn't hesitate to recommend the Trauma Informed Yoga programme.
- Group Intake Participant