Why Yoga?

The word “yoga” comes from the Sanskrit root “yuj,” to yoke or to unite. From its inception, yoga has been unity and liberation. Anything that creates separation in ourselves, our relationships, our communities, is not yoga.

Dr. Peter Levine of Somatic Experiencing shares that “Trauma is not what happens to us, but what we hold inside in the absence of an empathetic witness.” When we experience trauma, we experience a separation from parts of ourselves, from others, from life itself.

Yoga can heal trauma through connecting us to our bodies, where trauma is stored. Ever heard the phrase “the issues are in the tissues?” Bessel van der Kolk shares, "trauma is not just an event that took place in the past. It's also the imprint left by that experience on mind, brain, and body.” As we slowly reacquaint ourselves with our bodies through trauma-informed embodiment practices like yoga or Somatic Experiencing, we can gradually reintegrate and reunite with the fragmented parts of ourselves that once fractured to keep us safe. We begin to recognize our intrinsic wholeness again. Unity.

As individuals and as a collective, we stop perpetuating trauma in yoga spaces, spiritual spaces, and our communities when we center unity and liberation for all. This means bring awareness and change to how we create separation through hierarchy, bias, and spiritual bypassing. Unity and liberation can only happen through creating safe, loving, and trauma-informed spaces and doing our own inner work.