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Yoga class helps women with stress and traumatic incidents

On March 14 and 15 in Hope and Boston Bar respectively, women gathered to explore trauma-informed yoga at two wellness days.
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Trauma Sensitive Yoga Facilitator Sarah Holmes de Castro teaches women how yoga can help them with stress and trauma.

By Marianne Brueckert

On March 14 and 15 in Hope and Boston Bar respectively, women (some of whom who have faced significant challenges in their lives) gathered to explore trauma-informed yoga at the two wellness days hosted by Hope/Boston Bar RCMP Victim Services.

The two five-hour days were facilitated and expertly led by Sarah Holmes de Castro, Director of Programs at the Lower Mainland-based charity Yoga Outreach and one of only four practitioners in Canada certified as a Trauma Sensitive Yoga Facilitator (TCTSY-F) through psychiatrist Bessel van der Kolk’s Trauma Center in Brookline, Mass.

The days were spent exploring trauma-informed yoga practices as well as considering the ways in which our physiology is affected by stress and trauma. The women attending reflected on their own effective self-care practices and also tried practices that were new to them that can be used as practical tools when experiencing the physiological outcomes of stress and trauma. There was a variety of practices on offer, including chair-based yoga, active yoga forms, ball-rolling and some restorative yoga forms. Lunch was an opportunity for participants to connect with each other and for some to enjoy quiet time away from everyday life. At the end of each day, the women left with yoga mats, props and written material to support them in continuing on with their explorations should they wish to, thanks to Halfmoon Yoga for their donations.

The Trauma Center has collected substantial evidence for the efficacy of Trauma Sensitive Yoga, including a randomized control trial which showed that yoga significantly reduced PTSD symptomatology, with effect sizes comparable to well-researched psychotherapeutic and psychopharmacologic approaches. Yoga may help people who have experienced traumatic stress to tolerate physical and sensory experiences associated with fear and helplessness as well as to increase emotional awareness and affect tolerance.

Yoga Outreach partners with volunteer yoga instructors, community organizations, social service agencies, and correctional facilities to provide mindfulness-based yoga programming to often overlooked adults and at-risk youth.

Yoga Outreach programs are strengths-based and trauma-informed, serving men, women, and youth facing challenges with mental health, addiction, poverty, violence, trauma, and imprisonment. What makes a Yoga Outreach class different from a regular yoga class, aside from the setting, is the emphasis of experiencing one’s body as one’s own. This is achieved through the use of invitation, choice, and inquiry, rather than instruction as a series of commands. Classes offer students an opportunity to develop safe and compassionate relationships with their bodies through mindful movement and breathing techniques, providing tools to draw from in order to self-regulate and manage daily circumstances.

This event was the result of looking at the needs for women in our community and looking at the impact that trauma has on many individuals and the benefit of effective coping skills.  We have all experienced differing levels of stress and traumatic incidents in our lives and when the impact becomes extreme it is important we have a set of skills we can rely on to assist.  That was one of the primary purposes of these classes.

It was an incredible two days of learning about how stress and trauma settles in our body and to develop an understanding of how our nervous system is impacted and can shut down when we have experienced chronic stress or a trauma.  Relaxation, meditation and flexibility were built into the day for those who may be experiencing extreme levels of stress.

Holmes de Castro was able to focus on helping those present, many of whom had never practised yoga before, to feel comfortable with yoga and to learn that many of the practices she was sharing could be incorporated into anyone’s daily routine.  It is also accessible and adaptable to those who have mobility issues.