I remember being treated like I was broken.
Fragile. Something to protect. Something to tiptoe around. My trauma was the only thing anyone saw. And the people who were supposed to help me—the teachers, the mentors, the practitioners—they all had one thing in common: they never asked me what I thought or what I needed.
They told me how I should feel. What was wrong with me. They told me what was next. They told me what was “healing” and what was “resistance.” Frankly, too many profited from my brokenness while calling it help and healing.
And I believed them. I lost any remaining trust in myself. I farmed out my intuition to people who benefited from my doubt. Every “breakthrough” they celebrated was more about their ego than my healing. Every carrot they dangled was about their agenda, not my autonomy.
No one—not a single person—asked me how I really was. What had or hadn’t worked for me. What my beliefs, thoughts, perspectives or narratives were. They just downloaded their beliefs and agenda, and at times used me to test the last training they took.
The hard truth is that, in some ways, this became another trauma to recover from.
I share this not to shame anyone, but because I know I am not alone. Too many people have been harmed by well-meaning “helpers” and “healers” who thought they knew what was best. Have been treated as broken instead of human. Have been stripped of their agency in the name of healing.
That is not trauma-informed. That is trauma-reductionist. And it is part of why I do this work the way I do.
What Is Trauma, Really?
Trauma and healing are hard to define. There are so many definitions out there. What is healed for one person is still in recovery for another. Holding that nuance matters. So, instead of defining it, here are some that can help us expand our understanding.
- Bessel van der Kolk: “An inescapably stressful event that overwhelms people’s coping mechanisms.”
- Briere and Scott: “An event is traumatic if it is extremely upsetting, at least temporarily overwhelms the individual’s internal resources, and produces lasting psychological symptoms.”
- Staci Haines: “Trauma is an experience…(that) breaks or betrays our inherent need for safety, belonging and dignity.”
What these definitions share is this: trauma is not the event itself. It is what happens inside us, in our nervous system, in our body, in response to an event. The residue of being overwhelmed beyond our ability to cope. It is the way our system learns to keep us alive in a world that no longer feels safe.
And it does not stop there. Trauma impacts our self-concept, our worldview, our beliefs, our possibilities, our capacity to be with life. It shapes how we see ourselves, how we see others, how we move through the world—whether we are aware of it or not.
A Common Misunderstanding: This Is Not Just for "Trauma Survivors"
Trauma-informed yoga is not just for people who have experienced trauma.
It is for everyone. Because we all have wounds and nervous systems. We all experience life in ways that shape us—for better and for worse. Understanding this humanistic approach is not clinical; it is about recognizing that we are all navigating our own version of the human experience.
That said, it is also clinical. Our role and scope change depending on who we are and what we are trained to do. Yoga teachers, caring professionals, and clinicians all work from the same principles and understanding, but the level of severity of the impact for the person matters to scope.
Part of being trauma-informed is understanding our scope, its limits, when to refer, what to watch for, and how to manage those moments where we need to refer to a higher level of care. This is not about being less helpful—it is about being more ethical. One way to put it is being client-centric, which should be the foundation of why any of this matters.
The Difference: Informed vs. Responsive
Being trauma-informed is knowing.
Knowing about the nervous system. About trauma responses. About the window of tolerance. That our presence, language and cues matter.
But knowing is not enough.
I often say that we have access to so much information. But has that really changed anything? In my experience, knowing often leads to shame. I know what I should be doing, what I could be doing, and still don’t listen to that “knowledge.”
Being trauma-responsive means letting that knowledge shape you and guide you. It means integrating it into how you interact, cue, even how you market your offerings, and how you see yourself, your clients, and the world around you. It means developing your curiosity, your discernment, your metacognition—your ability to think about how you think and why you do what you do. This is embodied wisdom.
So, why does this matter? Being trauma-responsive means recognizing that being trauma-informed isn’t the goal. It is the foundation, and to be frank, that work is never truly done. That is why we deepen the knowledge we can integrate in the 300-hour Advanced Yoga Teacher Training.
What This Actually Looks Like
Before we talk about expanding someone’s capacity and supporting their healing, we have to talk about safety and stabilization.
Without understanding how the nervous system works—and how and when to titrate or pendulate, and what it means to anchor to safety and support stability first—we can and will do harm. It falls under “you don’t know what you don’t know.” But we cannot afford not to know. Too much harm is done in not knowing. Our world is designed to keep us disconnected from our bodies. The antidote is self-responsibility—learning to listen, to notice, to respond.
That is why we learn about this early in the training. So we build a framework and lens to view everything else we learn through. A humanistic lens that shapes everything—our curiosity, our discernment, our metacognition.
And in the scope of yoga teaching, even therapeutic yoga, there is so much we can do that does not replace therapy or clinical intervention. We can offer support that works alongside the more clinical work in an embodied way. For example, teaching grounding and containment practices. We can create conditions where the felt sense of safety can be cultivated. For example, cultivating emergent space over performative safety. Where agency can be practiced. Where people can practice trusting themselves again.
We do not heal anyone.
But we can cultivate a container where healing can occur. We can give people opportunities to have emotionally corrective experiences—to be seen, heard, respected, and trusted. We can offer practices and space to practice leaning into the unknown, the uncomfortable, the unexplored. And, we can offer practices that help someone feel grounded, contain what brings overwhelm, without prescription or expectation.
This might sound small, but frankly it is so very important. In many ways, it is the foundational life skills, the safety and stability tools, that make the healing and thriving possible. And this work requires us to be trauma-responsive, not just trauma-informed.
The Invitation
This is why we teach trauma-informed practice in both our 200-hour Yoga Teacher Training and 300-hour Advanced Yoga Teacher Training with Ayurvedic Somatic Coaching.
The 200-hour program gives you the foundation—understanding the nervous system and neuroscience, the window of tolerance, grounding, resourcing, titration, pendulation, and co-regulation. It builds the framework you will use to view everything else and what it looks like to support safety and stabilization.
The 300-hour program deepens the work—with more neuroscience, regulation, and resilience—but also deepens our own work of preventing compassion fatigue, vicarious trauma, and burnout. Because this learning is never truly done, each time we lean in, we expand our perspectives, challenge our beliefs and biases, and increase our capacity.
If you have been curious about what it actually means to be trauma-informed—and trauma-responsive—this is where you begin.
Learn more about our Introduction to Trauma-Informed Yoga module here:
https://www.lifeofwellness.ca/introduction-trauma-informed-yoga/
And if you are ready to go deeper, explore our 300-hour Advanced Trauma-Informed Practice module:
https://www.lifeofwellness.ca/advanced-trauma-informed-practice-neuroscience-regulation-resilience/
This is the kind of work that changes how you show up—not just as a teacher, but as a human. And it starts with knowing that you do not have to have it all figured out. You just have to be willing to begin.