Healing Trauma with Yoga: A personal story

“How could a handstand invite so much emotional upheaval?” I thought as I came down softly, with the help of my instructor, resting and sobbing in Child’s Pose.  I was back in another yoga teacher training after breaking my neck only 9 months earlier.  I had done so much work healing the body and mind after my near-fatal car accident.  My upper body was stronger than it was before the accident.  I had gone to a therapist to deal with some of the fear and anxiety I felt from the experience.  Had even undergone Rapid Eye Therapy to help “unlock” more subconscious levels of the trauma.  But here, in a moment of turning my body upside down which I had done hundreds of times in my life, I was pouring tears like a geyser erupting from somewhere unspeakably deep within me.  And my teacher was amazing.  He was gentle, present, compassionate.  I rested and spoke little the remainder of the day while still being with my peers of the teacher training.

In April 2012, I flipped an F250 truck on the back roads of Utah on my way into a week of work as a field instructor for Second Nature Entrada. 

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