Inhabiting the Body: Yoga as Movement Therapy and the Body as Home

This is the transcript for a talk I gave in the context of my Yoga Teacher Training Course during the summer of 2020. From the confines of quarantine, I embarked on the spiritual journey of yoga training as a way to come home to myself and rediscover the core of who I am - my identity and how identity comes up for me. During this process, I discovered many layers of Self, all begging to be allowed the space to breathe and move; trauma gone untreated, passions gone malnourished, parts of myself that I had left behind, covered up, or neglected, as I had moved through life. In quarantine, I returned to dance and movement, and though I had maintained a strong yoga practice for several years, I made the choice to dive deeper into the whys and the hows and the histories and rich philosophies of this discipline. I share this transcript then, as an invitation for you to test these waters that healed me. I invite you to heal. I invite you to recognize the power inside you to heal yourself. I invite you to move.

So I want to start just by conducting a little experiment. Everyone close your eyes. I want you to picture your home. Wherever “home” is to you, put yourself there. Notice the colours of the walls, the texture of the flooring. How everything is arranged and laid out.

Picture the kitchen, the fridge, the stove, the counter tops. Whatever’s on the counter, the dishes in the sink.

Now let’s go into your bedroom. Again, notice the colour of the walls, how the space is laid out, the colour of your bed spread, your dresser. Any décor items or posters or plants. Any clutter, clothing tossed on the floor. Notice where the wall meets the floor, where the walls meet each other. Notice any characteristics unique to your room – the chipping of paint, a stain in the carpet –anything that tells a story.

Get every detail, as much as possible, create a full picture.

Okay, now, keeping the eyes closed, picture your body. Put yourself there, inside your body. Notice the colour of your skin, the texture of your skin, how the colours and textures vary from one body part to another.

Notice the palm of your hand. Not just any hand, but your hand. Picture all the lines and creases, any jewelry you are wearing, how the colour of the skin on the palm varies from the colour on the back of your hand. Perhaps a freckle or a scar.

Picture your chest, from the collar bone down to the bottom of the rib cage. How your chest ebbs and flows with your breathing, the curves and hills and valleys from your nipples to your sternum, the way the skin stretches over each of your ribs. The tightness of your skin, the looseness of your skin. Picture every detail, the patterns, the hair, any freckles or marks.

Now, picture your bum. Not just any bum, but your bum. The fleshy buttocks, the curve of the muscles, the crease where the buttocks connect with the top of the thigh. The crease where the cheeks meet in the center. Picture every detail of your bum. The colour, and texture of the skin, any blemishes, any freckles or moles, scars, any hair, cellulite, wrinkles, maybe a tattoo. Take a minute and create a full visualization of your bum. Include every detail, as much as possible.

Now, do the same with your feet.

Open your eyes.

You don’t need to share your experience of this practice, it is meant to be internal, but just make a note in your mind of the thoughts and feeling that came up for you while you were doing this exercise. How was the experience of visualizing your home different from the experience of visualizing your body? Which was easier for you? Which exercise brought up emotion or strain? In the second exercise, how did your approach change? How did you look on to your body? With familiarity? With unfamiliarity? With shame? With love? Excitement? Judgement? Were there parts of your body you just couldn’t picture? Were there parts of your body you didn’t want to picture? Was there pride here for you? Did memories arise? Was there a place where you stopped?

Reflect on how, when I first asked you to picture your home, you most likely did not picture your body.

We experience this world, in this lifetime, through these human bodies. We are an entity of eternal consciousness manifested in a wide variety of shapes that we recognize as human, and we are given the gifts (and burdens) of the senses. The beautiful power to touch and feel touch, to taste rich dark chocolate, to smell the salty air that hangs over the ocean, to see sunsets and the smiles on our loved ones faces, to hear laughter and music, to experience pleasure, to dance, to run, to swim, to have sex, to cry and pet puppies and carry our children in our arms – this is the human experience, and it comes from our body working in harmony with our mind.

As children, we are so curious about our own bodies – you’ll see babies and toddlers able to spend copious amounts of time amused by their fingers and toes, their reflections, the rolls in their bellies. They look onto their own body with pure adoration and fascination, they amaze themselves! But as we mature and begin to experience social norms, etiquette, concepts of what is considered private and what is considered public, discipline and structures are imposed onto our bodies, and the world begins to tell us that our bodies have a time and a place, and in many ways, that they’re meant to be silenced.

We reach puberty, one of the most transformative stages in our lives both physically and mentally, and we are told to cover up the ways that our bodies are changing as much as possible. That we’d better get rid of that hair that’s growing in those strange new places, cover-up those awkwardly shaped new breasts, find the strongest deodorant you can!

We are told that the exhibition of our bodies is improper, and private. That exploring our body improper and private, if allowed at all. That masturbation is dirty and wrong, that menstruation is dirty, and private, and wrong. We get told who is allowed to see us, touch us, who is not allowed to see us or touch us, how we are allowed to see and touch, or not touch ourselves, that our bodies are meant to be covered, that we must hide them away for our own safety.

And then every morning we get dressed, and as we do so we go through a series of questions in our minds, in order to come up with the proper attire for the day. Where am I going? Who will be there? What are the social norms of the environment I will be entering? Will I face violence if I wear something too revealing? Will I face violence if I wear something too flamboyant? Does this appear threatening? Will I be over dressed? Will I be under-dressed? Is this too tight? Is this too loose? Is it okay to feel sexy? Is it okay to feel extra feminine or masculine today? Regardless of anything I wear, will I face violence based on other components of my appearance? My skin? My hair? Am I too visibly this way or that?

Our bodies become structured, political sites faced with oppression, confusion and people’s damn opinions, and we carry these conceptions about ourselves and how we exist in the world into adulthood. And then we begin to age, and just as we perhaps graduate from the self-doubt that followed us from adolescence, we begin to judge ourselves for the way our body is changing once again.

This is without even considering the impact of trauma.

As Sarah Ahmed describes in her 2017 book Living a Feminist Life, there are many times in our lives when we experience what she refers to as “the sensing of wrongs,” when “you are aroused by what you come up against” and feel wronged or violated on a sensory level, but just aren’t able to put this feeling into language.[1] For many reasons, we often do not address these micro-aggressions and we brush them off, but, like a sponge, our bodies absorb these wrongs and store them underneath our skin, in our muscles and between our organs, and our bodies become our memory.[2] Most commonly, these instances that we categorize as small regardless of what they make us feel, fester for years within us without release, growing heavier as the sponge drowns, and manifesting in how we carry ourselves on a daily basis, in everything we do. And they don’t just appear once we venture into the public world, they trickle into the confines of our bedrooms as well. Behind closed doors, when no one is looking, we still feel shame, guilt, disgust, hatred, confusion, and often detachment and dissociation when we look in the mirror. But we don’t seek help, and we do our best to convince ourselves that we are not victims.

In his book The Body Keeps the Score, Bessel Van der Kolk dives deep into the complex web of ways that our trauma and emotions get stored physically within our bodies, causing blockages along the body’s connective pathways with the brain. He begins by declaring that “one does not have to be a combat soldier, or visit a refugee camp… to encounter trauma.”[3] He goes on to give statistics regarding sexual assault, physical and domestic abuse, inter-generational trauma, and several other forms of trauma as he normalizes this word we all seem to tense up toward. He describes his work with many different patients throughout the book, the various techniques used across a wide range of unique cases, expressing the diversity and intricacies of treatment, as the healing of trauma comes differently for each patient. He reminds us that traumatic experiences, both micro and macro, leave traces both on large and intimate scales, “on our minds and emotions, on our capacity for joy and intimacy, and even on our biology and immune systems.”[4] Because of this, the healing of trauma – as it has a holistic impact on the individual, must be approached in a holistic manner, covering mental and physical health from every possible angle. Interestingly enough, this is what generations of wise people have said about yoga, and one of the primary treatments Van der Kolk offers to his patients, is the practicing of yoga.

Van der Kolk explains the way trauma attacks the brain’s “basic-self system”, referred to as the “Mohawk of Self-Awareness.”[5] This includes the mid-line structures of the brain, starting right above our eyes, running through the center of the brain all the way to the back, all of which are involved in our sense of self.[6] In individuals with histories of trauma, these regions of the brain show drastic decrease in activity, making it difficult to “register internal states and assess the personal relevance of incoming information.”[7] As we experience the world, and our sense of self in relation to it through the senses, for many this loss of the self manifests in disconnection and fear toward the body and the senses. This can result in complete dissociation from certain body parts, resulting in physical lack of feeling, or ignorance toward sensation, referred to as numbing.[8] This fear may also manifest in physical muscle tension, muscle spasms, back and neck pain, migraine headaches and many other forms of chronic pain. For sexual assault survivors, this may manifest in the vagina or the rectum. Furthermore, for many, the inability to heal from trauma comes as a result of flashbacks or the feeling of being stuck inside their trauma. Now I am simplifying here immensely – but flashbacks or being stuck in the past is a result of the brain’s inability to distinguish the present moment from their traumatic past, causing the trauma survivor to feel as though the trauma is continuously reoccurring, that they are stuck in a “helpless state of horror.”[9]

This is where yoga comes in.

Often, trauma involves the loss of control over the fate of one’s own body, therefore the healing of trauma must offer the survivor a method of “regulating their arousal and control over their own physiology,”[10] as a means of reconnecting to, and regaining trust and safety in their own skin.

As established in the ancient yogic scriptures, the best way to ground one’s self in the present is to bring our focus to our breathing and learn how to control it. Simply put, “if we notice our breath we are in the present, because we cannot breathe in the future or in the past.”[11] It is extremely difficult for traumatized individuals to feel relaxed and physically safe in their bodies. Once we are able to notice our breathing and feel a sense of grounding that way, when we can distinguish where we are in the present moment, in our body, in relation to what happened in the past, the healing can begin. In order to achieve the comfort and ease needed to feel safe, one must inhabit their body without fear of their senses, which store the memory of trauma. Most traditional therapy, and much of the yogic philosophy as well, tends to guide away from the “moment-to-moment shifts in our inner-sensory world. But these shifts carry the essence of the organism’s responses: the emotional states that are imprinted in the body’s chemical profile… Traumatized people need to learn that they can tolerate their sensations.”[12] During a yoga practice, the student will be encouraged to focus both on the breath and on the bodily sensations moment to moment.

You begin to notice the connection between your emotions and your body – perhaps how anxiety about doing a pose actually throws you off balance. You begin to experiment with changing the way you feel. Will taking a deep breath relieve that tension in your shoulder? Will focusing on your exhalations produce a sense of calm? Simply noticing what you feel fosters emotional regulation. Once you start approaching your body with curiosity rather than with fear, everything shifts. [13]

Learning to comfortably inhabit your body also allows the individual to understand the transient nature of sensations, recognizing that like we practice and hold the asanas, sensations rise, peak, and fall,[14] and when we move to a new posture and are suddenly overwhelmed with a wave of emotion, we can lean into this sensation, move through it, and let it pass. A healthy relationship with emotion of all kinds allows the individual to begin seeking the pleasure they can find in their bodies. We begin exploring ourselves again.

“Practicing yoga is coming to know ourselves in a somatic way, as embodied, incarnate beings.”[15] Through practicing yoga, we become more and more aware of our capabilities, the different shapes we can make, the parts of ourselves that are rarely shown love, our strength. We develop this intimate relationship with our bodies, we step back into play.

In the same way that we test the strength of the ice before we walk on to a frozen lake, yoga becomes a safe place to test ourselves, surprise ourselves, and became familiar with our own vitality.

Through understanding and acceptance of the emotions and sensations, we are able to feel fully, sensually alive. The safe space of yoga brings ease, and the structures and pressures, threatening memories and violations, fall away. Here, we find the beauty that exists in the narratives written in our skin. We want to feel, to see ourselves and be seen. We appreciate the lines, the shapes, the strength, the stretch, the ability to balance, the ability to make ourselves big, and then small, round and soft, to feel in physical harmony with nature, and therefore, the ability to appreciate not only ourselves and our own bodies, but the bodies of our lovers and our families and everyone we pass on the street. We hold ourselves the way we hold others. We find beauty in knowing and using our bodies. We no longer feel weak if we know our full power. As Dr. Joe Dispenza states in his 2019 talk titled You Are The Placebo, “If knowledge is power, then knowledge about yourself is self-empowerment.”[16] You will surprise yourselves with your own resilience and courage. You are strong, you are capable, you are powerful, you are beautiful, you are the entire ocean in a drop. Your body is your home, and you are safe here.

Thank you to my amazing YTT Summer 2020 Group and my amazing teachers Antoine and Pamela, for guiding me inwards and inspiring my true self to come out of hiding. Your wisdom, acceptance, and Bhakti Yoga has fostered so much growth, and it is to each and every one of you that I owe my journey back home to myself, back to the safety I find in my skin.

Om, Shanti, Shanti, Shanti

[1] Ahmed, Sara. Living a Feminist Life. Durham: Duke University Press, 2017. 22.[2] Ibid, 23.[3] Van Der Kolk, Bessel, M.D. The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. New York: Penguin Books, 2015. 1.[4] Ibid.[5] Ibid, 92. [6] Ibid, 93.[7] Ibid.[8] Ibid, 267.[9] Ibid, 275.[10] Ibid, 268.[11] Van Der Kolk, Bessel, M.D. The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. 278.[12] Ibid, 275.[13] B. A. van der Kolk, “Clinical Implications of Neuroscience Research in PTSD,” Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 1071, no. 1 (2006): 277-93. [14] Van Der Kolk, Bessel, M.D. The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma. 275.[15] Iyer, Vaishali. "Coming into Embodiment." Yoga in Common. February 25, 2018. Accessed June 18, 2020. https://yoga-incommon.com/coming-into-embodiment/.[16] Dispenza, Joe D.C. "You Are The Placebo: Making Your Mind Matter." Speech, Trauma & Mind/Body Super Conference, London, June 28, 2020. Accessed July 11, 2020. https://traumasuperconference.com/speaker-joe-dispenza/.