For the longest time, I didn’t know that my childhood abuse was trauma. That may sound silly, but although I knew I had survived something horrific, I didn’t understand it through the lens of trauma.
Recently I have come to understand how sexual abuse is truly a form of trauma and have started exploring what therapy for trauma can mean in aiding me on my healing journey.
What I discovered accidentally on my own in connecting with yoga and other body works has actually been known as a healing modality for trauma victims. And even studied scientifically to prove that yoga and other embodiment practices are better at healing trauma that other forms of therapy and medication!
Dr. Bessel van der Kolk, a psychiatrist and one of the world’s leading experts on developmental trauma, studies how our long-term health and happiness can be compromised by prior exposure to violence, emotional abuse, and other forms of traumatic stress.
In his book, “The Body Keeps the Score“, Dr. van der Kolk explores how innovative treatments—ranging from meditation and neurofeedback to yoga, sports, and drama—offer new paths to healing and wellness.
Dr. van der Kolk defines Trauma as: “Experience that simply overwhelms your coping mechanisms, so you are not the same again because you sort of get reset to see yourself as helpless and the world is a dangerous place. It’s not so much the event that’s the trauma, it’s an experience that you experience as such.”
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“The moment you call the trauma in your mind, your body starts reliving the trauma…even before a word has been spoken.
That’s the primacy of the body. We are our bodies. Our bodies are traumatized bodies.”
Learn about trauma and treatment in this interview.
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How the brain is impacted by trauma and PSTD.
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Understanding how yoga and other body therapies help fight trauma.
