When healing from trauma, it’s common to experience a wide range of emotions. Everything from anxiety and irritability to emotional exhaustion and depression. Survivors may also feel multiple emotions at once, and each day can bring something different.
The purpose of trauma-informed yoga isn’t to erase difficult emotions, but to offer gentle space to reconnect with your body, practice self-compassion, and allow your emotions to be present as much as you feel comfortable.
Trauma-informed yoga is one supportive tool for emotional healing after trauma and invites you to explore your emotions as you feel ready. It also includes many different types of classes in addition to emotional healing, and I welcome you to learn more about my different Trauma-Informed Yoga Practices to see which would be most supportive for you.
Why Emotions Can Feel Different After Trauma
Trauma can impact the way we feel, process, and respond to emotions. Some may notice their emotions with more intensity than before, while others may feel disconnected from them completely.
How you feel after trauma is entirely unique to you, and will be different for each person. When exploring emotions directly, I welcome you to work with a therapist or mental health professional, which you can explore resources on my Survivor Support Page.
I also offer a gentle reminder that there is nothing wrong with you because you’re experiencing emotions differently than before. These changes are often due to protective responses to allow us to survive.
It’s common to experience a wide variety of emotions on your healing journey, and while these can feel overwhelming, they’re a common part of the process and can become easier to work through as you build a supportive network.
If you’d like to explore how trauma affects your body’s stress responses, I welcome you to read my guide to Nervous System Regulation After Trauma.
How Trauma-Informed Yoga Can Support Emotional Healing
Trauma-informed yoga creates space to notice and acknowledge your emotions without needing to change them. It also takes extra considerations to make practices feel supportive and welcoming so you can focus more on your practice. These 6 Pillars of Trauma-Informed Yoga explore more about this practice and the extra care that goes into each class.
Trauma-informed yoga also supports emotional healing specifically by:
- Offering grounding tools to use during moments of emotional overwhelm
- Reminders that you don’t need to explore an emotion if you don’t wish to
- Encourages self-compassion and presence
- Avoids toxic positivity by asking you to only focus on the good or to “push away” negative emotions
- Avoids asking you to revisit trauma memories to conjure a negative emotion
This practice is about honoring what’s present for you and exploring only what you feel comfortable with. Everything in this practice is your choice and you get to choose how much or little you feel an emotion.
Common Emotions You May Experience After Trauma
Every healing journey is unique. You may relate to some of these emotions more than others, and that’s okay. This list of common emotional reactions after trauma is sourced from the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs and National Library of Medicine.
Anxiety & Overwhelm
You may feel anxious, restless, on edge, or like you can’t calm your mind. Supportive practices include grounding, resourcing, and redirecting your focus to something in the room or space around.
I welcome you to explore more about this topic in my dedicated guide to Anxiety, Stress, and Overwhelm After Trauma.
Grief
Grief can arrive in many forms after trauma. Maybe we grieve who we were before our traumas, a view of the world we no longer have, or grief over the event or the lack of support we had in that time. Grief can extend far beyond just the event itself, and is something that deserves utmost care.
You might explore my gentle 30 minute class for Yoga to Support Grief After Sexual Trauma.
Depression
Depression can lead to feeling like you have no energy, and even getting out of bed in the morning might become more difficult. It can feel different from sadness since it’s almost as if all the energy has left our body. We can support ourselves while in depression with practices that encourage presence and gentle movement, without asking too much of ourselves.
This 20 minute calming Yoga Class for Depression and Low Energy supports these moments, allowing you to feel more supported without big movements.
Shame
Shame is a feeling that goes beyond guilt. Guilt is feeling that we did something wrong, but shame is feeling like we’re wrong. Shame is especially felt in survivors of sexual trauma, and a supportive way to honor this emotion while making a gentle shift is with self compassion.
I invite you to explore these 5 Holistic Practices For Softening Shame After Sexual Trauma.
Anger
Anger is an emotion that often signals something important about our needs, boundaries, or experiences. If we can’t find ways to release this anger, it can remain within us and we may start to take this anger out on ourselves or even others.
Anger is an emotion just like any other, and doesn’t make us inherently bad. It’s simply a message from our bodies that we can honor and discharge through healthy outlets.
This Somatic Yoga for Anger and Irritability Release Class supports gently releasing stored anger in 15 minutes.
You might also notice that before a yoga class you felt fine, then after you notice anger. This is normal, and I explain why this happens with these 5 Surprising Reasons You’re Angry After Yoga.
Loneliness
Healing can sometimes feel isolating, especially if you don’t feel understood by those around you. It can lead to more isolation, creating this spiral that seems to continue further. I offer a gentle reminder that while your experience is unique to you, you are not alone. You might choose to take gentle care of yourself in this time, slowly reinforcing that you’re worthy of support, good health, and feeling comforted in your own body.
I invite you to explore these 8 Self Care Areas for Trauma Survivors to create more space for you and filling your own cup.
Emotional Numbness
Sometimes emotions don’t feel overwhelming, but rather we feel nothing at all. This is a protective response and gentle practices can support holding yourself in your own presence, allowing any emotions (no matter how subtle) to have space to arrive.
I invite you to explore this gentle yoga class for tending to Emotional Numbness After Sexual Trauma (YouTube).
Self-Criticism
Self criticism and self-blame are common to experience after trauma. We can’t always control our first thought, but we can recognize these moments and offer ourselves more self-compassion in our second thought.
For lowering down the volume of these critical thoughts, I welcome you to explore this Yoga for Self Compassion practice.
When Yoga Brings Up Unexpected Emotions
Some people who explore yoga may find themselves in tears by the end of class, but can’t pinpoint why. There are several reasons for this, all of which are completely normal, and if this has happened in your practice, I invite you to learn What Crying During Yoga Means for trauma survivors.
I also offer a gentle reminder that you’re welcome to stop your practice at any time. If an emotion feels too overwhelming, I invite you to honor your limits and take a moment to check in with yourself or reach out to someone in your support system.
Gentle Ways to Support Emotional Healing After Trauma
There is no single right or correct way to support yourself. Your preferences are unique to you and might even change depending on the time of day, season, or current phase of life.
You might explore:
- Trauma-informed yoga.
- Gentle somatic movement.
- Journaling your thoughts and emotions.
- Spending time in nature.
- Spending time with friends and family who support you.
- Working with a trauma-informed therapist or mental health professional.
- Practicing self-compassion.
- Allowing yourself rest.
Every small act of self-care or support matters and makes a difference over time. You are worthy of support and sending yourself kindness on your journey.
Explore Free Emotional Healing Yoga Practices
I welcome you to explore my Emotional Support Yoga Playlist on YouTube for additional trauma-informed yoga practices to support emotional awareness, self-compassion, grounding, and honoring your emotions.
Explore my Emotional Support Yoga Playlist (YouTube)
Discover Your Current Season of Healing
Healing is nonlinear and ebbs and flows, and our practices will be most supportive if they meet us where we are.
My Healing Seasons Quiz reveals your current healing season and which practices would be most supportive for you and your nervous system in this moment. No email is required for results and if you’d like to learn your current season, I welcome you to explore this gentle resource below.
