Did you know your mindset during your yoga practice can have a huge impact on the quality of your class? When doing yoga for trauma healing, your mindset is even more important.
This is so you avoid feelings of overwhelm, judgment, and toxic positivity. I welcome you to read this post to learn five tips for a healthy yoga mindset when exploring yoga for trauma healing.
Importance of a Healthy Yoga mindset for healing trauma
First, I’d like to mention that healing from trauma is much more complex than a simple mindset change. I welcome you to explore support options if you are looking for additional healing avenues to accompany your yoga practice.
How you arrive at your mat, the goals you have, and the grace you give yourself are vital to a healing yoga practice.
Research exists showing trauma-informed yoga has an impact on trauma survivors, but it’s still important to prioritize a mindset that promotes healing. The difference could be you going through the motions of your yoga class versus fully embodying the poses, connecting your mind and body, and cultivating safety in your body.
5 Yoga Mindset Tips
Before we begin, I welcome you to use these tips as inspiration for your practice. The point of this is to allow you to see the possibilities of a healing yoga practice, instead of checking the boxes to do it“perfectly. You are always welcome to take what works for you and leave the rest.
1. Acknowledge if you’re ready for trauma healing
This is an incredibly personal decision. Sometimes, life gets in the way and it makes healing that much more difficult. It’s okay if you’re not ready to begin an entire healing journey because of your current situation.
I welcome you to take as much time as you need and explore any other support options if you like. This is important because if you try to focus on healing during a yoga practice and you’re not ready, you may not have a great experience. It could feel overwhelming, frustrating, or make trauma symptoms worse.
Trauma-informed yoga teachers provide yoga instruction only and can’t support you outside the studio (unless they have other credentials and those should be clearly stated). It’s always recommended to speak with your support team prior to beginning a trauma-informed yoga practice that focuses on your trauma.
This is the first tip because it’s the most important. It’s okay if yoga for trauma healing is not in the cards for you right now. Your yoga mat will be ready when you are.
2. Understand why you’re practicing yoga
It’s important to understand your reasons for showing up on your mat. If you don’t know why, I welcome you to journal and see what keeps you coming back to the mat. Is it the flexibility? Do you feel present? Is it your only time away from a chattered mind?
If you want to cater your practice more towards healing, I welcome you to tweak your goals to align with this. Maybe you want to be more present, so you cultivate more mindful ways to show up to the mat.
Now that you have clear goals and know you’re ready to focus on healing, let’s set you up for success.
3. Define What Consistency Means to You
It takes time to notice the effects of your yoga practice. I welcome you to send yourself kindness as you welcome a trauma healing yoga practice to your care plan. Consistency is important because you won’t see results overnight. You’ll need to develop a practice that routinely provides you with mindfulness and gentle techniques to unite your mind and body after trauma.
The best part is you get to define your consistency. You may hear consistency and think you need to do an hour of yoga every day. That may be achievable for some people, but I know I personally would burn out after a few days.
Consistency could start as fifteen minutes a week. You can always adjust this as time goes on. As long as it’s not overwhelming and you’re able to commit to your practice, you’re well on your way.
4. Cultivate Abundance
You may think of abundance as wanting money (lots of people do), but you can also be abundant in your healing. What does this mean? This means you don’t need to declare yourself a yoga student, and that’s the only healing modality you can do.
You can include as many healing avenues as you choose. Over the years, I’ve included knitting, journaling, therapy, yoga, meditation, spirituality, and more as part of my overall trauma healing care plan.
You can cultivate an abundance mindset by using affirmations, or set it as your intention before your trauma-informed yoga class. When you cultivate an abundance mindset, many doors open, and it allows you to be your ultimate healing advocate.
I welcome you to read these 49 Healing Chakra Affirmations for inspiration.
5. Embrace the waves of a consistent yoga practice
Some days, you might leave your yoga practice so relaxed you feel you spent the past hour in a hot tub. Other days, you might leave feeling more agitated than when you arrived. Both are normal, and so is experiencing neither of these. You’ll have breakthroughs and setbacks, victories and frustrating days.
The important mindset to have is to embrace these changes and offer yourself kindness when this happens. You don’t need to have an emotional release for you to make progress. You don’t need to have a revolutionary practice every day. There are still amazing changes happening.
Just like if you were to exercise, you may not see what’s happening the rest of the day, and you may not always have the best workout, but it all counts. Every time you arrive on your mat — whether it was the best class of your life or you feel like nothing happened—it matters.
Overview
This post gave you five yoga mindset tips when doing yoga for trauma healing. You are welcome to skip or adjust these tips to better suit your practice (or ignore them altogether). What works for you is entirely unique to your experience. If you’re unsure where to begin on your healing journey, I welcome you to explore support options that can better serve you in a formal setting.
Yoga is a powerful addition to your healing care plan. The most important part of your practice is simply showing up. It’s okay if you arrive at your mat and realize you want to rest in Savasana for an hour, or leave two minutes in because you’d rather take a nap.
Every time you ask yourself what would feel nice in the current moment, you are creating lasting healthy awareness. I wish you the best on your healing journey, and thank you for reading this post. Take Care.
