“Trauma-Informed Yoga” as a Response to Western Commodification
and Cultural Appropriation of the Yoga Practice

Trauma-informed yoga has gained traction as a niche in the last 10-15 years. It’s important to note that this approach has arisen as a response to the Western commodification and cultural appropriation of the yoga practice and philosophy, not the eight-limbed holistic yogic path rooted in India that has been practiced for thousands of years. The Western, appropriated version of the yoga practice that has developed since the early 20th century is largely asana (pose) focused, and often ignores the other seven limbs of the yoga, while projecting Western cultural and social values onto what is seen as yoga that have nothing to do with its Indian roots.

Yoga in its traditional form is inherently what we might today call
“trauma-informed.” The word “yoga” means “union” in Sanskrit and even through a modern, clinical, Western lens, we can view healing trauma as a process of reunifying disparate parts of one’s whole self. This awareness that yogis have already had for many centuries only needs to be currently framed as “trauma-informed yoga” due to the degradation of the yoga practice and philosophy by colonial Western imperialism. Any approach to yoga that truly aims to be “trauma-informed” needs to not only acknowledge the Western pathologized view of trauma, but the social and political conditions of the world we live in that cause much of the trauma many people live with.

The Neurology of Trauma

Trauma is a physiological phenomenon which means it exists within the realm of your physical body.  This is true regardless of what caused the trauma.  When a traumatic experience occurs, your sympathetic nervous system (SNS) - operating outside of your conscious control - turns on to protect you from danger. Your SNS can’t tell the difference between an immediate physical threat and an overwhelming emotional experience; it simply acts on physiological impulse, which can be triggered by both.

Your SNS is sometimes referred to as “fight, flight, freeze, or fawn” mode. This refers to the various physiological responses your body will move to to stay safe and alive. Ideally, one of these four options is successful in keeping you safe, and your body is able to switch from your sympathetic back to your parasympathetic nervous system (PNS) - “rest and digest” mode. When this transition doesn’t happen, your SNS remains activated on an ongoing basis, even when the threat or perceived threat is gone. The physiological imprint of this nervous system “stuckness” is trauma.