Traumatic Stress: A Yogic Perspective – Yoga Moves for Every Body

According to yoga, adverse effects of inter-generational & childhood trauma, as well as post traumatic stress can be best explained by examining our human experiences through the five layers of our body. These five layers are called koshas and make up what is known as the subtle body.

The physical layer (the body), is called the Annamaya kosha, sometimes referred to as the “food body” as it’s made up of all the food we eat. It’s the most dense or coarse energetic layer. The physical body can be thought of as the final result of a series of vibrational condensations – and the manifestation of all the layers that came before it, including the emotional, mental and causal bodies. The Annamaya kosha (physical body) reminds us that we are constantly digesting life’s experiences. Trauma can lend a clue as to why many of us come up against inflammatory diseases, experience aches & pains and even serious illness. Could it be that unprocessed or undigested trauma could be causing health problems?

Then, at the deepest layer of our consciousness is the Anandamaya kosha, or the bliss body, known as the home of our true nature and pure consciousness itself. What’s held at the subtle or causal level of the bliss body affects all the bodies (or layers) and will move an individual in a particular way. All of our human experiences move in, through, and out of this body / mind complex. The koshas, also called sheaths, help us understand that we are energetic beings having a human experience, rather than a human being having energetic experiences.

Why does this matter and what does it have to do with traumautic stress?

There are times, especially when we are children, when our human experiences move in to our body / mind complex – but, due to our innocence and ignorance, they get stuck – and instead of moving through and out, we mistakenly draw conclusions on how these experiences relate to the self. Much like attachment or core wounds, these conclusions can easily become impressions held (or frozen) at the level of the other bodies (or koshas). This in turn, greatly affects the bliss body, clouding our perceptions and delaying our spiritual growth. In yoga, we believe that our soul’s purpose is to make as much spiritual growth or advancement as is possible, whilst residing in the body. It is only in the body, where we can be of service and make this spiritual progress.

This concept helped me to understand generational trauma and addiction, too.

As soon as we are born, and even before we are born, we begin constantly learning and developing. As children, if we’re being raised in unfortunate circumstances, unsafe environments, exposed to violence, addiction, mental illness, neglect, abandonment, or poverty in childhood, we might naturally and innocently draw conclusions based on the illusions underpinning these basic human experiences. Without intervention, this thinking becomes a core belief and goes on to affect all of the other bodies or layers, eventually manifesting in our physical reality and in our body as disease. What we can do is accept trauma of any kind as an injury, and treat it as such. It needs to be treated, resolved, healed and let go, but how?

First, we need to be aware that generational and childhood trauma has occurred through no fault of our own. We’ll need to accept discomfort and allow ourselves to take a (sometimes, long) journey to wholeness. We love ourselves enough to make some room to grow and give ourselves time to heal. We may want to secure a trusted teacher to remind us and guide us in meditation. Ultimately, trauma, grief and loss can cause a form of brain injury. We learn increase brain function and re-regulate our nervous system through the practices of yoga and meditation.

Trauma causes changes within the brain, with the prefrontal cortex going “offline”, affecting vagal tone and in turn, the entire nervous system. When this happens to a child who’s brain is still developing, delays will occur, often leading to behavioural and personality changes. Anyone you choose to follow or learn meditation from should know this. You should be able to speak about childhood trauma and developmental delay in a way that feels safe to you.

Be compassionate as repressed memories must arise in our consciousness in order to be healed and let go of. In the most effortless way possible, stuck energy will eventually resolve and is another sign of correct meditation when we have been practicing without expectation for an end result.

We know healing is not linear, but will occur only when the time is right. We also accept that it can take long time to unravel a traumatic childhood or lifetimes of generational trauma. Our best bet is to be extra kind to ourselves, ask for help and seek trusted professional advice. We can and will feel better, if we get on with it our commitment for twice daily meditation.

We also have many new mental impressions that we are inevitably forming everyday, as adults. Thoughts that come and go in meditation, gradually (and inevitably) become more refined, until they dissolve. When we practice regular mediation, we can (eventually) heal ourselves from the effects of “stuck” trauma, like the lotus grows from mud.

It’s the quality of our own consciousness that allows us to process our emotions, and will relate to what mental impressions are carried on in ones life, affecting families and generations.

How do we know we are doing meditation right? We’ll begin to feel shifts in our consciousness but to remember, we are all so different. It may be that we notice our relationships improve, or we find our work more rewarding. It could be that someone close to you comments that they notice a change, or you suddenly start getting along with a family member who you were previous at odds with. It could even be that bad habits fall away effortlessly. Generally, we all tend notice that we become less reactive outside of meditation. What used to bother us, is no longer cause for concern. We are able to feel our emotional triggers and let them come and go. Triggers are not thoughts as much as they are reactions of the body to certain circumstances, so this becomes an important piece for people with childhood trauma. Through meditation we slowly learn to regulate our emotional energy.

Meditation is meant to be an effortless, deep rest that allows us to move in, through, and out of the body / mind complex – without expectations. It is a practice that has been studied extensively and concluded to be of benefit for our bodies and minds.

In time and with practice, a traumatized brain “re-wires” itself as new neural pathways are established. The good news for the trauma injured, is that we can and do grow a new neural network. Known as neuroplasticity, the brain has the ability to change and adapt due to experiences. This can involve functional changes due to brain damage (trauma) or structural changes due to learning something new or thinking the thoughts that support the development of new, healthy habits. In turn, the nervous system finally calms down and regulates itself. From here, we receive “a new body” that responds more intuitively, creatively and effectively to the stresses of the human experience.

We alone do our thinking. In one year’s time, we can either greatly improve our trauma reactions through meditation practiceor we can ignore our mind and bodies needs and spiral down. We know that our meditation practice keeps us regulated because we ourselves are the ones responsible for our state of consciousness. Knowing our inner-most self makes us more resilient as we learn to appreciate life’s progressions in an all inclusive, natural and refined way.

I choose to practice a mantra meditation along with breathing exercises, twice daily. This may sound like a big commitment, but the reward has been great, especially these last few years with many new challenges in the world! I look forward to the rest, happily scheduling my sitting breaks into my daily activity. Away from it all… it may not always be the perfect sit, and sometimes there can be more thinking than settling, but I always seem to come away feeling better, thinking more clearly. It’s for this reason that I rarely miss the opportunity for mantra meditation. It’s more often the highlight of my day.

If you are unsure if you have trauma, you can learn more about adverse childhood experiences or ACE scores here.

Like so many of us, my own family life story has a history of generational trauma that manifested itself in addiction, emotional abuse and domestic violence. I love my family and it pains me to admit that from the time I was a baby, I would experience it all, and was mostly, in horrific fear. As children, my sister and I learned to recognize patterns of abuse, dreading their inevitability. From our very young perspective, home life was usually somewhat of a battle ground, walking on eggshells, as we do in these environments. Sadly, addiction, namely alcoholism, had a constant presence in our family life and it caused a lot of problems, not just for my parents, but for my grandparents, and my brother, as well.

No one would recognize it at the time, but these impressions would contribute to a health condition called Complex Trauma or C-PTSD, sometimes called Childhood PTSD. I am the first one in my family to learn what C-PTSD is and speak about family trauma.

Children exposed to continual violence and addiction in the home tend to think differently. They often hang on to mental impressions and conclusions that may not be accurate, contributing to their dis-empowerment, loss of agency and self worth. Unresolved, this fracturing can play out through out life and become an underlying cause of dysfunction and disease.

When I was young, we heard the terms high-spirited or hyperactive describe children who displayed an overly-active imagination. At the opposite end, they could be exceptionally quiet, shy or bookish. It’s understandable that any child experiencing violence and addiction in the home escapes reality by creating their own safe little world, sometime with imaginary friends, sometimes with reading books, making art and music. These same children may also be more susceptible to learning disorders, autism, ADHD or both, often masking inner turmoil, and especially girls can go unnoticed.

Fast forward, and a few decades later, thankfully, there is now a much better understanding of generational trauma and the adverse health effects caused by unresolved trauma. We know now, that cycles of inter-generational trauma quite often repeat, leading to some of the most difficult and disabling health conditions we see today.

I believe that the ill health conditions that I experienced when I was a young woman were directly related to unresolved childhood trauma and abuse. I’m ok, now because I have healed my trauma. My intention now is to raise awareness and help other survivors understand that the devastating effects of unresolved trauma and grief can be healed. We do get better.

My sincere hope is that this subject does NOT apply to you. But, if sharing some of my experience resonates with you, please know, you are not alone.