By Michelle A. Thielen
One morning in 2009 while watching television, I heard a story about 5-year-old girls who “serviced” up to 20 men a day. I was horrified at this news and ended up on the floor weeping into the afternoon.
This was the day that turned my world upside down. Although I have never personally experienced what these children endure, I vowed that I would never stop helping them as long as I was drawing breath.
Yoga in action
Although this may not be the introduction you expected for a yoga therapist’s account of how they support clients, I hope you’ll agree that my work is a powerful illustration of the adaptability, not to mention the healing potential, of the practice of yoga.
One of my first trips to help survivors was throughout Europe, and it opened my eyes to other realities and traumas that poverty so often breeds. During another trip, this time to Asia, I was able to stay longer, using yoga therapy techniques for children with complex trauma over the course of 3 months. Although yoga can be strong medicine indeed, its effects are not always instant, and this journey allowed me to witness results—and miracles—directly for myself.
Tangled internal landscapes
When working with older children, one of my goals is to help them work toward befriending their bodies. We do practices aimed at building mind-body connections and helping them to feel safe in their own skin. My intention is to encourage a state of homeostasis, supporting the children to make internal and external adjustments toward balance and stability.
We do self-regulating practices, such as therapeutic breathing techniques and gentle restorative yoga postures as well as active and dynamic movement. Practicing other healing modalities alongside yoga therapy—getting outside, walking or hiking, riding bikes, playing, and even coloring—can further help to provide an experience of relaxation and safety in the body.
With many of the 4- to 13-year-old children I work with, healthy neural networks had not yet been fully formed when the abuse took place; in such cases the intention is to create healthy connections for the first time, which can be daunting and often seems impossible at first.
When I train yoga therapists, we study the brain at great length, alongside the effects of trauma, abuse, and PTSD. Scientists have discovered that toxic stress in childhood, which could include poverty, abuse, or complex trauma (repetitive traumatic events), hinders the brain’s healthy development and even changes its architecture.
The internal landscape of these children can be very tangled up. They have no trust or sense of safety. Everything and everyone is a threat, from closing the eyes to taking a walk. Those with complex trauma may live as if there is a literal tiger running toward them all day long. It’s really not living at all.
What may seem simple to us, like taking a deep breath or closing our eyes, can be complicated and scary. Purposely undertaking these actions requires a well-developed sense of internal safety, which can take much time to cultivate.
Hope remains
If there is a will there is always hope.
The yoga therapy tools of meditation and breathwork are critical. I’ll place something the child is familiar with on their belly. One little girl—I’ll call her “India”—used her stuffed giraffe. She lay down, and I placed the toy on her belly and asked her to try to get the giraffe as high toward the ceiling as possible: accessible diaphragmatic breathing in action.
Although I don’t use terms like somatic movement, this kind of practice is a large portion of what I do. I encourage internal sensing and slowly and mindfully moving through forms and transitions, making our way into a dance. We dance, we shake all our body parts, and we roar like lions—letting it all go. These movements and tonal sounds can help in developing new connective networks in the brain.
The real hope is in neuroplasticity, the brain’s ability to form new connections and reorganize itself as a reaction to new experiences or information. When we move or dance, we also laugh. Laughing releases tension, stimulates organs, and is a natural pain reliever, so we laugh a lot in my sessions with these vulnerable children. We also talk about the future looking so bright and what they want to do when they grow up. Then we move and breathe into that, having fun imagining it all. I turn this into a guided meditation, possibly with a visualization where they see, smell, hear, and get a real taste of their future.
Eventually, our work gets us to a place where we can sit back to back and the child feels supported and safe, and we are able to breathe together. Then, if I’m lucky, we sit face to face and share a hug, which usually turns into one final dance before we part ways.
I leave these children with specific breathing techniques and affirmations. I work with many faith-based organizations and encourage the use of “breath prayers,” a specific prayer that resonates with them and integrates their faith. They can return to their breath prayer whenever they need to feel soothed, safe, and seen.
I incorporate affirmations and breath prayers with students and yoga therapy clients of all ages—something magical happens when we combine voice or breath with intention. If we are alive, breath is one thing that we have in common, connecting us all. May we each continue taking long, deep, nourishing breaths while holding space for others to do the same.
Michelle A. Thielen, E-RYT 500, C-IAYT, is a professional dancer and the founder of YogaFaith. As a yoga therapist she specializes in complex trauma and works tirelessly around the globe with several anti-trafficking and humanitarian efforts.
Originally posed on YogaTherapy.Health
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