The Inner Fire of Yoga

Trauma Recovery Through Yoga: Insights for Teachers and Practitioners

• Liz Albanis • Season 1 • Episode 10

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In this episode, Liz Albanis explores the role of yoga in mental health. emphasising its potential for trauma recovery and well-being. But also, how it could be detrimental towards recovery and mental health in general. monstrating the importance of nervous system regulation through yoga practices. She provides valuable insights for yoga teachers. On how to better support students to help hold a more supportive space. Triggers in a yoga studio, many wouldn't think of. Listen for an enlightening journey toward healing and empowerment through yoga. Liz explains how yoga serves as a powerful tool for trauma recovery..

Drawing on her lived experience and studies in yoga therapy. Liz explores how mindful yoga practices can support holistic well-being. Especially for those navigating trauma, anxiety, or conditions like ADHD. 

Whether you're a yoga teacher. A student, or curious about how yoga can support your mental and emotional health. This episode shares valuable yoga insights and tools . For integrating yoga practices into everyday life.

Key Topics:

  • The impact of PTSD on the brain and how yoga can aid nervous system recovery
  • How candles, incense, and even certain language can be hidden triggers in class
  • Why trauma-aware teaching is more than avoiding physical adjustments
  • How to be more mindful and inclusive in your classes
  • The 4 letter word to avoid using, that's not well known to be a trigger.
  • What “trauma-aware” is and why assuming every class is, can be harmful
  • The importance of mindfulness in yoga and learning to “read the room” as a teacher
  • Liz’s personal yoga journey and how it’s reshaped her teaching philosophy

This episode is for you if:

  • You’re a yoga teacher looking to teach with more sensitivity and awareness
  • You’re navigating trauma, stress, or anxiety and seeking more information 
  • You believe yoga is more than poses, it's part of holistic health. 

Links:

DSM5

Trauma Defined

Want to go deeper? The full version of this episode. Is now available inside Liz’s  3R Program:.

Content Warning: This episode discusses trauma, PTSD, and house fires. Please listen with care. If you're in Australia and need support, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14.

 https://www.lizalbaniswellness.com.au/plan

The content shared in these conversations is intended for informational and educational purposes only, and it is not suitable for listeners under the age of 18. Please use discretion and consult a qualified professional before making changes to your health or wellness routines.

If you’re interested in being a guest or know someone who might be head to my website: https://www.lizalbaniswellness.com.au/podcast

For bonus content Join the 3R Program: Regulate, Rebuild, Restore. Start your journey with a 14-day free trial and learn how to create a sustainable, personalised yoga practice that supports your mental health and nervous system.

https://www.lizalbaniswellness.com.au/plan

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[00:00:00] Before you start listening, this episode discusses topics such as house fires, trauma and PTSD, as well as information about teaching yoga that could trigger someone who has PTSD. Please take care. I'm not a licensed mental health practitioner. I'm just a yoga teacher talking about my own lived experience, and this podcast is not a substitute for professional mental health advice.

Treatment or assessment. The advice given in this episode or any other is general in nature. If you're struggling, please see a qualified mental health professional or call lifeline if you're in Australia. One three triple one, four. A yoga teacher lit up some incense and the smell reminded her of the eucalyptus trees burning and she had a panic attack.

There's no such thing as safe, and how can we trust that yoga teacher if they think we can be [00:01:00]safe? The thought that went through my head was, when's the next fire?

Welcome to The Inner Fire of Yoga, a podcast about transformation, resilience, and the power of yoga beyond the mat. I'm Liz Banis, senior yoga teacher and yoga therapist in training. This podcast was born in 2024 after I survived my second fire. Fire has been a recurring theme in my life, not just in the literal sense, but as a metaphor.

It has asked me to burn away what no longer serves me to transform and to rise stronger each time. This podcast is about that fire, the one that challenges us, but also fuels us to grow. On January the 11th, 2024, my family and I survived a [00:02:00] house fire. It was one of the most terrifying nights of my life, and what followed changed me in ways I'm still uncovering.

In this episode, I want to take you beyond the fire itself and into what trauma can look like weeks and months later, and how it's changed the way I teach yoga. One of the wonderful things about having an experience such as the fire is the wisdom you gather. Just like when you have an injury. You're an instructor, you learn more about that part of the body and how it can potentially affect certain exercises and you understand it better.

This event obviously affected me a lot, and I'll go into that to help explain to people who haven't been through such a thing and wonder more about trauma, how it [00:03:00] affects other people. Not that we're all the same, and also for yoga teachers, because it's an important part of teaching yoga. Not that we can know exactly what someone else is feeling, but it can give you that insight.

Now, I want to begin with a quick orientation. I'm not a psychologist. I'm not a psychotherapist. I'm just a yoga teacher who's studying to become a yoga therapist, sharing from lived experience. Trauma impacts everyone differently, and we all go through experiences that are traumatic, but a lot of us don't develop what they call in the DSM five PSD, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, so the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders Fifth Addiction.

DSM [00:04:00] five T. The revision is a manual licensed clinicians used to consider and diagnose mental health disorders, and it offers some guidance, and I'll put a link there in the show notes. So, to receive a diagnosis of PTSD, you must have experienced a traumatic event called a stressor. Such a situation where someone has experienced or witnessed a life-threatening event and the symptoms continue for at least a month and significantly impact daily life.

Symptoms fall into four groups, intrusive memories, avoidance behaviours, changes in mood or cognition and physical reactivity, trauma itself. Is defined in the substance abuse and mental health services administration as an emotional or physical response to one or more physical, harmful, or [00:05:00] life-threatening events or circumstances with lasting adverse effects on your mental and physical wellbeing.

For more information and support tools, you can read through the Psych Central's, finding a Path through Trauma Resource. Dr. Dan Siegel explains how our nervous system functions when we are feeling regulated, calm, and able to cope. We're within our window of tolerance, as he calls it. We can think clearly, manage emotions and respond to life's challenges while feeling grounded.

But when trauma occurs, or even when we're reminded our nervous system. Is pushed outside that window and we get into either hyper arousal, feeling panicked, anxious, jumpy, or hypo arousal, shutting down, feeling numb. In yic terms, [00:06:00] hyper arousal would be ragas, extremely Rajasic. As far as the Gunas go with yogic psychology and hypo-arousal would be TAUs.

Feeling tamasic. When a person has PTSD, especially when it's acute, my understanding of this is that window becomes smaller, so it's very easy for the person to become either hyper aroused or hiper-aroused. As they begin to heal, that window becomes bigger, and this is what I experienced last year. The thought that went through my head was, when's the next fire?

When's the next fire? When's the next fire? Repeating in my head, where are the smoke alarms? I never used to notice smoke alarms before this. [00:07:00] Trauma will change the structure of your brain. One example of this is it enlarges the amygdala. The amygdala is your alarm system, so it makes that bigger. That's one of the things it does to the brain experts in this field who have scanned people's brains and seen this.

It's not a yoga hippie thing, it's actually science. You'll see with people with acute trauma, acute PTSD, they'll have that startle response. When I started teaching yoga in 2012, the trauma awareness was not where it is today. There was less research, and my teaching has evolved a lot. And it continues to evolve as I learn more as my students are my greatest teachers.

I'm going to use the term trauma aware [00:08:00] here because trauma sensitive yoga is actually copyrighted, I believe, and you actually have to go through a certification process to call yourself a trauma sensitive yoga teacher. What I'm about to cover with teaching in relation to considering the potential of students in your classes, having PTSD or coming to yoga for mental health reasons.

It is just the tip of the iceberg. It is complex. There is not just one element to it that is going to ensure your class is trauma aware. Avoiding adjustments is not going to ensure that, and you can still offer physical adjustments while [00:09:00] being conscientious to. Consider the mental health of your students.

It's how you go about doing it. Have you got the sort of relationship where you know them well enough? And before you offer a physical adjustment, what is your intention for giving that physical adjustment? Is it the right intention? Is it going to help the student? Now obviously there's ways of offering physical adjustments that are completely inappropriate sexual in nature.

Could you exacerbate an existing injury or cause an injury that would not be practicing a za non-injury, non-violence to others? So, your intention matters. Consider that before you even offer an adjustment. If you are going to offer adjustments, the best way [00:10:00] to do it is have consent tokens. Students put them on their mats, offer them face down to say, no, I don't want our adjustment.

If they wish to have adjustments, they can turn them over to the yes side. I had a yoga teacher say to me, well, I can't guarantee that I'm not going to trigger a student in class. That's true. There is no guarantees that you, even if you do your best, you change the way you are teaching, that you are not going to trigger someone.

But it doesn't mean we shouldn't try to adjust the way I we teach. Other teachers have said to me, I don't have anyone in my class who's got PTSD or mental health issues. A decent amount of the population who go to a yoga class are there for mental health [00:11:00] reasons. So, to the teachers who say to me, none of my students have PTSD or are traumatised, how do you know that?

Most occasions are students not going to come up to you and say, oh, I've got PTSD. Please don't do this and that I'll be triggered. Or I've come in here because I'm really anxious. They're not going to divulge a lot of that most of the time, especially if they've just met you, so you don't know for sure. So it's best to make the assumption that there'll be someone in your class that has experienced an event like me or has PTSD or might be highly anxious.

There are also yoga teachers that assume all yoga is trauma aware. Just because it's a yoga class, [00:12:00] it's going to cater to their needs. Unfortunately, this is not correct. Yoga class could make it worse. It could trigger you, or you could have such a bad experience that you never go back. It's not necessarily going to be trauma aware.

I have made many mistakes in my years of teaching. After last year, I started to think about certain things that aren't always known to be triggers, and the first one is candles. Now I've worked at our studio where we had to light a candle in reception to set the ambience of the studio. I've also worked for studio owners who said, no candles are allowed.

It's a fire hazard. It damages the carpet. If you are going to use candles in your class and you are not the studio owner, [00:13:00] there's a few things. Make sure the studio owner is happy for you to do so and that their landlord, their insurance covers them for this, but most importantly, advertise it. Make sure it's clear.

There are some wonderful yoga practices that use candlelight like tuk meditation, gazing at the flame. I get that people want to use candles in classes. But advertise it. Because if someone like me who really doesn't like candles or is not going to be able to relax in Shavasana sees it, they can go, you know what?

This is not the class for me. So be clear there. They can opt out rather than them coming to the studio and seeing the candle and running out the door in embarrassment. Even LED candles, some people could be so acutely [00:14:00] traumatised that even fake candles could trigger them. So just bear that one in mind too.

And asking the class, oh, is everyone okay with candles? Is not going to work either for the same reason. That person is either going to put their hand up and say no and feel very embarrassed being singled out, or they might run out the door or they may be too scared to say anything or leave and feel very uncomfortable or get triggered during class.

The other thing with candles is if you must use them, don't use fragranced ones. They can also irritate people's noses, and certain scents can also trigger people for different reasons. Which brings me to [00:15:00] incense. Incense is used a lot. I've worked for a studio owner who wanted incense. Split to set the scene, but again, it does have the same issues of being a fire hazard, but also of triggering students or irritating allergies.

There was a bush fire survivor here in Australia and a yoga teacher lit up some incense. The smell reminded her of the eucalyptus trees burning and she had a panic attack. So, I would treat it the same way as candles. Get permission, advertise it. Shaking in class doesn't always mean distress. We [00:16:00] hold issues in our tissues.

That can happen. Trauma is held in the body as well. It's a normal process that could easily happen in something very somatic like a yoga class. Tears are not a sign of weakness. They also can be a powerful release. You may have a student cry in class. That doesn't mean they're about to have a nervous breakdown.

That doesn't mean they necessarily need you to come up and make a big deal out of it. It depends. I know of a yoga teacher who lost her father. She went to a Vinyasa class and she spent the majority of the class in child's pose or Shavasana. [00:17:00] quietly crying. That's all she needed from her yoga class that day.

She didn't need the teacher to come up and make a big fuss over her and humiliate her. She just needed space. She just needed to release.

Panic attacks or waves of anxiety may get triggered by strong pranayama. You may have a student come into the studio and ask about emergency exits or evacuation plan. I have had this happen, and I did at the time wonder why I didn't laugh at the student, but I kindly told them where they were. And if you don't know where they are, it's important to know this.

Wherever you teach, you may have a student ask you this, so validate it, honour it, be [00:18:00]approachable. You may have a student tell you about some sort of experience, so it's important to be approachable to that compassionate, not shut them down, not brush it off. Roll your eyes. If they say, well, where are the smoke alarms?

Or where are the emergency exits? Where are the bathrooms? The other thing that came to mind with my experience is darkness. Where darkness turned me into a different person. Darkness can be a trigger. So, when you have Shavasana, don't have it pitch black. Leave some light on. You also don't really want to have bright lights on the ceiling like gym lights if you can help it, because it's really hard for people to relax if there's a bright light over them.

A good compromise here is if you can't get rid [00:19:00] of bright lights, is to use eye pillows. Eye pillows can be wonderful. For many students as they can switch on the vagus nerve, the wandering nerve, that tells your parasympathetic nervous system, your rest digest system to kick in because of the pressure on the eyes.

But with someone like me, with acute trauma, it's going to do the actual opposite because a person's going to freeze and tense. So, I couldn't use eye pillows. I also didn't want to use AirPods in case I didn't hear the sirens of another fire engine. Not everyone's going to want them, or some people might be concerned about germs.

Uh, you can use tissues to help with that, but I wouldn't force them on people. But they are a nice thing to offer. The word that can be triggering when you teach a yoga class or even talk to a person with trauma, and that's the word safe. I'm speaking here, [00:20:00] someone who's talked to multiple therapists about their opinion on yoga teachers using the word safe and it being a trigger as it's a reminder.

There's no such thing as safe. How can we trust that yoga teacher if they think we can be safe? There's no such thing, so it's a word I try to avoid using and I encourage other yoga teachers to try to avoid it. Something else I've learned since the fire and because of my yoga therapy studies is reading people's bodies.

Not that I am an expert in body reading, but I've started to notice things I didn't notice when I started teaching yoga. Something about the eyes is blinking if a person has an exceptionally high blink rate, and this was me after the [00:21:00] fire. Acute trauma. It also can be high anxiety, nervousness. The other thing you'll often see with people is they may not want to close their eyes.

That's something else to look out for in your students. Reading The room is so important. That's why staying on your mat and just doing the poses and demonstrating them is not the optimal way to teach. Even if you had to stay on your mat, say that was the studio's owner's policy, doesn't mean you have to practice all the poses.

How can you keep an eye on your students and see if they need help if you are just there for your own practice? It is useful to learn to read the room, teach people, not poses. Teach to what is in front of you. [00:22:00] If you know someone and you think, wow, they're still not over this, or I went through this event, I felt fine.

It's hard to put yourself in other people's position when you haven't even been through it yourself. So, if you are listening to this and you haven't recovered from some sort of event that someone else has recovered from, that's okay. There is nothing wrong with you. We are all unique. There's been therapists, psychologists who have said they've interviewed people who've survived the same traumatic event.

I think it was Bessel VanDerKolk actually. Their memory of it was completely different. So just know that we're all different. Some of us will be more affected than others. The worst thing we can do is humiliate a student or make them feel like there's something wrong with them [00:23:00] and make them feel they're not welcome.

Trauma isn't something to push through. It's often something to witness at a distance, to understand and to hold with care. Whether you are a student, a teacher, or someone still navigating wounds, may you feel supported. May you slow down enough to breathe, to journal to rest, and honour your body's needs.

Until next time, keep tending gently to your inner flame. Thank you for joining me podcast. I hope today's episode has left you feeling inspired and informed and empowered to take meaningful steps towards your wellbeing. If there's a topic you'd like me to cover, or if you'd like to share your story, I'd love to hear [00:24:00] from you.

Just fill in the form on the podcast page of my website. Your voice is an important part of this journey. I want this podcast to reflect the conversations that matter most to my listeners. If today's episode resonated with you, please share it with someone who might benefit from these conversations.

Don't forget to subscribe. It helps grow this incredible community of resilience and support. Until next time. Take care of yourself and never forget the power, the possibilities of a regular yoga practice. See you soon.

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Liz Albanis

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