07/05/2026
When people talk about trauma, they say it lives in the body, and I agree with that to a degree but not in the way it’s often described. No specific yoga sequence is going to remove the trauma from your fascia, because it’s not stored there in the way it’s often implied. Newer schools of thought state that trauma is linked to reduced physiological flexibility, rather than something being trapped in the connective tissues of the body. In lay terms: somewhere along the way our system learned that dysregulation feels better because its familiar and regulation feels foreign because its unfamiliar. We’re stuck in survival mode, meaning we’re not able to regulate our nervous system.
A traumatic event might break your arm, and once the bone is healed, it’s healed. What’s not always healed is the way your body braced for impact and the way it internalised the fear of the event. Trauma lives in the coping mechanisms your nervous system developed to keep you safe. When your primary caregiver was angry and you adapted to suppress your fears and emotions to manage theirs, or how you pushed through to achieve things you didn’t really want, to people please and earn your place at the table.
When those threats in your environment have gone, your body still remembers the physiology it created; the nervous system remains stuck on high alert. When we create the conditions to come back to embodiment through the breath and connecting with the body, in an environment that allows safe self-exploration, we come back to the present moment.
It’s in the present moment that we learn to be with the discomfort of our survival patterns, and allow our nervous system to register that the threat is no longer there.
