Healing My Mind With Yoga: A story of PTSD processing.

My most compelling personal experience with the healing principles of yoga began as an ordinary day. I had finished my daily yoga, homeschooled my kids and finished some housework. I had started cooking dinner. Standing in my kitchen stirring the boiling noodles for macaroni and cheese- I had nothing particular on my mind nor was anything upsetting me. With no warning, it began.

 Just as I might try to define love in actual words- “It” (my experience) was an intense and crazy mixture of feelings: fear, panic, dread, pain. I have anxiety in my everyday life but the experience of my regular anxiety to this day’s experience is like an ant to an elephant. I share the rest of it as a poem because defining it concretely just doesn’t do it justice.


My mind suddenly fractured into a million pieces. I cannot grasp even one thought as they fly around the room like an improbable poltergeist intrusion.

My body revolts with tension. Muscles restrict, at ready to run and find shelter. Alas, one cannot outrun their mind.

I am tumbled and tossed as the storm brews inside- there is no ground left un-shaking.

I struggle without anything to steady myself.

An earthquake in my chest, violent it shutters into my bones. I rattle and threaten to shatter like mercury glass in an old wooden frame.

It is bubbling up and stealing my breath. I am drowning in flash flood waters. They wash the ground out from under my feet with the debris of my past rushing past me. Glimpses of recognition send water into my throat; I choke, sputtering to hold on.

Nausea begins its assault, and my head goes beneath the water, I am sure I will succumb. As the many years before there seems no remedy to this disaster.

But then like a light shining through darkness my mind grasps a solid hold.

Yoga.

Forward fold- I calm my nervous system.

Hands firmly on the floor- I ground myself, focus on here and now.

Deep breath in- I am reconstituted and filled with intestinal fortitude.

Long sigh on release- I let the flood waters rush past as I am now only an observer.

Begin again with a deep breath- mental focus on the feeling of expanding the lungs as far as they can go. Mind picturing the filling of a balloon.

Observe the thoughts.

Hold for a beat this time- expanding the capacity of the lungs.

Let the memories flow past. They are below my safe perch- my breath.

Another emphatic sigh on release- forcing more air out of the lungs. Even more. Hold for a beat.

Controlling the breath brings control of my experience.

Continuing with the controlled breath I can be an observer. Passively watching of the mind.

The alchemy that worked for me: hands to the floor is grounding and offered the support of here and now, breath is time between thoughts which gave me space to safely observe my body sensations, the forward fold was a release to my nervous system and availed me the ability to self-soothe.

I believe everyone's equation is personal and developed through experience in yoga. The practice of yoga has become a substantial equivalent to cognitive behavioral therapy, for me. There is a neural map made from our experiences. For those of us with trauma, the pathways have become blocked or are in some way not serving us. The great news is that we can teach ourselves new pathways  There is no one size fits all method of yoga. Our experience in yoga is as vast and different as our other experiences in life, but there is an equation that will fit for every person who cares to look for it.

 Experiencing what I had so long repressed was like suddenly coming out from under a thick blanket. Yoga created a method of safe, controlled response to release old hurts. It allows me to experience life with an entirely new perspective.

  We can reclaim our life- Everyone deserves to be free.