The Body Whispers Before It Screams: Trauma, Healing & Finding Ease on the Mat in Bikram Yoga

"The body whispers before it screams...are you listening?"

This quote stopped me in my tracks the first time I read it and brought back to the surface one of my favourite books- The Body Keeps the Score by trauma psychiatrist Dr Bessel van der Kolk.

For many of us, especially those of us who've been through things we don't always speak about- its not just poetic, its literal.

There's a moment in every Bikram Yoga class- often somewhere between Camel and Rabbit pose, when the body speaks. Not just in sensation, but in memory.

In old grief.

In the echoes of something that you thought you had buried long ago.

Sometimes it whispers.

Sometimes it roars.

As a teacher, practitioner, and trauma survivor myself, Ive learned over time and through efforts, to hear the difference.

And more importantly, Ive learned this:

When we listen to the whispers, the body doesnt need to scream.

Your Biography is Written in Your Body

In his groundbreaking book The Body Keeps the Score, Dr Bessel van der Kolk explores how trauma isn't just a psychological scar- its a biological blueprint.

One that embeds itself in the nervous system, the fascia, the muscles- and even our posture & breath.

"Traumatised people are terrified of the sensations in their own bodies." he writes.

"So they try to silence their inner chaos by cutting off awareness of what is going on inside"

(The Body Keeps the Score, p97)

And yet, to heal, we must go through the body. Because thats where the trauma lives.

This is where yoga becomes not just helpful, but essential.

How Bikram Yoga Can Be a Trauma Informed Practice (even if it doesn't always feel like it)

I know- Bikram Yoga doesn't always carry the softest or most therapeutic reputation.

But when practiced with compassion and precision, it offers something truly profound: structure, containment and repetition- three of the very things that trauma disrupts.

Here's what I've come. to understand, both in my own changing body and the many precious bodies that Ive taught since 2008.

• The heat softens our defences. It melts the walls that we don't even know we've built. Sometimes even our response to the heat can trigger the awareness and allow us to articulate and identify the walls (step 1 to healing in my humble opinion)

• The routine of the sequence provides safety. In a world that can feel unpredictable and even scary to trauma survivors, the 26&2 is reliably the same - and that consistency is medicine.

• The stillness between the postures creates space to feel. To integrate. To listen.

• The precision of alignment requires full presence - and presence is the antidote to disassociation.

Bikram Yoga doesn't bypass your trauma.

It meets it.

And gently, over time, it helps us reclaim the parts of ourselves that we left behind.

Where Trauma Lives: Fascia, Psoas and the "Muscle of the Soul"

Trauma isn't just a story - its stored information.

Stored often in the fascia (the connective tissue that holds our body together) and the psoas muscle which wraps deep into the pelvis and spine.

This area is sometimes called the "muscle of the soul" because of its profound connection to both physicial and emotional stability.

When we experience fear or trauma, the body contracts to protect us- and if there's no release or resolution, those contractions become held patterns.

Patterns that show up in our posture, our breathing and even how we move through the world.

Each time we step into class and breathe through a deep backbend or forward compression, we're not such stretching- we're unraveling what the body never got to complete.

This is why Camel Pose can trigger tears, or why Rabbit Pose can make us feel nauseous.

Its not weakness.

Its release.

And each and every persons story is different.

In my own personal navigation through Complex PTSD, its an ongoing process that has evolved and changed with my own awareness and healing.

For some reason back bending comes with relative ease for me- however the process of forward bending created the intense sensation of suffocation.

With the help of my mentors and teachers, and my own experience, focusing my breath and joy to the delicious expansion occurring in my spine has allowed me an entry point to begin the gentle release of stored trauma in my body.

I have often wondered if I feel suffocated because a large element of my trauma was connected to the experience of my own voice and ability to speak up for myself being taken away...but i digress...we'll get into Chakras later ;)

Listening to the Whispers: A New Kind of Strength

In the hustle culture of "push through" we're taught to override.

In the healing culture, we are required to tune in.

So how do we listen to the body before it screams?

1. Observe how your breath shifts. Shallow or held breath is often the first signal from your body that something is rising, that something is uneasy.

2. Use Savasana as your listening space. Not just to rest, but to reflect. I often encourage my students to observe their breath as they exit postures to identify how they are breathing in posture. What is the body saying now that the doing is done? What can we adjust to enable our breath to remain normal and at ease in the second set?

3. Pay attention to recurring tension. That nagging tightness might not be about the pose- it might be about the past.

   
   

When we become fluent in our body's language, we don't just avoid injury or burnout, we start to heal on a deeper more cellular level.

Every posture in the series is a beautiful harmony of effort and ease but much like my own journey through the trauma triggers of forward bends, finding expansion in the postures creates a gateway to allowing the body to heal.

During private sessions with me, a good portion of our session involves us looking into the sources of tension in postures and turn that tension into release.

You Are Allowed to Heal.

You Are Allowed to Feel Safe.

This here is the message that I want everyone- especially those carrying invisible weight- to hear,

Healing lives in the body.

And it is never too late.

In amongst the beautiful symphony that is the dialogue, within the seeming chaos of the bright lighting, sweat and occasional mouth breathing lol.. there are cues...whispers even:

That you are allowed to soften.

You are allowed to rest.

You are allowed to trust in your body again.

With correct alignment, a solid foundational muscular, skeletal and breathing pattern in place you can trust your body again.

And if your'e not quite there yet, thats ok too.

The mat will wait.

The postures will hold.

And I'll be right here, ready to guide you- yes into alignment, but hopefully even deeper- into wholeness.

If this resonates, or stirred a little something in you, you are not alone.

I teach public and private classes, write and am currently creating online courses for those of you who are ready to go a bit deeper- into the nervous system, the functional anatomy and maybe to meet parts of you that have been waiting and whispering for years.

The body keeps the score- but it also keeps the truth.

And when we listen- it begins to release.