Your inner software update

Dear One,

As you go through this life, you'll sometimes find yourself with your protective responses stuck in the ON position.

Your protective responses are AMAZING. Every manifestation of your fight/flight/freeze response is designed to keep you safer, less vulnerable and more protected, no matter what the unintended consequences might be.

But those protective responses were probably designed by a younger nervous system that had less power, fewer options and more vulnerabilities than you do now. The unintended consequences might be getting in the way of your current life and relationships. So every few years, we need to download a software update to our nervous system's protective responses. We must design new ways to keep ourselves safer, well-boundaried and aligned with our integrity.

Yoga Therapy helps to create an inner software update by recalibrating your body, mind and emotional connections and reactions. When working with yoga therapy clients, one of the first interventions on the mat is often to appreciate those protective responses for the services they have provided throughout your life.

Like, wow, Inner Critic, you're really trying to look out for me by anticipating anything bad anyone else could say! Thanks for that.

Oh sweet generalized anxiety. You're doing a great job trying to alert me about all the dangers of the world. I hear you.

Hey there shutdown response, it's so kind how you try to buffer me from the pain of the world. I appreciate you.

Hello inner dragon slayer, thanks for trying to protect me when you get into fight mode like that. Let's see if we can find other ways to honor my boundaries.

When we meet our protective responses with appreciation, we start to differentiate between our fight/flight/freeze software and our actual true nature. And when we start to nourish, feed and amplify our true nature, we can follow an inner compass that's calibrated to wisdom, not fear.

From my nervous system to yours,

~Alex

Honoring your body's YES, NO and MAYBE's

Dear One,

Yoga is *not* one-size-fits-all. There's no cure-all pose for anxiety. There's no magical movement that dissipates depression. There's no breathing practice that ensures perpetual zen. There's not even a sure-fire pose to conquer back pain.

That being said, deliberate breathing and conscious movement can indeed create a shift within us. But just because the yoga teacher offers it, doesn't mean that it's necessarily right for your body or nervous system. Feed it through your own filters. Get curious. Is your body saying YES to this? Is it a clear NO? Is it a MAYBE? And what kind of space is the teacher giving you to honor your YES/NO/MAYBE? If they're not offering that space, you might have to take it for yourself. Which can be *hard*, especially given the neurologically-wired *appease* response that we might be contending with in the teacher-student power dynamic.

One of the core intentions in my yoga teaching is to help you in the tricky practice of discerning and honoring your YES/NO/MAYBE's. Come join me at JP Centre Yoga for weekly Tuesday night Flow & Restore, or at an upcoming workshop (see below). And if you're a yoga teacher, therapist or other healer trying to empower your students and clients in their own self-attunement process, join me at an upcoming training.

From my heart to yours,

~Alex

From self care to collective care

Dear One,

You might be awakening to the awareness that "self-care" can feel like swimming upstream in a culture that's designed to drown us. As @kkellyyoga says:

"Self-care ... is limited when it doesn't take into consideration the wellbeing of others. Collective care is bigger and bolder. It says that our well-being is bound up with one another."

From whatever power positions you hold in the world, I hope you're continuously equipping yourself with tools, inspiration and self-healing to make your community contributions more aligned with your truth and values. Our power positions are always relative to the contexts we're in. Maybe your sphere of influence is your family. Maybe it's your work environment. Maybe it's your kid's school. Maybe it's the yoga class you teach. Or the tone you set with your neighbors. The way you support your clients.

If you're a healing professional or simply at a career cross-roads, the upcoming "Trauma-Informed Yoga Therapy" foundations training Feb. 1-2 at the BCCP Newton might be just right for you. To fill your own cup, to immerse yourself in the values of individual and collective healing, and to hone your skills in bridging and repairing the mind-body-emotional worlds within us.

Keep reading below for upcoming professional trainings as well as yoga workshops, like Partner Yoga coming up Feb. 16. Radically Restorative is sold out for Jan. 18, but open for enrollment Feb. 9!

From my heart to yours,

~Alex

Dear Yoga Teacher

Dear Yoga Teacher,

Working with humans means working with trauma.

As yoga teachers, we have the unique power and privilege of holding space for students who come to the mat with challenging and humbling human experiences. So I've designed an ONLINE COURSE in TRAUMA-INFORMED YOGA TEACHING to help you gain confidence and capacity for embodying the values of a trauma-sensitive, empowerment-based and resiliency-building yoga teacher.

We start January 8th and run for 6 weeks. Will you join us on this learning journey? As a special reward for reading this email, newsletter readers receive $20 off when you register by 12/31 with discount code NEWSLETTER. For anyone who has taken ANY of my trainings in the past, you can save $40 when you register by 12/31 with discount code TRAINEE.

As yoga teachers, and as humans, we're never not learning. Keep scrolling down for more details about the online course along with other upcoming trainings, including Intro to Trauma-Infomed Yoga Therapy in Boston Feb. 1-2 and Art of Restorative Assisting Mar. 28-29 in Boston. And some workshops coming up as well for you to refill your own cup, like New Year's Awakening Dec. 31 at JP Centre Yoga from 6-8pm.

From my heart to yours,

~Alex

MORE ABOUT THE ONLINE TRAINING in TRAUMA-INFORMED YOGA :

Whether you’re an experienced or new yoga teacher, this course will give you lots of nourishment, inspiration and practical tools. Through 9 hours of live online video training, group discussion, case examples, PowerPoint slides, handouts and tip sheets, you will:

• Learn to navigate a trauma-informed approach for facilitating the beginning, middle and end of yoga classes.

• Understand the guiding principles of a trauma-informed teaching process, and adapt it to your personal teaching style, authentic voice, and even your marketing presence.

• Gather social media resources, research articles, and recommended reading to enhance your life-long learning journey.

TRAINING SCHEDULE : 6 consecutive Wednesdays at 1pm - 2:30pm Eastern Standard Time Zone. These video conference webinars will be live and interactive, but also recorded in case you need to miss a few and want to catch up later.

January 8 @ 1pm - 2:30pm EST

January 15 @ 1pm - 2:30pm EST

January 22 @ 1pm - 2:30pm EST

January 29 @ 1pm - 2:30pm EST

February 5 @ 1pm - 2:30pm EST

February 12 @ 1pm - 2:30pm EST

Video training topics will include:

• What do I need to know : about people, bodies and nervous systems to be trauma-informed?

• Beginning and ending classes : what are the bookends of a trauma-informed practice?

• The middle : how can my yoga teaching embody a trauma-informed ethos?

• Putting trauma-informed practices into action : awkward lessons, trouble shooting and creative solutions.

• Gathering student feedback : What’s my impact? How do I know?

• Case studies : learning from status quo, re-imagining what’s possible and making it a reality.

• Space to respond to the unique themes arising in the group, along with Q&A and mentoring around examples from the field.

COST : $165. For financial aid applications, email alex@intrayogatherapy.com. This course provides 9 virtual hours of Yoga Alliance continuing education credits.

SIGN UP NOW

SUPPLEMENTAL WORK : To get the most out of this training, here are resources to start exploring now. And even if you can't join the course, I highly recommend these resources for navigating life and work!

• Read or listen to books about trauma and the nervous system, such as Buddha’s Brain, and/or My Grandmother’s Hands, or books on this list.

• Understand how trauma and healing is bound up in disrupting oppressive cultural and social systems, such as this article.

• Educate yourself about the sociocultural evolution of yoga through Indian-American perspectives, such as the Yoga is Dead Podcast (available on Spotify).

• Follow related topics on social media, such as @the.holistic.psychologist, @integrate_network, @susannabarkataki, @matthewlicata, #accessibleyoga and #traumainformed.

Donate to yoga diversity scholarships this week

Dear One,

Yoga has been developed, cultivated, nurtured and passed along over thousands of years by people of color, spanning from Africa to India and uplifting so many places in between. But if we look at who gets illuminated by the Western yoga industry spotlight today, people of color are significantly underrepresented. The divisions that exist here are at once obvious as well as nuanced and complex. Yoga industry mirrors what we are dealing with culturally, societally, communally. AND our yoga communities are also a learning laboratory for challenging the status quo, and doing things differently.

Towards that end, we have helped Yoga Diversity Initiative raise $2000 over the last few weeks. These funds will be matched by Boston yoga studios in awarding yoga teacher training scholarships to people of color. Since yoga teacher trainings cost around $3000, this is the number I've been envisioning getting to with this fundraiser. Will you help us get there over the next week? My birthday is tomorrow, and this fundraising milestone would be the most wonderful present.

Whether you can attend the fundraiser class at JP Centre Yoga today (Sunday) from 1-3pm, or you just want to donate, your contribution is so significant. Many hands make light work, and many incremental contributions make a big impact on someone's ability to access the training that helps them step into the important role of yoga teacher.

DONATE or SIGN UP for the class through Eventbrite (donations welcome through 12/15). And if you know of someone in your life who would enjoy contributing, please pass the info along.

And keep reading below for upcoming workshops, trainings and more. <3

From my heart to yours,

~Alex

This yoga requires no mat

Dear One,

Now is probably a good time to remind yourself of the parts of your yoga practice that travel with you off the mat.

Your breath.

Your awareness.

Your ability to witness yourself and the moment you're in.

Your dedication to anti-violence.

Your commitment to truthfulness.

Your balancing act between willfulness and surrender.

Your willingness to turn inward.

Your willingness to turn outward, to be of service, to dedicate yourself to cause.

Your ability to tap into wisdom and guidance to help you find your next step forward.

There's more of course. With yoga, there's always more. But for now, what's an intention to take through your day? This season? How can you remind yourself of it -- a post-it? A piece of string tied to your wrist? A recurring calendar event?

Below are lots of workshops, trainings and other opportunities to practice together on the mat. But don't underestimate the power of your own internalized yoga practice that is waiting to be flexed amidst the day-to-day, even if it's just for moments at a time.

From my heart to yours,

~Alex

Going beyond the pose

Dear One,

There will come a time in your practice when it feels like the yoga isn't "working" anymore.

This is when the yoga starts working YOU.

You see, therapeutic yoga and mindfulness practices work. They put us back in touch with our selves, our bodies, our truth. We become decompartmentalized, re-wired, and more fully integrated human beings. We change. But the context, setting, and circumstance of our lives (or yoga practice) might still be the same. And then we start to rub up against the friction of growing beyond our own status quo.

This is when your yoga starts asking more of you than just moving your physical body into a pose. It whispers, "Take me off the mat. Have that hard conversation. Start searching for that new job that aligns with your values. Be more loving. Question that old story. Investigate deeper. Take that action."

When you start to look beyond the pose, the layers of self-inquiry are never-ending. I hope you'll join me on the wild ride of becoming. Keep reading to find workshops, trainings and other resources to support you in your process.

From my mat to yours,

~Alex

Understanding your power

Dear One,

You're probably quite powerful. Let me explain.

Nervous system co-regulation is a fancy term that honors the fact that your nervous system impacts the nervous system of another within your orbit.

We often lament how we infect each other with dark energy, bad vibes, grumpiness, blahness, triggers. But you've got the potential to help the dominoes fall in the other direction too. At your best, you are a steadying force in the world, someone who can pull someone out of their spiral instead of hitchhiking down their rabbit hole.

Therapeutic yoga and mindfulness help you improve your nervous system's immunity and resiliency. So that you can hold on to your center, your higher self, longer and stronger. And bounce back from fight/flight/freeze mode with more agility. Which puts you in a powerful position to steady others as they navigate their own nervous system olympics.

In a dominant culture where too much power is held in the wrong places and spaces, notice where you're powerful. Nourish your power in whatever way helps you bring strength, clarity and safety to the world around you. See you on the mat.

~ Alex

You are not your coping mechanism

Dear One,

You are not your coping mechanism.

You are not your coping mechanism.

You are not your coping mechanism.

You are you, layered by layers of protection. You were wired to grow calloused. You were wired to pave over your soft spots. You were wired to be hypervigilant. You were wired to find ways to feel less of the thing that is the worst.

And then one day, you might realize that you're furious. Or lost. Or so disconnected that you don't even remember what connection is. And you might think that this is you. But you are not your coping mechanism.

And this is exciting because it means you get to discover who you are, separate from the protections, the walls, the defenses. You re-wire yourself. You empower yourself with choices where before only defaults existed.

Your coping mechanism might still be there. It's on stand-by, just trying to help you out. And you might reach for it. You might tumble into it. But you'll know it for what it is -- the best way your younger nervous system knew to keep you safe. And you can let it know that new sources of safety are in the making -- like functional boundaries. Like self-knowledge. Like the ability to diagnose your self-care needs based on a whisper, rather than a scream.

Therapeutic yoga helps to wiggle some more space between you and the clutches of your coping mechanism. So that you can see it with a 360 degree view. Hold it, appreciate it, and perhaps even set it free.

See you on the mat. ~ Alex

Healing & growth as a lifestyle choice

Dear One,

You don't progress through life linearly. You spiral forward, revisiting familiar lessons and scenarios, just internally changed a bit each time. You might revisit a familiar lesson more guarded, more despaired, and more contracted than the last encounter. Or you revisit the familiar scenario slightly wiser, somehow stronger, and definitely quicker to call the shots.

I think about healing as a lifestyle choice. Bringing an inexaustible growth mindset to all things. Which, by the way, is work. Constant, rewarding, energetically vigorous work.

So what are the practices that fuel your growth? What sustains your healing stamina? What self-inquiry helps you extract wisdom from each f*ck-up?

Browse my monthly offerings to find lots of mindful yoga to support self-study and embodied personal growth work. It doesn't have to be fancy. Just the act of slowing down, calming your fight/flight/freeze response, and getting quiet enough to hear your own wisdom will take you far in fueling your growth mindset.

From my nervous system to yours,

~ Alex

The Power of Your Practice

What's the most powerful moment in your yoga practice? 

Hint: it's not headstand. It's not savasana. It's not the moment you touch your toes.

The most powerful moment in your yoga practice happens *off* the mat. That moment you catch yourself holding your breath, and you decide to breathe deeper. That moment you catch yourself getting furious, and you decide to witness the emotion instead of pouring gasoline on it and striking a match. That moment you catch yourself actively isolating into a cocoon of depression, and you decide to reach out for connection. That moment you catch yourself running with assumptions, and you decide to ask a truth-seeking question.

That is yoga in action. Those are the moments that change your life. One tiny shift at a time. And all the yoga *on* the mat is just practice, strengthening the parts of your brain that can WITNESS, CHOOSE and ACT creatively in key moments of your life.

So, let's practice. At a glance, here's what's happening:

Yoga to power down your nervous system

We are designed to survive. Thanks, autonomic nervous system! But sometimes, a wire trips. We get stuck in the *on* position. We can't power down. The only-use-in-emergency functions designed to keep us safe become infused with our identity -- hypervigilance, worst-case-scenario-ing, energy conservation, emotional suppression, digestive mayhem, protection stance, etc. And these functions integrate so well into our culture that we don't even realize we've normalized the abnormal.

Mindful yoga (and sometimes even mindless yoga) is one way that we humans practice powering down. Deep breathing, body engagement and present-moment-focus (within trauma-responsive, safe space) help flip the switch into *off* mode. With guidance and practice over time, that trigger switch becomes less sensitive. And flips itself back into neutral more easily.

Let's revisit that parenthetical again: trauma-responsive, safe space. Maybe that deserves more than being in parentheses. Because just as yoga spaces can heal, yoga spaces can also re-traumatize, re-trigger and re-inforce all the crap we're trying to heal. So, be discerning when you surrender your body, heart and nervous system to the words and hands of a teacher. Remember that NO is a complete sentence. Practice it in the mirror. And teachers, remember the responsibility that comes with any position of power.

Here are some ways to practice all of it. <3 Alex

Maybe the only way out is through

Dear One,

Let's not romanticize it -- sitting with our feelings can feel like sitting in a septic tank without ventilation.

A client once asked me, "Why should I feel my feelings if they just make me feel worse?" Oh. Why are we yoga and mindfulness teachers such fans of "sitting with" discomfort, pain, grief and fear?

I suppose it all depends on whether you subscribe to the belief that the only way out is through. That you must go in to the sensation to transcend it. That you can't shut off the valve to discomfort, pain, grief and fear without also compromising the flow of joy, elation, love and connection.

It's so annoying, I know. Especially since feeling a feeling isn't just emotional -- it's freakin' physical. It snarls our throat, restricts our breath, creates a headache, tunnels our vision, sends our heart rate through the ringer.

Yoga and mindfulness practices can help us feel our feelings with (and on) purpose. With quiet space, with breath, with body engagement, with community connection. With a teacher to guide you to the other side.

Right there in the practice with you,
 

~Alex

Incremental baby steps towards liberation

Dear One,

Now is not the time to unconsciously follow the herd.

Listening for inner guidance, truth and wisdom is a skill that can be honed. Often, it needs to be relearned and reclaimed. It can be practiced by befriending your body and becoming reaquainted with intuition. Self-trust might seem like a hard-earned prize, but it's actually a practice that involves incremental baby steps towards liberation.

That's the kind of yoga I love to teach.

Yet go to any yoga studio, and you'll find lots of teachers convincing you that yoga is one particular thing -- often with the implicit or explicit requirement of "do what I tell you to do or else you're failing yoga". The good news is, you get to decide for yourself. You get to find your own internal practice amidst the abundance of external input. And then the yoga teacher becomes just one source of wisdom among the many within.

Let's empower each other whenever we can. The world needs you conscious, awake and empowered. And feeling loved.

Get your mind-body chill pill

Got stress?

Stress is like the baking powder in the recipe of life. Add just the right amount, and we rise. Without that leavening agent, our existence would be too flat. But you may be stuck in a lifestyle that's more like a baking soda science fair volcano -- erupting on the daily.

Let's get you some help with that.

Yoga and mindfulness help you re-calibrate the ingredients you're baking into your day-to-day life. Add a pinch more breath. Decrease the amount of over-committing. Substitute for allergies. Stuff like that. Incremental adjustments can create a whole new flavor of living.

Below you'll find lots of ways to re-calibrate. See you on the mat. May you thrive,

~Alex

Trust the mess

Life gets messy for all of us. I urge you to not let anyone's outfit, Facebook profile, public persona or small talk convince you otherwise.

Life is a mess of loss and love and disappointment and surprise and blessing and dumbfounding inexplicability.

You might have gotten really good at cleaning up the mess. Compartmentalizing the chaos of what it means to be human. Sometimes controlling the mess is the only way we know not to drown in it.

But what if we all showed up a little messier in the world? What if your messiness allowed someone else to accept their own mess? What if we normalized the ups and downs, the crashes and burns, the ebb and flow, the concurrent paradox of joy and grief?

My classes and workshops are designed to let you show up exactly as you are -- strong, exhausted, hopeful, despairing, elated, heart broken, numb, all of it. This kind of yoga helps you hold space for the mess, to trust it, to let it show you the next step forward.

May you thrive,

~Alex

Radical follow-through

How's your follow-through?

A rare-for-me sports analogy: I had tennis lessons when I was a kid (many life chapters ago in Germany). One lesson stuck with me -- when you're playing tennis, your follow-through on the swing is as important as making contact with the ball. And my little, insecure, unembodied kid self struggled with follow-through after impact. My body's reaction was to stop short of full swing.

Somewhere along the way, we get good at absorbing the impact of things that come flying at us. [I'm not talking about tennis balls anymore.]

We learn to stifle intense experiences when they become too much -- too much for us or the authority figures trying to deal with us. We swallow our anger, passion, disappointment, heartache, despair, joy. We teach ourselves to stop short of feeling in full swing. Our bodies become shock absorbers.

Until, of course, we change. When we start to heal and feel more fully. Following through on experience to its full expression. Externalizing instead of internalizing the momentum of living.

Here's where mindful, therapeutic yoga comes in -- a chance to stop stuffing your inconvenient parts away. A chance to breathe. To feel what you actually feel in your body, heart and essence. And then to follow through on your truth.

I'm here to help with that.

In addition to my monthly restorative workshops (7/22 at JP Centre Yoga and 7/28 at Akasha Studio), I'm teaching additional drop-in Flow & Restore classes the next two Sundays at 6pm at JP Centre Yoga.

May you thrive,

~Alex

PS: This was my newsletter this month! To get stuff like this in your inbox with more detailed workshop/training/class info, send me a PM.

Photo credit: Harold Edgerton, Tennis Swing, 1949, Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Soothing your inner dragon trigger monster

Dear One,
 

How well do you know your nervous system?

Chances are, your nervous system overheats on a regular basis. Whether your stress comes from work, relationships, politics, your health, or your own traumatic history, your nervous system gets triggered to respond to threat in one of 3 ways : fight, flight or freeze.

That moment you feel your hackles going up? That's FIGHT mode.

That moment you want to just get the hell out? That's FLIGHT mode.

That moment when you draw a complete blank and lose your words? That's FREEZE.

Here's the thing : your ability to fight, get out, or play dead can be a life saver when the threat is real.

But when the threat is a critical email, a thoughtless comment, a setback, a life change, or any other "normal" vulnerability of living, your nervous system may still interpret this as life threatening and trigger you. And engaging with the world from a triggered mindset is damn stressful because it heightens the stakes of every. little. thing.

So what to do? Answer : Teach your inner old dog new tricks.

Yoga, meditation and mindfulness helps you re-educate your nervous system. To help it realize you're safer than it thinks. To be able to over-ride the trigger response and cool down more quickly when you overheat.

I'll be offering a nervous system cool-down this Saturday 5/20 from 2-4pm at JP Centre Yoga : Radically Restorative Yoga. This workshop is an embodied exercise in getting grounded and accessing your inner surfer dude. The gentle yoga postures become ultra relaxing with the addition of hands-on support, offered by 4 different bodyworkers. It teaches your nervous system to be in the present, receive support and to embody self-compassion.

Then of course there's yoga therapy if you're seeking 1-on-1 support, and professional yoga therapy training with me in Vermont in June/July if you want to soothe nervous systems for a living. See below.

But even if we won't be practicing together, I hope you'll get to know your nervous system better. Start to recognize your FIGHT/FLIGHT/FREEZE symptoms. Figure out what helps you cool off when you overheat. Practice NOT engaging with the world from your triggered state. Read Buddha's Brain. Be the change you wish to see in the world by overriding your inner dragon trigger monster and radiating physical, mental and emotional safety into the world. We need it.

I'm practicing right alongside you.

May you thrive, 
 

~Alex

What is Yoga Therapy anyway?

Watch this Facebook Live interview to learn what Yoga Therapy sessions are all about.

Noelle Janka Coaching and Yoga and I talked about what yoga therapy is and what it's not, how most of us have endured "sneaky trauma", how our minds are just doing the best they can, and why you shouldn't leave your body at the door when you go to therapy.